IDEA for Flavio
Dear Flavio
could you inplement a SMALL FEATURE that would make COMPING easier with N much easier -
as a producer i am given many songs by aspiring artists who generally produce reasonable work (but not always) - this means that i have to CHOP up their tracks to get it to sound right (vocal timing etc) -
what i would like is the possability to MUTE INDIVIDUAL PARTS and also change the COLOUR of individual parts in a track - if this was possible, muteing one part and switching in another would be a GREAT HELP -
yours in anticipation
M/R.
Mute individual parts?? do you mean sections of a track?
You can use volume envelopes to do that.
Quote: (michaelST @ Oct. 24 2008, 7:11 AM)
Mute individual parts??
do you mean sections of a track?
You can use volume envelopes to do that.
You sure can! If you wanna take hours to do it.
Most other DAW's have this feature and it makes comping much quicker. Dupe the track if need be, slice it up into items and mute what you don't want and copy/paste what you do want. Much, much faster.
I'd like to see this and take management with lanes (see more than one take in a track) implemented.
D
Hours? I can physically comp a track in a few minutes…highlight, edit, mute selection…NEXT! For effects and EQ just assign them to a aux and insert what you want, no need to paste them to a single track…the envelope tools and ease of their use is one of the BIG plusses to ntrack…the harder part is selecting which line from which take…I just put the tracks side by side, grab a yellow legal pad and write it down…I would love to kick these whiners back to 1985 and give them a splice block and a razor blade…I have been on a DAW since 1997 and I am still amazed daily at the ease of the workflow compared to tape and consoles…Other programs have some features that are slightly better (and worse) but when N is stable and running it is pretty hard to beat in terms of intuitive speed and workflow. That said, I don’t do any midi or vsti work at all so I can’t address any strengths or weaknesses in those departments and I know alot of people jumped ship with those issues…
Cheers,
Ray
I hear you Ray. If you are getting along great with n-Track, stick to it! However, there are better ways to edit out there. I slammed a lot of those ways into the V6 feature request thread some time ago.
D
I honestly don’t see how having separate takes – parts –
piled into one track is better and easier than having them on separate tracks when in the process of laying down tracks and choosing with part to use. During mixdown, after all parts are selected – and fixed so they blend properly and don’t pop at the splice points – then it’s nice to flatten them to a separate track. At that point there would be no need to mute any individual part. (I still think it would be a great feature)
The beauty of DAW is many tracks. If you are at the point of needing to mute separate parts then you aren’t at the mixdown stage yet, you are firmly in the part of production that can really benefit from having those parts on separate tracks. If you MUST run them through the same effect (as could require having them on one track) then send the all to one group and put the effect in the group. (yes, I know that won’t work the way it should for some effects)
I’ve read many times where someone is asking about punch-in recording to an existing track, and I seriously don’t understand why anyone would EVER want to do that (a single selection, then click of the mouse and a drag of a bar can be all it takes to mute a section of a track without touching the volume curve). The only reason I can think of that someone would think it would be necessary is ignorance about the way a DAW works. They still see it as a finite number of tracks and the need to punch in because that’s the way they did it with the tape machine.
if one has 4 variations of the same part - it would be easier to put them on different tracks (above or below the original) then one could leave the main body of the work alone, just switching in and out the variations to see which part works best -
mixdown in the studio is done wia a 32 track digital mixer then through a rack of outboards and is then burnt LIVE to a CD - monitoring is taken from the audio out on the rack mounted CD unit - what you hear is what you get -
although many of you may have two years to sort out your song in the studio two hours is about all tha time there is available -
M.R.
Ok, I hear what rsoloinski is saying, but imagine you want to UNMUTE it. Then you have to go digging and delete a million little envelope nodes rather than a quick right click -> unmute or Ctl-M.
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when in the process of laying down tracks and choosing with part to use.
To phoos point, punch ins don’t make sense on a DAW… but takes do.
Lanes is really where this sort of feature shines though. When you have 10 takes of a guitar solo that you can easily and on the fly flip through and mute sections… that’s where this is super valuable. Lanes is the single most earth shattering/life changing thing to effect my work flow for the better to come along in years… especially when mixed with loop record. Just let whoever you are recording play their solo 20 times with no intervention from you. Then I can sit someone down and seamlessly flip through takes for them to choose what they want in no time. It sure beats screwing with solo/muting all over the place, creating new tracks, naming files, etc just to demo tracks and takes.
