I'm finally a "new" lanes convert (Except...)

I’ll update my sig to reflect my set-up. I’m using 6.0.2. The issues we are discussing are inherent in the new takes/lanes work flow (and how the feature is currently designed). With respect to this, there aren’t any differences in 6.0.3.

I wasn’t referring to any upgrade in particular, just C6 lanes in general. I’ve not had anything horrible happen to me. As far as I remember, takes just follow on lane by lane but I don’t recall doing much if any comping in between.

Just as an afterthought: when you do this comping of takes that later vanish, have you been moving events between lanes? This changes their proirity and often results in things turning up in unexpected places. I’ve found it more predictable to leave things where Cubase puts them until I’m ready to tidy up when I’ve finished the job.

6.0.3, Win7, both 64-bit, btw.

Crotchety, no I’m not moving things around.

Referring to my original post… we’re not saying the lanes themselves vanish (and/or the audio they contain goes away). It’s the CHOICES made when comping that are gone. This is a real “nuts-and-bolts” workflow problem that happens all the time.

For example: Imagine I have a tympani track with 7 takes (lanes). To begin comping, I split the lanes every couple of bars. Then I click on whichever audio segments I prefer best in order to make them active and audible. This is what I mean by comping. Perhaps I click on the first 8 bars of lane 1, then I click on lane 3 for 4 bars, and so forth. When I am done doing this, my lanes view of the tympani track looks like a mosaic of clicked audio segments, up and down across the various lanes, that reflects my choices to create the best composite tympani performance.

Comping like this takes time. When finished, the client and I listen back to our in-progress comp, and the tympani player would like to try some more takes. I enable the tympani track, hit record, and he plays a new take. When finished, the comp we worked on (that is, the mosaic of active audio segment choices I described above) is gone. Yes, the splits I made are still there, and of course the tympani audio still exists - but the actual segment choices I clicked on to create the comp are no longer highlighted. Instead, all of my clicked choices are transparent and now inaudible, and the only active, audible take left is the new one the tympani player just played (and - worse still - Cubase’s recollection of that mosaic of earlier comp choices is instantly gone too, unless I undo the new tympani take I just recorded).

Hope that explains the problem better. Previous versions of Cubase (and Nuendo) didn’t exhibit this issue - new takes recorded on top of an in-progress comp were simply added at the bottom of the lane stack, with all previous comping still intact in the lanes above them. The engineer could then continue comping, and build on the already in-progress comp.

Aj

Right, I see what you mean now and yes, I have come across it and cursed it roundly. Apart from the suggestion you’ve already had, of copying previous comps to a new track, the other workaround I use is to colour-code the events I was using. The new track suggestion is probably better.

Train of thought, probably reiterating a lot of what’s been said, 'scuse me if you already tried and rejected it: If you did a “Delete Overlaps” on the comps you were happy with, you’re only losing stuff you’ve already rejected, but now it’s all on one lane and you will always know what’s what. Also you can easily switch between takes using the lanes’ Solo buttons or Mute them (i.e. with the tool). From here you can accept a comp in full or make a comp-of-comps. Perhaps that’s how it’s intended to work and part of the conversion process (that I am yet to personally investigate…).

Maybe all we’re asking for is a Mute button on each lane as well as the Solo.

Does that help? :slight_smile:

HOW DO I RECORD ADDITIONAL TAKE(S) WITHOUT INSTANTLY LOSING MY COMP (and all that hard work)?

You alt +drag the track below itself (into empty space, so put it at the bottom) which creates a duplicate track with the same settings & FX. Delete the copied comps and start anew on the new track (Vocals2, say).
I’m sure it’s not ideal for all but it’s the simplest I’ve got for you so far.

Does it not work like this?:

I don’t do too much comping at the moment as I’ve got a good crew who prefer single takes so give me some slack but that’s the way I’d try it if I got stumped. If I’ve got this right if you come back the next day after saving and closing the session you cannot then “refresh” the existing comp track with any new ideas. Or, from the OPs description if you then leave that comped track and do some others then you cannot then then add to the comps without Cubase thinking you are Replacing the whole track.
Could this be down to a simple “overdub / replace” Transport button oversight on the users part or even the default was changed in 6.0.3 and hasn’t been spotted?
I’m just trying to work out if what’s been changed has an option somewhere that you could use to get the behaviour back to more like what you’re used to.

Cheers me owl Crotchety. I think you nailed it on the last post. At least that’s where my head was heading.

