feature request Feature Request: Sound on Sound with Merge while recording MIDI

[Rene Pedersen]

Hi there,

I have for a very long time wondered why it is necessary to "Bounce to clips" every time you record midi on top of another midi clip, as in most other DAWs (If not all) you have the option to just merge new recording into the same clip when you record on top of it and then the notes show up on the clip, instead of having multiple takes overlapping and having to mark all the clips and run the "Bounce to clips" function to get this effect?

Is there some kind of setting I am not aware of, or is this the expected way of it to be working?

Thank you in advance.

Edited January 5 by Rene Pedersen
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[Glenn Stanton]

not sure, but not an issue for me. when i open the PRV i see all the MIDI on the track regardless of number of clips or takes on that track. so it's later that if i know i'm going to copy the MIDI onto another track, i'll select the clips, bounce to clip (almost instant) and continue. 

[GreenLight]

On 1/5/2024 at 2:48 AM, Rene Pedersen said:

Hi there,

I have for a very long time wondered why it is necessary to "Bounce to clips" every time you record midi on top of another midi clip, as in most other DAWs (If not all) you have the option to just merge new recording into the same clip when you record on top of it and then the notes show up on the clip, instead of having multiple takes overlapping and having to mark all the clips and run the "Bounce to clips" function to get this effect?

Is there some kind of setting I am not aware of, or is this the expected way of it to be working?

Thank you in advance.

Good idea, Rene! S "sound on sound" recording mode for MIDI would save us some more clicks! Faster workflows for everyone! 👍

[David Baay]

...until you accidentally merge takes that were meant to be separate. Then you'll be asking for a "Smart Unmerge" feature. ;^)

 

 

[Rene Pedersen]

@Noel Borthwick and @Morten Saether is this something that could potentially be implemented in Sonar, please?

Edited January 26 by Rene Pedersen

[Glenn Stanton]

On 1/16/2024 at 4:26 PM, David Baay said:

...until you accidentally merge takes that were meant to be separate. Then you'll be asking for a "Smart Unmerge" feature. ;^)

MIDI take lanes 😉 

Edited January 26 by Glenn Stanton

[David Baay]

Not sure what you’re getting at. OP is asking for takes to be merged into the same clip. Once you do that there’s no easy undo in a lot of cases.

[OutrageProductions]

The SOS record feature is in essence already a merge, with the added functionality of undo or selective edit using take lanes. Once satisfaction is achieved, BtC commits.

If this is implemented, I would request a toggle setting in Preferences so that I don't ever have to use it. 

[John Vere]

When you read these ideas you realize how we all have such totally different workflows. 
I hate it when I start working on what started as a pure midi file and find out the default setting of comping is turned on. All my templates are Overdub mode. 
Just now that happened to me and when I opened PRV to edit my 10 th and final take only to find PRV a total mess of notes! 
All 10 takes were there stacked up. 
It was easy to open the lanes and delete all but take 10. But it super annoying to me that the default is this instead of Overdub like most DAWs. Funny Cakewalk Next default is Overdub. 
 

Edited January 26 by John Vere

[GreenLight]

19 hours ago, John Vere said:

When you read these ideas you realize how we all have such totally different workflows.

So true!

The more people understand that, the better. We would be more likely support feature requests for implementing features for workflows different than one's own. I mean, I'm all for Cakewalk supporting many different kind of workflows.

[John Vere]

12 minutes ago, GreenLight said:

I'm all for Cakewalk supporting many different kind of workflows.

Absolutely.  When I first tried Cakewalk I was 100% midi editing in DrT KCS event list. As we know Cakewalks event list is limited and the PRV is for the details. I think it took me a few years before I finally gave in and started using it. My event list workflow was over 15 year old. 
So it’s probably a good thing Cakewalks event list sucks as it forced me to learn to use a much better tool. 
And my overdub preferences are directly descended from the days of analog recording gear. Bad take! Record over it!  Why would I want to keep a bad take?  Workflow habit that is 40 years old. 

Edited January 27 by John Vere

[Rene Pedersen]

I mean, if you want to still use take lanes that's fine, but at least let me see all the MIDI data in the main clip when it's not expanded to show all take lanes, instead of stacking every recording on top of each other as multiple clips...?

I understand that people like the freedom of not having to commit to a final clip and losing control of each take/recorded lane. But it's a problem that can be fixed with a simple visibility change of how a clip looks with take lanes.

[Glenn Stanton]

i only really use the MIDI take lanes when i'm recording someone who want to do multiple takes over a given loop, but most times its much simpler - do the take, ok? try again, ok? repeat... 🙂 because in those situations i'm recording audio of the instrument (keys, guitar, MIDI horn etc) and sometimes their vocals as well. for myself, in general, i do all the MIDI composition outside of the DAW.