The other thing that is super duper valuable in this is auto created item fades separate from the track envelope. 5ms is all you need at the end of an item. (Of course draggable fade controls are invaluable too) Not having to mess with zero crossings being perfect manually saves a ton of time. Really, if you guys have never messed with lanes and this sort of editing before, you should give it a try. Heck, even if you do all your meat and potatos in N and use something with lanes to comp, you will save a ton of time.
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Heck, even if you do all your meat and potatos in N and use something with lanes to comp, you will save a ton of time.
Guaranteed...
D
Quote: (Magic Rabbit @ Oct. 24 2008, 6:55 AM)
what i would like is the possability to MUTE INDIVIDUAL PARTS and also change the COLOUR of individual parts in a track - if this was possible, muteing one part and switching in another would be a GREAT HELP -
That would've been a great new feature. Perhaps also the possibility to write a small text description on each part.
Lanes, is this like a more advanced version of the "alternate take" function? E.g. you can display more than one take at a time?
Quote: (stratos @ Oct. 24 2008, 2:29 PM)
Lanes, is this like a more advanced version of the "alternate take" function? E.g. you can display more than one take at a time?
More or less, yes. One take plays at a time and you can flip through takes during play back simply by clicking the take you want. No mute/solo monkey business needed. Not to mention you can edit between various takes (first two measures take one, next half measure take 5, next 3 measures take 6, etc) and non-destructively and instantly flatten (no freeze, no renders, just a short cut key) them into a single comp track. It is an incredibly fast and easy way to work.
Guys… please understand that I (and Bubba too I suspect) am only making these suggestions as improvements to the current n-Track way of working. I know it may be hard to believe, but n is not the be all, end all of DAW software. NOBODY’S software is the be all, end all. Keep in mind that while YOUR way of working may be supremely suited to what you are used to in n-Track, everybody has different wants and/or NEEDS. Don’t kill a suggestion because it doesn’t sound like something YOU want/need at the moment. I found a better mousetrap for a lot of things or I would still be using n on a regular basis. The more work flow enhancers n-Track has, the better impression it will make when people stop by to test drive it.
For example, when editing drum overheads to get rid of the room noise in between cymbal crashes (IF you want to!!) you’d have to draw a gazillion curves or use the “silence” command in n-Track. My current favorite DAW does this in milliseconds or seconds with “Auto Trim/Split selection”. It has adjustable threshold and hysteresis, attack time, “tail” time and other parameters. It truly is a God send for many, many editing functions. I also had this one on the V6 feature request thread. We don’t have it YET… but please, don’t kill stuff before it even has a chance to be considered.
Respectfully yours,
D
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For example, when editing drum overheads to get rid of the room noise in between cymbal crashes...
Sound suspiciously like gating.
Quote: (phoo @ Oct. 27 2008, 11:14 AM)
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For example, when editing drum overheads to get rid of the room noise in between cymbal crashes...
Sound suspiciously like gating.
Nope. Gating requires a gate plugin sitting there eating CPU cycles. Gates can be handy but they can also be very finicky. The method mentioned, you set your parameters and watch it process the whole track or tracks in a flash. It's completely reversible and non-destructive too. You can always render it as a new take if you want. It is sort of like washing the track(s) through a gate plug and "keeping" the results but a whole heap more flexible and powerful.
D
Well, it also chops the track into virtual pieces so if you want to move cymbal hits, quantize, do screwy edits ala BT or whatever, apply FX to a single hit non destructively, etc you can. So it does have a certain gateness to it, but there is more to it. I personally don’t use that feature as, well, i’ll just replay the track.
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I personally don't use that feature as, well, i'll just replay the track.
Yeah but you're a drummer snob!
I like it for live recordings. You can really clean up the "mud"... in a hurry!
D
Quote: (Magic Rabbit @ Oct. 24 2008, 12:55 AM)
as a producer i am given many songs by aspiring artists who generally produce reasonable work (but not always) - this means that i have to CHOP up their tracks to get it to sound right (vocal timing etc) -
what i would like is the possability to MUTE INDIVIDUAL PARTS and also change the COLOUR of individual parts in a track - if this was possible, muteing one part and switching in another would be a GREAT HELP -
Version 6.0.2 will have per-part mute, color & comments settings.
I'm not however sure of how the part-mute setting should interact with parts cross-fading or parts that are overlapped, i.e. if a muted part should not 'hide' parts that are below it, and if the crossfade should be disabled when two parts are partially overlapped and crossfaded and one part is then muted. Right now muting a part keeps existing crossfades (which become just fades) and overlapping relations.
Flavio.
Quote: (Flavio Antonioli @ Oct. 30 2008, 6:41 PM)
Version 6.0.2 will have per-part mute, color & comments settings.
Great news! I'm looking forward to try it out.