Does DP 8 have mute MIDI notes yet?

[Shooshie]

When you deselect them, they do not go away. The "region" is still there, in color in the Tracks Overview Window.Shoosh

When you deselect the region is is no longer highlighted. The only color I see is the track color, so I assume that is what you mean?

The region is no longer highlighted, but it still is there, and the color is used to mark its existence. The area between regions has no color. The difference between DP's "regions" and other DAWs regions is that in DP they are only parsed by empty space (time, actually) between them. We don't get to modify their length, only the gaps between them. But the up-side is that we can freely modify their content without having to dodge the region itself. In other words, we transpose the first six notes up a fifth without the entire region going up a fifth, and so forth.

Then there's the Region Menu. That's where we look at the REAL definition of a region: a range selection of MIDI events that we may edit. When you edit MIDI, strictly speaking you're editing a MIDI region, though in reality it is not all inclusive of the objects within that range. Logic carried it a step further and said that a region is a time range that consists of ALL MIDI objects within that range. This is why I like DP and not Logic.

I acknowledge the utility in being able to select a MIDI region with one click and then to cause the entire region to shift so that the first note is quantized, and the rest of it follows with the exact same time shift. That's possible in Logic, but in DP you'll have to Shift the region by the amount necessary to put that first note on the beat. That means you have to know the numerical value for that distance and type it in, or some other means of calculating that shift. This never bothered me. For those who cannot abide with DP's version of regions, and who want it to behave like Logic, their primary purpose is not to have to know those numbers, and not to have to calculate them in order to get their whole region to shift to where the want it to go. That's the basic need. They want to click the region, snap the whole thing to the first beat, and they're done.

In DP we need to know that number. There are ways of finding or calculating it. Thus, all our work in MIDI in DP requires that we keep track of our numbers, and that we select what we want to edit. No clicking a region and expecting it to select exactly what you want. You select what you want; you tell DP where to put it. To me, anyone who is worth their golden MIDI Guy badge will find this a reasonable set of responsibilities, and will be able to do it with great speed, always thinking a little ahead of the game so as to be prepared when the need for that number comes up. Also, one must keep track of one's selection, though DP will remember precisely one time range for you in its memory, which is very poorly documented in the manual, but that time range can be recalled until it is replaced with another.

I guess that's a long way of saying that DP requires us to enhance our ability to make and retain selections, and to find quicker ways of doing that. That one quest has led me to come up with many tricks that help with speed. Then we have to know what we want to do with those selections and make it happen whether or not the precise tool is available for what we want. In my experience "Regions" (a la Logic) have played almost zero role in that… almost.

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

Real world= messy, fast paced, no time for tons of copies of MIDI tracks multiplied by tons of experimental takes, while this or that celebrity artist waits to sing or hear an idea they just asked to “fish out”. (I didn;t mean to imply you don;t operate in a real professional world, only to state that neatening things up is not always an option due to time restraints, nor is multiple copies welcome in a chaotic production environ.)

I understand what “similar” tracks does perfectly but I have found that play enabled or not, having MIDI tracks/ faders around redundantly going to the same MIDI track is a recipe for volume, panning and other disasters. Such as when one pulls a B3 down to vol 45 and later, when bringing up 15 B3 alt takes of “MIDI mutes”, one fader gets nudged or play enabled and suddenly, the B3 is at 127 instead of 45.
I do the same sometimes when COMPING MIDI.
I will have 15 takes of a piano solo, dragging them into the comp. But if session ends, or I get yanked to something else because an artist wants to try a guitar solo before so and so A&R guy comes over, and I forget, those MIDI tracks sitting around are a recipe for problems.

Not only do I know of what I say, I have experienced this with big name artists sitting at my side. Our work environments may be a bit different from each other.
Your work around is fine, like I said. But it has it’s draw backs. Multiple MIDI tracks as mutes can work when one has time to then put them all away neatly before moving on.
But not all production environs are so sanguine or organized as to allow MIDI trash to be left all over the floor...lol.

However, I just thought of something. Why route the MIDI track at all?
Perhaps an slight improvement on your idea would be to NOT make “similar” MIDI tracks but to make MIDI tracks that route to NOWHERE.
Piano2/3/4/5/6/7/8..only piano ONE routes to the piano, all the others NOT routing to piano. Then one can know by name that they are piano mutes, but not worry about fader disaster.
You can still drag BACK in various bits and pieces the same as if the MIDI tracks routed to the piano, but if those MIDI track turn on, get nudged etc, it would matter not.
What do you think?

