Any way to move tracks without dragging them?

[sean72]

I get into some large projects, sometimes sifting and cutting audio tracks together from several hundred takes. It's a real slog when I have to drag a take from tracks 1-50 down into tracks 400-450 for example. 

I was hoping there would simply be an option to assign a number to an audio track directly. So I could send let's say track 5 to track 425 by retyping the track number instead of waiting 30 seconds give or take to drag the track down to that position manually. 

I don't see an option for it though, if there isn't I'd like to see it included in future versions of Cakewalk.

Thank you,

-Sean

[John Vere]

Good thing you were not recording music in the days we had 4, 8 or 16 track recorders.  

[Byron Dickens]

1 hour ago, sean72 said:

sifting and cutting audio tracks together from several hundred takes.

❗❓

The obvious question here is: why so many?

 

[sean72]

Hi John,

I was recording back then too. First device I ever had was an old Tascam cassette tape 4 track recorder back in the mid 1980s.

 

Hi Byron,

As to why so many tracks it's because sometimes that's what a project requires. In this case I am going through many takes of vocal tracks to find the best ones and piece them together. I'll delete unused tracks when I'm done with them. Sometimes even when you have 50+ takes of any particular vocal line or verse every one of them is a bit different. So if you want to put in the time you can drill down and find the best bits among all those takes and try editing them together into something even better. 

Edited May 8, 2023 by sean72

[Byron Dickens]

Wow. I could never deal with all that. If I can't get it in 4 - 6 takes then I need to go back to the woodshed and practice some more.

[JnTuneTech]

4 hours ago, sean72 said:

I don't see an option for it though, if there isn't I'd like to see it included in future versions of Cakewalk.

You might post just that in the Feedback section here. -In the meantime, one workaround I use when track counts exceed my view in Cakewalk, is to make track folders in logical groups. That way, when I want to move a track without dragging, I just right click and select to move it to a sort folder. -I don't know if that helps, or even if it works reliably with so many tracks, but it's something you might try, if you haven't already.

[Lord Tim]

Yeah, I'll often have dozens of tracks of harmony vocals in what we do, even on top of the main vocal layers, so folders are an absolute must for wrangling the big projects.

Even with leads, I'll often do 6 to 10 takes on different tracks to choose or comp (I prefer that to take lanes, personally) so I get what it's like when the count starts to get up there! But yeah, track folders and even sub-folders if necessary. Easier to move a single folder with 70 tracks in it than moving 70 tracks!

[JnTuneTech]

10 minutes ago, Lord Tim said:

I'll often do 6 to 10 takes on different tracks to choose or comp

Yes! And I recently learned from coming here, that you can put text notes in both Track Inspector and Take Lanes, which I really plan to start applying to multi-take projects. So, between folder names, and track information, I can remember why I (did it (!) and) put take number 36 in that folder... 😎

[Kyle.M]

2 hours ago, Byron Dickens said:

Wow. I could never deal with all that. If I can't get it in 4 - 6 takes then I need to go back to the woodshed and practice some more.

Clearly you do not know how to put a great mix together then. 

 

Legends such as Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, was upto 16hours recording vocals to the that perfect line. 

Cher was 8hours in the booth recording "I Believe" even though they used Autotune on her vocals. 

The difference between "Pros" and AMATUERS: Pros still rely on comping, with 100+takes to perfectly balance out the tone shift variants in the vocal before running it through Melodyne. 

Amatuers think they can practice and record a perfect recording in 4 - 6 takes. 

[57Gregy]

If you copy and paste, the paste dialog allows you to set the time and track of the copy. USE PASTE SPECIAL NOW.

I think. On the phone now and can't remember exactly what the paste dialog allows.

Works in SONAR Home Studio 6!

Edited May 8, 2023 by 57Gregy
Additional info.

[Lord Tim]

50 minutes ago, Kyle.M said:

The difference between "Pros" and AMATUERS: Pros still rely on comping, with 100+takes to perfectly balance out the tone shift variants in the vocal before running it through Melodyne. 

Amatuers think they can practice and record a perfect recording in 4 - 6 takes. 

While there's some truth in that, in that what we hear on a lot of hit records was massively comped together to get an incredible take, I know myself I've had artists come in and absolutely NAIL it in the first 2 takes. Sometimes perfect is the enemy of great.

You'll also get some incredible vocalists who really just are that good. Or you actually may want that first immediate raw take before they start to overthink it.

Whatever it takes to get "the vocal" is ultimately what you do, whether it's 2 takes or 200. The listener really doesn't give a crap, they just want to have the performance hit them in some way, whether it's raw, comped or tuned.

[Kyle.M]

38 minutes ago, Lord Tim said:

 

 The listener really doesn't give a crap

What, you're joking right? Do know the story about Barbara Streisand and Taylor Swift? Taylors fans were ruthless when Streisand killed her performance. So, yes! Listeners do care! Otherwise, you wont sell a single record if you suck in the slightest. 

[Kyle.M]

With consumer speakers exposing so many flaws in a track these days, these youth rant all day long if you have a bad recording. 

Great example: Cold in LA by the boy band called "Why dont we"

 

[Lord Tim]

1 hour ago, Kyle.M said:

What, you're joking right? Do know the story about Barbara Streisand and Taylor Swift? Taylors fans were ruthless when Streisand killed her performance. So, yes! Listeners do care! Otherwise, you wont sell a single record if you suck in the slightest. 

