My "Wouldn't it be nice..." list. (1st post updates)

[bongo_x]

I can tell you that that I never use the Tracks window and that is one of the main reasons why. I could never figure out what was happening.

I want hidden to tracks to stay hidden. I use it like I do Pro Tools; hidden tracks are disabled and are tracks I’m not using anymore, things I’ve bounced already, etc. Things hiding and unhiding can cause serious problems for me. It’s already harder to tell which tracks are enabled and playing, I wish they would grey out the disabled tracks or something.

I make a group called "hidden" and put everything that should be hidden in that so that when it gets screwed up I can just show everything and then hide that group again with one click.

bb

[NazRat]

It’s already harder to tell which tracks are enabled and playing, I wish they would grey out the disabled tracks or something.

This depends on what theme you are using, i.e. disabled track faders are ghosted in the Producer theme. It's implemented in most themes to some extent, but several rely on color/lack of color in the fader slot rather than the fader cap.

[Arceo]

I think it really depends on what kind of work you're concentrating on. The better solution, honestly, is to make the mixer scroll to the track you've selected, rather than hide everything else. It works this way in the CW, so I don't think it would be that hard to make it work that way when it's out of the CW.

You're probably right and I'll be experimenting a lot following your suggestion, thanks.

Most of the time I have all tracks visible, or a very specific set (which is constantly morphing). If I closed the Mixing Board (out of habit) before DP 8, my heart sank because I knew I was going to have to set it all up again.

By the way I take a lot of snapshots, that's why I don't tend to have all the tracks visible and further more that's why it's now (in DP 7,24) very efficient for me to select the track/tracks I want to be snapshot in the TO, press the shortcut for the QK macro that shows them in the Mixing Board and press the shortcut for snapshot.

But I'm positive that I'll find a different way to achieve the same results.
If my long story with DP tough me something is that DP never gives you a "one and only" way to get to a point. I think it's just a matter of re-adapt an old habit to a new (and maybe better) route.
And as soon as I'll install DP8 I'm going to work on it!

[Shooshie]

Many times I have posted the answer to this Mixing Board dilemma, and it still amazes me how few people actually use it. A number of people here have tried my method, and when they do, they usually tell me it's the best thing they have found, if they tell me anything at all. It is so effective that I do not consider working any other way, and yet I find so many people who dismiss it as something they would never use, and usually without even trying it.

I'm referring, of course, to Spaces. It doesn't have to be a big deal. You can just use one extra space to put the mixing board in there at full screen. If you do this, you will never ask these questions again. So what's stopping you? If you just set up one extra space for the mixing board, you would have to move it to that space before you begin work, but it takes less than 5 seconds of your time, and it's a one-time thing each time you open a new file.

I cannot over-emphasize how easy this is, or how effective. You can get to the mixing board by invoking Shift-M, which is the normal default command for the mixer, or you can get to it by Control-2, which would be Apple's command to switch to the space it occupies. On Magic Trackpads there is a gesture for it. This is an Apple feature, and it's been with us now for at least 5 years, so don't tell me you don't have Spaces.

I lay it out there for you again. You can take it or leave it. But if you leave it, don't bother to explain why. I don't need to know. I've been telling people about this for years, and I'm pretty sure of its place in my workflow.

Shooshie

[amplidood]

Totally agree with this method, Shooshie. It would still be great, as an added bonus, for the mixer to scroll to the selected channel, perhaps in the center of the open mixer window. This happens in the CW, but not when the mixer is out on its own.

[Shooshie]

Totally agree with this method, Shooshie. It would still be great, as an added bonus, for the mixer to scroll to the selected channel, perhaps in the center of the open mixer window. This happens in the CW, but not when the mixer is out on its own.

Yes it would. And people who want that should petition MOTU for it. But this is an ongoing problem about which there have been many threads, and it doesn't have to be a problem at all. There's a solution that works right now, today, for the majority of users. It doesn't solve the problem for those using 60 channels or so, but using a Magic Trackpad or equivalent makes scrolling a breeze.

Not saying it shouldn't be on the wish lists. Just that one doesn't have to be handicapped by it.

BTW, I keep a single channel strip open at the right margin of the Consolidated Windows, so that I can see the channel strip of the track I'm working on in the Sequence Editor, but when I need to operate in the Mixing Board, I just go to that Space, and it's there waiting for me at full screen.

Shoosh

[Arceo]

...the Mixing Board would not respond to selections from other windows.
If the Mixing Board is closed, and you have some tracks selected in an edit window, the mixer will only show those tracks when opened. Don't know when I'd need that feature.
DP 8 feature. Thanks MOTU!

Since I don't use consolidated window I heavy relied part of my workflow to that very mixer behavior (that now has been suppressed!).

Is there anybody that found useful that feature and found a workaround to get it back?

Today I was messing with the Commands Window and I found this command.


Toggle Scroll MB to Selection

It seems to me that it relates to the problem I was talking about earlier but for the life of me I couldn't find anything about it in the manual. I tried to assign a shortcut to it but apparently it didn't do nothing.

Does anybody knows more about "Toggle Scroll Mixing Board to Selection" or can point me to the DP Manual page (I'm still in 7,24, I cannot benefit from pdf random search )

Thanks in advance
Arceo

[Phil O]

p 73 in DP7 manual. Scroll the Mixing Board to the Selection.

Hope that helps.

Phil

[amplidood]

This only applies to the Mixing Board when it's in the Consolidated Window.

[Arceo]

Thanks Phil and Amplidood,
now let's hope that MOTU will implement this feature even outside CW.

Cheers
Arceo

[amplidood]

An old wish I had was for dragging inserts around the Mixing Board to be smoother, with the ability to see the insert you were dragging. Guess what? DP 8 does all that. Thanks MOTU!!!

[amplidood]

...if we could access all types of channel strips from the menu.
I'd like to be able to apply a chain I created for an Aux to an Audio track all the time. I can't access the Aux settings from an Audio track, however. I have to go and manually save it into in the Audio track presets first. Maybe access to all the folders could be at the bottom of the menu, or in a submenu.

[amplidood]

...if "Set to Selection Bounds" (in the Info Bar 'Selection' mini menu) could have an assignable keystroke.

When working with audio, I'm constantly clicking on a soundbite and having to go the Selection mini-menu in the Info Bar. This is a function that doesn't have a regular menu equivalent, so I can't use anything I know of to make my own shortcut key.

[FMiguelez]

...if "Set to Selection Bounds" (in the Info Bar 'Selection' mini menu) could have an assignable keystroke.

When working with audio, I'm constantly clicking on a soundbite and having to go the Selection mini-menu in the Info Bar. This is a function that doesn't have a regular menu equivalent, so I can't use anything I know of to make my own shortcut key.

It's not a native solution, but you can easily assign that to QuicKeys. There are lots of other DP functions that don't have shortcuts. QKs is perfecy for them

[amplidood]

QuicKeys can make shortcuts for mini-menu items?