I think you have problems understanding things I write.

David, I have always liked you and respected you because you do work so hard in DP, as I always have, but I'm talking about techniques that I've used for 20 to 25 years in DP in the real world with the clock ticking, that have caused people looking over my shoulder to go "wow," including "big name clients." In fact, speed is the reason I came up with them. They are tried and true techniques that have always worked for me, so that much is not in question. I share them with the forum if anyone wants to try them. They may improve your game, because they address things in DP for which there are no direct tools, and they make the work go faster. If you want to punch holes in them or speculate on why they won't work for YOU, then that's a personal choice. But I'd rather appreciate it if you didn't attempt to discredit my work and my professional reputation with this speculation. Why don't you actually TRY some of these things and see what i'm talking about? Maybe in the end we just work so differently that what I do won't work for you, but judging by the words you write, I distinctly get the impression that you're not trying my suggestions, but that you're just speculating on incomplete interpretations of them. Someday maybe I can make a movie of it and let you see it in action. At this point, I'm not very motivated to keep putting it out there.

If you have something that works better, please do tell. Uh… I think you can leave out the parts about big name clients in this forum of pro's who work with (or are) big name clients.

Shooshie

[frankf]

Also, one must keep track of one's selection, though DP will remember precisely one time range for you in its memory, which is very poorly documented in the manual, but that time range can be recalled until it is replaced with another.

Shooshie

You can name & save time range selections in DP and recall them at will. Selection Information window or Bar mini menu. A new feature (as of when?) is that you can now save project wide or chunk specific time ranges. No command for it yet though.



Frank Ferrucci

[Shooshie]

Also, one must keep track of one's selection, though DP will remember precisely one time range for you in its memory, which is very poorly documented in the manual, but that time range can be recalled until it is replaced with another.

Shooshie

You can name & save time range selections in DP and recall them at will. Selection Information window or Bar mini menu. A new feature (as of when?) is that you can now save project wide or chunk specific time ranges. No command for it yet though.



Frank Ferrucci

That's amazing! How did I miss that? I've used "set to remembered times" for quite a while. I don't remember when I found it, but somehow I learned that Control-R sets a selection into that memory (Option-Shift-S does the opposite, reselecting the remembered times), and it's not the same as timeline memory markers. So, I thought I was using all that DP had in terms of remembered selections.

In fact, on multiple occasions I have written to MOTU asking for the ability to save and name selections. I don't know if it's been there all along, or if they actually honored my request (and surely many others'). Whatever the case, I'm just glad to know it's there. Thanks for the heads up! This gives us something comparable to MIDI Regions (using the functional intent of the word rather loosely) so that we can quickly and easily go back to selections. I don't know how this will impact my workflow yet, but I'm pretty sure it will.

Incidentally, after testing this, I found that you can still use the Control-R and "Set to remembered times" separately from the saved & named selections. In other words, setting the selection to a named selection does not erase the "remembered times" selection.

Thanks Frank!

Shooshie

[FMiguelez]

You can name & save time range selections in DP and recall them at will. Selection Information window or Bar mini menu. A new feature (as of when?) is that you can now save project wide or chunk specific time ranges. No command for it yet though.

Interesting! So how many of these Time Range Selections can be saved and recalled?
/quote]

This gives us something comparable to MIDI Regions (using the functional intent of the word rather loosely) so that we can quickly and easily go back to selections. I don't know how this will impact my workflow yet, but I'm pretty sure it will.

I would say VERY VERY extremely loosely, Shoosh... I need to play with this feature, but, judging by what Frank said, it is a far cry from a real MIDI Region behaviour.

Having MIDI regions would mean we can, for instance, name them, color-code them, and, more importantly, being able to move and drop them around with one mouse click without having to worry to select any underlying CC data.
We would know that, no matter what CCs come before or after the dropping point, they would reflect exactly what the new region had. All with one simple click.

I mean, we can't even do this when we use the Snip command. DP usually messes up the CCs, putting weird "ramps" that were not there before, etc. After such operations, one must always check and double check what happened to the CCs (even with audio automation parameters, not only CCs). And babysitting this is not only annoying, but a waste of time, it is error-prone, and IME there is ALWAYS a lot of stuff to be corrected after the fact. This behaviour even affects the Conductor Track as well.

Smart Selections are not that smart!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

You can name & save time range selections in DP and recall them at will. Selection Information window or Bar mini menu. A new feature (as of when?) is that you can now save project wide or chunk specific time ranges. No command for it yet though.