The listener generally doesn't know if you've done 3 takes or 300 takes. As far as most people assume, the artist goes out and sings the song once and then collects their bags of money.

Additionally, if you think this is about talent rather than 2 artists with particularly vocal and devoted fan-bases, then I think you might be missing a big piece of the puzzle here.

I've been on both sides of the aisle, as a signed artist, running a label, engineer and producer and also as a fan for the last 30 years. Trust me, you'd be surprised at what you hear on a record and how it actually was done, and the reaction to it.

But don't take my word for it, hop over to the Produce Like A Pro YouTube channel and listen to a few stories from Warren Huart. His credits absolutely dwarf anything I've ever done (and I'd suggest most of us here) and they speak for themselves.

EDIT: We're probably going a little off topic for Sean's original post though.

Edited May 8, 2023 by Lord Tim

[Kyle.M]

4 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

Warren Huart. His credits absolutely dwarf anything I've ever done

Of course it will. He occasionally work with me now and then on some projects. If you listen to his stories, you will hear him mentioning me in a few tutorials. 

Short answer to the Owner of this topic, cut and paste works great too and doesnt Cakewalk allow you to choose the location in its feature called "Special Paste?" 

Anyway, I need to spend more time with Cakewalk to get a sense of "Feeling at home." Right now, the stability and dropouts are blocking me from using it. We tried to do an album with it, but with track 2 on the album, these issues were too much to continue using it. 

Anyway, yeah. This is going off rails. 

[John Vere]

Sorry my comment was about all I could think of when I read about the OP’s track count. 
Just goes to show you no two people will have the same workflow and as long as they have the time and patience for their method that is all that matters. 
My clients never had the budget to waist time in the studio practicing parts.

My studio hand out to prep them said “ Do not book studio time until you are absolutely sure you parts are as good as you can possibly perform them”

I had learned earlier on that somehow people were showing up totally unprepared so it was painful and they were often chased away to go and work it out at home. 
This in the end worked out and parts were often put down in one take.  
So a lot of my workflow remains unchanged since those 8 track days.  

Im a huge fan of deleting any parts I feel we’re not up to snuff. I only use overwrite mode as example.  I just start with one track and keep redoing it until I feel that was my best performance.  Then I record a couple more that I might copy paste from if there’s something better. 
 

But on topic. 
First I don’t think there is a copy to location box but there is bounce to tracks that might somehow be used. 
I think if I was faced with 50 takes I would first group the tracks together and use colours.  Then I’d start deleting.  

[User 905133]

16 hours ago, sean72 said:

I get into some large projects, sometimes sifting and cutting audio tracks together from several hundred takes. It's a real slog when I have to drag a take from tracks 1-50 down into tracks 400-450 for example. 

I was hoping there would simply be an option to assign a number to an audio track directly. So I could send let's say track 5 to track 425 by retyping the track number instead of waiting 30 seconds give or take to drag the track down to that position manually. 

I don't use take lanes and I don't do lots of takes as full tracks, but in re-reading the thread I wondered if you use folders (which can be collapsed/expanded, nested, etc.) as organizing tools for your workflow and if not, I wonder if they might help until such time that tracks can be reordered by simply renumbering them. For example, perhaps instead of renumbering tracks to change the order you could use the "Move to Folder" right-click context option to create ad hoc working folders and expand the folders as needed . 

Having said that, I am wondering also if you use Screensets and Workspaces as organizing/workflow tools.

I cannot imagine editing 400-500 tracks. Maybe you already use these organizing methods in your workflow or maybe they would take away from your current workflow.  I was just thinking, "If I had a huge number of tracks in my projects, needed to be able to cut and paste from different tracks all over the place, and wanted them near each other to minimize having to reorder them, how might I approach the task?"

Edited May 8, 2023 by User 905133

[57Gregy]

4 hours ago, Kyle.M said:

Short answer to the Owner of this topic, cut and paste works great too and doesnt Cakewalk allow you to choose the location in its feature called "Special Paste?"

Yeah, I discovered that it's 'Paste Special' now.

[Byron Dickens]

11 hours ago, Kyle.M said:

Clearly you do not know how to put a great mix together then. 

 

Legends such as Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, was upto 16hours recording vocals to the that perfect line. 

Cher was 8hours in the booth recording "I Believe" even though they used Autotune on her vocals. 

The difference between "Pros" and AMATUERS: Pros still rely on comping, with 100+takes to perfectly balance out the tone shift variants in the vocal before running it through Melodyne. 

Amatuers think they can practice and record a perfect recording in 4 - 6 takes. 

Clearly you don't know your ***** from a hole in the ground.

Tell that to Frank Sinatra. Tell that to Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, the same Michael Jackson, James Brown, Bruce Springsteen and Black Sabbath.

Tony, Geezer, Bill and Ozzy recorded Black Sabbath in one take. Not the song, the whole album. One take, start to finish.

I'm gonna call bovine excrement: nobody records 100 takes of something. Nobody. Not even Lars Ulrich, who famously records take after take after take of his parts.  Certainly not any of the legends you mentioned.

Anyway, my comment was about me, my workflow and where I spend my time and energy.

I don't know what the hell your problem is with me but instead of following me around all over the forums giving my posts the thumbs down, why don't you grow up and find some business of your own so you can go mind it

[Wookiee]

Seems this thread has become a little personal for some. Keep it polite people. 

As the rabbit hole has been achieved the inevitable is going to occur.