Thanks for the suggestion Crotchety. I understand what you’re suggesting and I’ve been exploring using “Delete overlaps” as a workaround too. This operates as you describe, and can help things - however, like all workarounds, it limits the user in ways the standard work flow doesn’t.

The biggest issue is that “Delete overlaps” effectively discards all earlier take sections that weren’t active at the time you comped the track (they are discarded from the Lanes view, that is - the earlier take sections haven’t been destructively erased of course, but they are now unavailable to you for ease of comping using the Lanes feature).

This is a significant limitation. When working with a client, even after doing a rough comp (and then recording new additional takes), the player invariably asks to hear some of those earlier (and previously unchosen) takes again. This is understandable, and is a natural part of working with any DAW to arrange music. Once a new performance is added to a track, older previously unused takes often suddenly become useful, as sections of these earlier takes may now work well with parts of the newly recorded takes.

For example, imagine a saxaphone player adding additional takes to an already comped sax solo. Perhaps the first half of a new take will work perfectly with the second half of a previously unused early take. If the engineer already used “Delete overlaps” on the track, those earlier takes are no longer readily accessible on the current track. This is by no means an isolated example. In my experience, musicians - particularly session players - remember their earlier takes, and will regularly ask to hear them again while comping. I will repeat - this was not a problem with earlier versions of Cubase. It is a new issue with Cubase 6.

Anyway - glad to hear some good conversation is going on about this issue! I have confidence Steinberg will come up with a effective solution, and I hope the ideas here can add some value to that effort. I would also imagine many Nuendo users (who often work in client situations with session players) will have a particular interest in seeing this addressed.

Aj

P.S. Conman, we’re not talking about overdub/replacement issues… this is a thread specifically about issues that arise when creating iterative comps with Cubase 6’s redesigned Lanes function. I’ve edited the initial post to make that more clear.

I take your point entirely, it was in the back of my mind as I wrote the last post. I too like to keep even the ‘rejects’ alive as long as possible.

Scratch, scratch… Can you remind me: how did C5 do it?

PS: I don’t think we should call “Delete Overlaps” a workaround, the designers will be offended :wink:

Cheers AJ. Thought they might have added an obscure option somewhere. Haven’t found one yet.

Ah, a history lesson… how quickly we forget! :smiley:

Earlier versions of Cubase (pre C6) handled comping takes quite differently - C6’s new system really is a big departure from what came before, and it operates more like Sony Vegas or Reaper now.

In C5 (and earlier), Cubase handled comping on any given track by always playing back the bottom-most take that wasn’t muted. Thus, you could have multiple take segments active at any given vertical point in the project window (up and down the screen). And as long as the bottom-most unmuted lane was the one you wanted to hear, your comp would play back flawlessly. Because of this set-up, you could create a comp and then record multiple new takes without the old comp going away (each new take would appear active in the bottom-most lane, but the old comp would still be active above it).

C6 doesn’t allow this, as we all know well - this is by design, and it’s one of the reasons why the new system is such a departure from the old. Only one take segment can be active at any vertical point in time (up and down the screen), and recording a new take makes THAT the active take (thus causing any/all active take segments above it to no longer be active or “comped” - again, with no option to recover your comp choices short of undoing).

That’s not to say that the new system is bad. It’s actually more efficient in many situations (such as vocal comping), and I’m really warming up to it (particularly when paired with Group Edit). If this problem with “losing your comp choices when doing additional tracking” was fixed, I would likely become a full-on convert to the New Way.

Aj

Thanks for the reminder but I’m still struggling to cast my mind that far back… :unamused:

I’ve found the new comping method is so much better than the old - edits that used to take ‘hours’ now take minutes - that I don’t want to go back. I didn’t feel that at first, of course, but I think that was more to do with inheriting ‘messy’ edits from C5 lanes, many of which I unpicked and did again with unbelievably little fuss. This was my ‘Road to Damascus’ moment.

I know where you’re coming from, AJ, but I’m not finding it easy to even think of a feature request to deal with it. For me, simplicity has been the key with the new lanes and perhaps it may be the solution to your problems.

Perhaps a combination of ‘Delete Overlaps’ and saving a backup to a new lane might do the job. Next time I have the opportunity, though, I’ll put myself in your shoes - comp-as-u-go - see how I find it and post back. In the meantime I’ll keep an eye on the thread but don’t think I’ve got anything new to add.