Frank Ferrucci

Wow! Cool. Yeah, how'd we miss that?

[Shooshie]

This gives us something comparable to MIDI Regions (using the functional intent of the word rather loosely) so that we can quickly and easily go back to selections. I don't know how this will impact my workflow yet, but I'm pretty sure it will.

I would say VERY VERY extremely loosely, Shoosh... I need to play with this feature, but, judging by what Frank said, it is a far cry from a real MIDI Region behaviour.

But it's nice to have, is it not? I was happy to discover Control-R, then Control-Shift-S. (Control-R "remembers" the current selection times, while Control-Shift-S does the opposite: sets selection to remembered times) But this is a huge improvement, having savable selections.

Having MIDI regions would mean we can, for instance, name them, color-code them, and, more importantly, being able to move and drop them around with one mouse click without having to worry to select any underlying CC data.
We would know that, no matter what CCs come before or after the dropping point, they would reflect exactly what the new region had. All with one simple click.

Yep, but we don't have that. People have been asking for it for over a decade, but MOTU has not chosen to give that to them. We can only speculate at the reasons, but the fact is that we do not have that kind of region capability. So, isn't it nice that we have at least this ability to save some selections? Tell me that's not an improvement!

I mean, we can't even do this when we use the Snip command. DP usually messes up the CCs, putting weird "ramps" that were not there before, etc. After such operations, one must always check and double check what happened to the CCs (even with audio automation parameters, not only CCs). And babysitting this is not only annoying, but a waste of time, it is error-prone, and IME there is ALWAYS a lot of stuff to be corrected after the fact. This behaviour even affects the Conductor Track as well.

Smart Selections are not that smart!

True. I usually don't use Smart Selections, preferring to set up the borders myself. I check each CC data type to see if I need to provide a zero point on either or both sides of the snip points. Usually I do, so I option drag the nearest data point to copy a new one to where it needs to be. Then I snip. Even this action is a good place to use Remembered Times (Control R / Option-Shift-S) to get my selection back after working in the CC data. And that's also an example where regions give you no advantage. Explanation: I'm going to make a snip (Command-J) in a MIDI track. I set up my selection, honing it quickly to the exact locations I need. But now that I can see the selection, I realize I'm going to have to deselect and change some CC data before making the snip. So, I hit Control-R to remember the selection times. Now I deselect (Command-D) and work on the CC data. When I've got the CC data cleaned up for the snip, I hit Option-Shift-S to reselect the remembered selection from before. Now I hit Command-J to snip, and it's all done. Same steps would probably be more logically applied to a Cut (Command-X) or some other edit.

Anyway, we still don't have regions, but what we do have greatly enhances my workflow. Being able to save multiple selections makes for quick editing, plus it enables a return to precise selections, whereas a region would require at least as much fiddling to get it remembered in the same way.

However you choose to look at it, you have to conclude that this gives us a lot more power than we had before.

Shoosh

[FMiguelez]

People have been asking for it for over a decade, but MOTU has not chosen to give that to them. We can only speculate at the reasons, but the fact is that we do not have that kind of region capability. So, isn't it nice that we have at least this ability to save some selections? Tell me that's not an improvement!

It must be ONE HELL of a reason for MOTU not to give us this after so many years!

But I do agree that these 2 commands are good to have. Quite handy, indeed.

Also, it's good that DP has many ways to do the same things. It's very flexible and one can get things done. That's what matters.

But the Snip command, the way it is now, is quite... stupid and dumb. It works fine as long as one doesn't have lots of tracks with tons of CCs or audio automation parameters or complex Conductor track data.

The other day I needed to make a 30' version out of a 60' commercial. Every time I snipped something it was a total mess! It was ridiculous.
What I ended up doing was bouncing (freezing didn't work either because of the Send automation) every track independently (although some tracks were bounced together). Once there was nothing but pure audio in the chunk, it worked great. Doing this was faster and I didn't have to worry about the mix getting too messed up.

THESE are the improvements I want to see in DP8.1

[labman]

I dearly love the saved named time selections. Use them alot if layout our a mastering sessions so all the automation in/out points are always the same for any given cut.

[toodamnhip]

Real world= messy, fast paced, no time for tons of copies of MIDI tracks multiplied by tons of experimental takes, while this or that celebrity artist waits to sing or hear an idea they just asked to “fish out”. (I didn;t mean to imply you don;t operate in a real professional world, only to state that neatening things up is not always an option due to time restraints, nor is multiple copies welcome in a chaotic production environ.)

