How to combine best takes into 1 track?

[user390096 15]

How can I combine the best takes into 1 track, then delete the other tracks I'm not using? I'm recording about 4 small length loop recordings of vocals, bar by bar, assigning them to their own track, and then I choose the best take of each bar. So I end up with lots of take lanes. Is there a quick and "in-sync" way of dragging my chosen clips simultaneously to one track and then deleting all of the other unused tracks to tidy things up? Right now when I choose individual clips and drag them to the bottom, I just end up with new tracks rather than all of them placed into one track.

Edited August 18, 2019 by user390096

[user390096 15]

I think I got it right after experimenting with some changes in the Recording Mode (see pic below for the set-up that's working well).

In the "Recording Mode" I set it to "Comping" which I had before, then "Auto-Punch" stayed the same for the time region I wanted, but in "Loop Recording" I selected 'Store Takes In A Single Track' and under "Lanes" I left both options "unchecked"; before I had selected both of them and it was creating a whole new track upon each loop instead of a "Take" of the 1st track. Now the editing seems to be working and I can get the separate clips to drag together into a new blank audio track I insert at the bottom of all the take lanes using CNTRL + SHIFT.  I guess "Tracks" and "Takes Lanes" are different enough that they don't behave the same although they look very similar.

Thanx for all the help!

Edited August 20, 2019 by user390096

[msmcleod 3,439]

Personally, I would move the clips out of the tracks and put them into take lanes under one track.

You can then mute / comp as you see fit to build up a single track. You also have the advantage of all of your takes being kept in the lanes just in case you change your mind later.

[user390096 15]

Thanx for the response but I like to keep my often huge screen of trax tidy. I see some demo's on this board on how to achieve my goal but they don't work for me.

[reginaldStjohn 218]

I don't know if anyway to "drag" clips from  multiple tracks to one track in one go.  Some ideas that I can think of are the following:

- Use take lanes since that is exactly what they are made for

- Create an aux track, point all the comped tracks to the aux track and then record it.

- Leave them all in their tracks and route them to a bus or aux track. Then hide the tracks?

 

[Blogospherianman 76]

14 hours ago, msmcleod said:

Personally, I would move the clips out of the tracks and put them into take lanes under one track.

You can then mute / comp as you see fit to build up a single track. You also have the advantage of all of your takes being kept in the lanes just in case you change your mind later.

+1

 

8 hours ago, reginaldStjohn said:

I don't know if anyway to "drag" clips from  multiple tracks to one track in one go.  Some ideas that I can think of are the following:

- Use take lanes since that is exactly what they are made for

- Create an aux track, point all the comped tracks to the aux track and then record it.

- Leave them all in their tracks and route them to a bus or aux track. Then hide the tracks?

 

Another way is to highlight the tracks and do a bounce to track (which can be a new track or an already created one).

I would probably hold shift and drag (or cntrl shift drag to copy) the clips to separate take lanes of one track like @msmcleod suggested. Then you can even bounce to clip to combine if your edits are good.  Or if you drag copy them, you can archive and hide the originals for safe keeping.  I’m a take hoarder. 😄

There is no wrong way to eat a reese’s though! ✌️

Edited August 19, 2019 by Blogospherianman

[user390096 15]

"Cntrl + Shift" then drag, I tried that and now at least the timing stays in sync when I drag. Thanx. I guess that's what I'll do but I thought Cakewalk had figured out a way to simply highlight each clip you wanted and then enter a "command" of a few keystrokes that would put all the chosen clips into a new track perfectly in sync and then you just have to 'bounce to clips' to glue them together. Maybe in a future update?

[mettelus 497]

You may be confusing that with Speed Comping as mentioned previously. Shift-dragging moves clips vertically while keeping time (the CTRL makes a copy), but that process is all manual and to be fast you need to have some mouse precision depending on track height. Speed Comping does have all of the "assembly" functions you speak of and has gotten a little more polish with even recent updates. It would be worth kicking the tires on Speed Comping with an open mind. The work flow is different than doing the same with tracks, but the tools it offers are worth knowing.

Below is the original introduction of Comping with X3 from 6 years ago (6 minutes), but the assembly features you are asking for existed then.

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by mettelus

[Blogospherianman 76]

3 hours ago, user390096 said:

"Cntrl + Shift" then drag, I tried that and now at least the timing stays in sync when I drag. Thanx. I guess that's what I'll do but I thought Cakewalk had figured out a way to simply highlight each clip you wanted and then enter a "command" of a few keystrokes that would put all the chosen clips into a new track perfectly in sync and then you just have to 'bounce to clips' to glue them together. Maybe in a future update?

Bounce to track can already do this

[user390096 15]

1 minute ago, Blogospherianman said:

Bounce to track can already do this

Unfortunately, bounce to track hasn't worked for me. It seems to choose only the highest track/clip and render it to the new track, all the other clips are flat-lining. Been using Cakewalk for decades. Maybe there's a bug? Gonna try and get thru the video above and see if I'm doing something wrong.

[user390096 15]

OK, just watched that video from Sonar X3 and remember using it a few years back just like in the video but it certainly doesn't even look the same anymore. My mouse arrow never converts to that I-beam looking bar with several horizontal lines stacked next to it. Hmmm? Gotta find that newer video I guess?

[user390096 15]

Here's the new tutorial video I'm referring to which doesn't work for me. It's the 5th video. Anybody getting it to work?

EXAMPLE: Dragging clips from multiple lanes to blank space below all tracks in the Clips pane will automatically create a new track with the copied lanes

[Blogospherianman 76]

55 minutes ago, user390096 said:

Unfortunately, bounce to track hasn't worked for me. It seems to choose only the highest track/clip and render it to the new track, all the other clips are flat-lining. Been using Cakewalk for decades. Maybe there's a bug? Gonna try and get thru the video above and see if I'm doing something wrong.

You have to highlight all of the tracks you’re wanting to bounce to track.  It will work when done properly.  

[Starship Krupa 3,308]

Yes, you nailed it.

The idea is that at the end of tracking, for each instrument or vocal or whatever, you'll end up with a Track for each of them, with your various takes in clips in one or more Take Lanes down underneath the Tracks. That's what Store Takes in a Single Track is about.

(Sometimes I'll be recording 4 tracks at a time in Loop mode, playing drums (mic'd up kick, snare, and overheads), and wind up with half a dozen takes. If I had it set to Store Takes in Separate Tracks, I'd wind up with 24 tracks)

Then I use the various comping functions to cut, copy, paste, move, split, mute, speed comp, however I want to do it, the various clips. This work is done in the Take Lanes, and once you get the hang of it, you can really fly, especially with speed comping, which doesn't even require moving clips around.

When you have it all assembled, you can take your comped clips and bounce   them to a single clip if you want; I just leave it as-is and commence to mixin'. I might archive some tracks with unused takes if I want to keep them.