Good luck,
C :wink:

I thought of a possible solution here… In fact, I gave it a try hoping it would work and we were all on about nothing but alas…

perhaps locking a track after comping should (but currently doesn’t) lock the comped takes as well.At the moment in 6.03 you can comp, lock a track, and still record more takes over the locked track. All that happens is the new take is automatically selected and locked. The old comped regions become muted and the selected bits become lost forever.

I use 6 in my studio, but lecture on 5.5.3 at a media university (they’ve just upgraded all the machines with protools 9, so cubase 6 will have to wait till next year). I’m aware of the changes made between the two versions on a daily basis.

Generally I love 6 and the new method of comping, but every now and then you bump into a new feature that has lost functionality whilst gaining aesthetics and this troubles me. (Automation points come to mind)

We’ve lost the ability to record, comp, record some more, comp some more, all while saving, and having quick access to each and every take. This is a step backward in my opinion.

First prize for me would still be 2 modes of comping

and

I think these sum up these two styles of working here. I go more for a simplistic approach but I think aspects of the second style need looking at if only to clarify a method to work which reduces the clutter involved in avoiding loss of options to redo and / or change the takes without losing any work along the way.
It has to be as simple to use your way as my way.

It’s not just recording new material that will lose a comp. Two more things will:

  1. Moving/copying an event to one of your lanes will make that new event the “active take” for the duration of its length. If it’s a long event, it can wipe out your whole comp. There is a workaround though: mute the event before moving it and the comp will be preserved (until…)

  2. If there is a long, inactive part in one of your lanes and you click it, it becomes active and the existing comp is lost. I know this is by design, and you can always undo… but you can only undo if you saw that you made an error! An accidental click on a cluttered screen in a big project can easily go unnoticed… So a single click can wipe out a whole comp…

Hey, FD, are you not suffering a C5 hangover there, mate? I’m familiar with what you describe. At first, I was very reluctant to cut up my pristine events but it was clearly going against the new regime to try and preserve this as I kept coming up with the problems you’re encountering.

Going with the grain, all lanes are snipped at the same place (Snap To Zero is definitely out here). Let it, it works out okay in the end and stops long events masking others and screwing up the comp. Once happy, you can glue adjacent events back together before ‘Delete Overlaps’, etc.

I know you can partially reveal events and that’s handy I suppose but in the end you’re going to have to x-fade, which involves cutting, so you might as well do it at the start as later.

Resistance is…confusing!

:smiley:


Does this do it for you?

I’ve got two Channels of takes, each independently comped. If you Solo Defeat the backing channels (just the click-track here and you may need to manually enable VSTi outputs) you can Ctrl-Solo between comps (forces Exclusive Solo).

At the end of the second section you can see where I’ve cut across all takes to replace the end of take 1, showing that multi-take editing is easy enough by selecting more than one set of events (which can be collapsed to make them easier to manage). I needed to use the Mute Tool here so colour-coded the event I had been using.

I don’t know whether this use of the Mute Tool gets us anywhere. Anyway, I’ve ended up with a nice little project to do out of this so I’ll be giving this a proper road-test over the next few days and thought I’d leave it with you in the meantime.

Cheers,
C

Hi Aj,
Here is a worklow suggestion regarding comp protection using “Events To Part”. Parts can be dissolved to events with “Dissolve Part”. Different Parts cannot be combined with “Evetns To Part” but can be glued together. In a part your comp is safe. By double clicking on a part you can change the comp inside it.

At a certain point I am comping comps but can always be sure that my original comps will remain if I glue the parts back together.
AProtectingComps.gif
I would suggest to reproduce what I am doing in the gif to get the hang of the workflow and moves.

You can also use the “Bounce Selection” command to create one file and event out of a comp.

Gr,
JHP

Parts! Now why didn’t I think of that - use 'em all the time. Thanks JHP, looks useful.

Thanks for joining in here JHP, and thank you especially for taking the time to create that detailed animated .gif.

It’s busy here today, and I’ve only had a brief moment to check in with this (very active!) thread. When I get a breather later, I’ll try out these new ideas and report back. Helpful stuff…

Aj

Once again jhp to the rescue. Its posts like these that keep me coming back. Super informative.

Many thanks for the gif… No manual could’ve explained half as well.

One question. How does this translate to multiple track comping? More specifically can edits made in the part editor be 'grouped to other parts on grouped tracks?

Curious about this too…