[Rene Pedersen]

Here is a good example of what I am looking for:

When you have multiple takes on 1 track it shows as clips stacked on top of each other, but you don't see both takes, because they are overlapping and takes are collapsed:



 

Here is the track with take lanes expanded, now you can see all the MIDI data in the top clip for both takes:



What is the logic behind this behaviour? Surely even more so, all the data should be visible on the top clip when it's not expanded, so you have all the data from each take visible, right? 🤔

If the above were to be changed to show all MIDI data on the top clip when having lanes, my pet peeve would be resolved, but also everybody else will still be happy as well, because you still have all the take lanes available for individual edits and no need to unmerge anything.

Edited January 27 by Rene Pedersen

[John Bradley]

The way midi tracks display when there are overlapping clips has been annoying me forever. And CW just loves creating them when you play around editing in the PRV long enough and start copy/pasting or ctrl-drag-and-dropping, or whatever. I’ve never once wanted overlapping midi clips, but there ya go.

I’m used to bouncing them back to a single flat clip and re-splitting them at my markers (and losing my edited clip names in the process), but yeah, if the Track View wasn’t lying to me by saying there’s no notes (or fewer notes) where there blatantly are some, I probably wouldn’t care about the overlapping clips thing.

—-

FWIW, my use case is “I never record any midi; I compose & ‘type it in’ in the PRV.”

Edited January 28 by John Bradley

[Rene Pedersen]

2 hours ago, John Bradley said:

The way midi tracks display when there are overlapping clips has been annoying me forever. And CW just loves creating them when you play around editing in the PRV long enough and start copy/pasting or ctrl-drag-and-dropping, or whatever. I’ve never once wanted overlapping midi clips, but there ya go.

I’m used to bouncing them back to a single flat clip and re-splitting them at my markers (and losing my edited clip names in the process), but yeah, if the Track View wasn’t lying to me by saying there’s no notes (or fewer notes) where there blatantly are some, I probably wouldn’t care about the overlapping clips thing.

—-

FWIW, my use case is “I never record any midi; I compose & ‘type it in’ in the PRV.”

Exactly, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

I also found out that if you have stacked notes in the PRV and you mark all of them and you want to transpose them up or down, you can't select multiple notes by marking them, because when you do, it also selects the ones below that I didn't want to move...

CbB seems to have a lot of silly things like this spread throughout, and it's messing too much with my workflow that I will have to look elsewhere to do my composing. I really wanted to get into using it as my daily driver, but it just keeps throwing shade at me, when I'm trying to do simple things.

It's not really because I don't know how to use it properly, it's because I'm trying to do something and the program gives me resistance and says "Nope, I see what you are trying to do, but you will have to do it in a less intuitive way, at the expense of being pulled out of your creative flow".

Edited January 28 by Rene Pedersen

[Glenn Stanton]

for composing and arranging outside of the DAW, i use Hookpad, Musescore, Scaler 2, and depending on granularity, the NI Session instrument patterns, EZ products (generate and grid edit), and the Ample "riff" mechanisms to get instrument specific "subsections". then some additional bits like Arpeggiators, Chordz, and other note to chord type translators to add elements.

for the EZ Keys, Bass, Drums, i'll re-create the arrangement chords in EZK, get it the way i like it, then take it over the EZB and EZD (if i think the drums could be more interesting), and get those to where i think they'll play well.

usually, if the arrangements in MIDI are good, then importing and applying those tracks in my recording template, are fairly fast. some selection of instruments, and some edits, but if there are significant arrangement changes that i want to make, i simply go back to the MIDI source(s) and regenerate, re-import into the project with the already selected instrumentation.

this keeps things sync'd consistently for only some moderate extra work.

most of the rendering is then done in the DAW and i can export the tracks (as well as intermediate WAV and MP3) for import into the mix template (which has all the routing, typical effects and settings etc). which at this point is effectively the same as if getting client files to mix.

Edited January 28 by Glenn Stanton

[David Baay]

8 hours ago, John Bradley said:

The way midi tracks display when there are overlapping clips has been annoying me forever. And CW just loves creating them when you play around editing in the PRV long enough and start copy/pasting or ctrl-drag-and-dropping, or whatever. I’ve never once wanted overlapping midi clips, but there ya go.

If you show lanes, you get a composite clip in the parent track, and the unwanted lane/clip/overlap creation when editing is likely due to having Non-Destructive MIDI Editing enabled in Preferences > Customization > Editing.

[David Baay]

6 hours ago, Rene Pedersen said:

I also found out that if you have stacked notes in the PRV and you mark all of them and you want to transpose them up or down, you can't select multiple notes by marking them, because when you do, it also selects the ones below that I didn't want to move...

Not sure what you mean by "marking" or "stacking"...? Can you give a specific example?

EDIT: All this discussion about editing should really be taken to a new thread since this FR is about recording.

Edited January 28 by David Baay

[Rene Pedersen]

24 minutes ago, David Baay said:

Not sure what you mean by "marking" or "stacking"...? Can you give a specific example?

EDIT: All this discussion about editing should really be taken to a new thread since this FR is about recording.

If you have 2 midi notes overlapping on the same key in PRV, when you try to select just the top one, it also selects the one underneath, unless you click on each note one at a time. (This is when you hold right mouse click and drag to mark multiple notes)