I understand what “similar” tracks does perfectly but I have found that play enabled or not, having MIDI tracks/ faders around redundantly going to the same MIDI track is a recipe for volume, panning and other disasters. Such as when one pulls a B3 down to vol 45 and later, when bringing up 15 B3 alt takes of “MIDI mutes”, one fader gets nudged or play enabled and suddenly, the B3 is at 127 instead of 45.
I do the same sometimes when COMPING MIDI.
I will have 15 takes of a piano solo, dragging them into the comp. But if session ends, or I get yanked to something else because an artist wants to try a guitar solo before so and so A&R guy comes over, and I forget, those MIDI tracks sitting around are a recipe for problems.

Not only do I know of what I say, I have experienced this with big name artists sitting at my side. Our work environments may be a bit different from each other.
Your work around is fine, like I said. But it has it’s draw backs. Multiple MIDI tracks as mutes can work when one has time to then put them all away neatly before moving on.
But not all production environs are so sanguine or organized as to allow MIDI trash to be left all over the floor...lol.

However, I just thought of something. Why route the MIDI track at all?
Perhaps an slight improvement on your idea would be to NOT make “similar” MIDI tracks but to make MIDI tracks that route to NOWHERE.
Piano2/3/4/5/6/7/8..only piano ONE routes to the piano, all the others NOT routing to piano. Then one can know by name that they are piano mutes, but not worry about fader disaster.
You can still drag BACK in various bits and pieces the same as if the MIDI tracks routed to the piano, but if those MIDI track turn on, get nudged etc, it would matter not.
What do you think?

I think you have problems understanding things I write.

David, I have always liked you and respected you because you do work so hard in DP, as I always have, but I'm talking about techniques that I've used for 20 to 25 years in DP in the real world with the clock ticking, that have caused people looking over my shoulder to go "wow," including "big name clients." In fact, speed is the reason I came up with them. They are tried and true techniques that have always worked for me, so that much is not in question. I share them with the forum if anyone wants to try them. They may improve your game, because they address things in DP for which there are no direct tools, and they make the work go faster. If you want to punch holes in them or speculate on why they won't work for YOU, then that's a personal choice. But I'd rather appreciate it if you didn't attempt to discredit my work and my professional reputation with this speculation. Why don't you actually TRY some of these things and see what i'm talking about? Maybe in the end we just work so differently that what I do won't work for you, but judging by the words you write, I distinctly get the impression that you're not trying my suggestions, but that you're just speculating on incomplete interpretations of them. Someday maybe I can make a movie of it and let you see it in action. At this point, I'm not very motivated to keep putting it out there.

If you have something that works better, please do tell. Uh… I think you can leave out the parts about big name clients in this forum of pro's who work with (or are) big name clients.

Shooshie

You asked what I meant by “real world”, I answered you. I even tried to assuage your being offended by writing that I didnt mean to say you were not professional. I went out of my way to write that.
So here we have YOU asking what I meant, (which I don;t think you misunderstood in the first place),me answering, me trying not to offend, YOU getting offended.
Is there anything else to say about this?

I have tried your technique, it is one of many many techniques I use, I find it workable when there are but a few variations on a MIDI track to worry about. When there are lots of MIDI mutes or variation, it is a cumbersome technique.
I wish to end this conversation now as I only see it going in circles. I think that anytime you write a post about a usage technique, you hate it being questioned at all, based off of too many past misunderstandings of past writings, you have become overly sensitive. It is great you bother to post here and give advise, but I was only giving MY real world experience of your advise. (That being that a bunch of MIDI track lying around sucks..lol).
If it works great for others, great.
I will try to never question your techniques again. First off, you are very valuable here and take way more time than I to help others and you deserve props for it.
Secondly, the slightest questioning of one of your given techniques leads to a defensiveness that usually takes me quite by surprise. For example, right now, you have stated I have discredited your work. Wow man...really?

[bayswater]

[Wow! Cool. Yeah, how'd we miss that?

Yes Virginia, there is a manual.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

... and I tried and could not find a definitive section that spells that feature out.

Are you sure there's a manual?

[bayswater]

... and I tried and could not find a definitive section that spells that feature out.

Are you sure there's a manual?

I might be confusing it with Santa Claus.

(The part on the right column of p 319 and the start of p 320 on the Set To command is a place to start. But it's not the clearest explanation of a feature. It doesn't explain clearly the distinction between the saved times and a "remembered time". )

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Christmas comes with a manual????

[bayswater]

It does if you believe it does.