Comp mode question

[jono grant]

Hi, I'm still getting used to the comping features in the take lanes. Actually, I'm not really using that feature, I just keep accidentally clicking the lower half of the clips and muting all the other ones...

If I accidentally mute the other clips, how do I get them all back and un-muted?

Thanks

J

[Starship Krupa]

Please give some more context.

When you do this, have you recorded multiple audio takes, or multiple MIDI takes, or assembled an arrangement from loops, or what?

Do you have clips in groups?

My understanding of the way the Comping tool is supposed to work in this mode is that whatever you've selected with it becomes unmuted and everything else gets muted. So it should be a matter of deselecting whatever clip(s) you accidentally selected.

I just tried it a bit and the selections seem to respond to Ctrl+Z, so give that a try.

 

[jono grant]

41 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Please give some more context.

When you do this, have you recorded multiple audio takes, or multiple MIDI takes, or assembled an arrangement from loops, or what?

Do you have clips in groups?

My understanding of the way the Comping tool is supposed to work in this mode is that whatever you've selected with it becomes unmuted and everything else gets muted. So it should be a matter of deselecting whatever clip(s) you accidentally selected.

I just tried it a bit and the selections seem to respond to Ctrl+Z, so give that a try.

 

I record a few things onto one track, open the lanes which show the different tracks on their own lane. Click the lower half of one and the others mute. I've been able to revert back using "undo" as you mention, but sometimes I don't notice it until several moves later so I don't want to use undo. I have to go through and manually un-mute them by selecting each clip in a lane and pressing "Q" to un-mute.  I've tried re-clicking the lower half of one to get it back but it keeps muting different things and driving me crazy...I'm not doing anything in particular to group them, I don't think. Is there a simple way to just have all the lanes un-mute?Thanks

Edited March 2, 2019 by jono grant

[Starship Krupa]

Okay, I think I see. It looks like you've maybe sometimes been using Take Lanes to record different elements that you want to hear simultaneously.

If you're working with different musical elements that you want to have playing at the same time, that's not really what lanes are for. Lanes are where different takes (or versions) of the same thing go so that you can cut and stitch them all together to make one finished track.

For instance, I have a Snare track, and I could have 3 Take Lanes, all with clips of stuff I'm stitching together to make my eventual Snare track. Those clips in my case have the recorded audio of my own drum performances, and in the future if I start working with this stuff they could also be audio loops or samples. But I don't have things in there that aren't the snare track, I don't put in synth stuff or hi hat or whatever. Those belong in other Tracks of their own.

If you want to work with several different things that are playing at once, take your clips and drag them to their own new Tracks. That's the paradigm difference. Lanes are a workspace where you have the elements of whatever is going to make up a finished Track (in the form of Clips). Once that track (and the other tracks in the project) is assembled, you proceed to the mixing process.

Used as intended, there's rarely a time when you'd want to hear overlapping sounds in Take Lanes.* That's why the Comp Tool automatically mutes the other lanes. It's because in normal use, you'd not want to be hearing them. It's set up so that the clip that you're working with is the one that plays, and if you want to hear the stuff in the other lanes, it's probably time to give them their own tracks.

While tracking, you might record two takes of rhythm guitar or lead vocal that sound great and want to use both in the final track, but in order to do that, the practice is that once you've decided on it, to take one of the clips and move it to its own track. That way, everything can be panned, have its level adjusted, etc.

*As a mixing engineer, I sometimes,as a joke, will unmute all 12 take lanes of the lead vocal and then Solo the track so that it sounds like Satan's Barbershop Quartet, but then I'm kind of odd. Normal people don't act like that.

[msmcleod]

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with using take lanes as a way of building up a more complex part made up of all the takes.

This is exactly what sound-on-sound mode is all about.

If you want comping, use comp mode, otherwise use sound-on-sound.

I don't find overwrite mode particularly useful. I'd rather use sound-on-sound with mute-previous-takes enabled - at least then I can go back to previous takes if necessary.

[jono grant]

I do normally put things on their own track if they need to be. I have it set for sound on sound as well.

I might have a bunch of clips of one instrument on the same track that have cross-fades for instance. It's one of the great feature of Sonar/Cakewalk that there is no restriction as you what you put in one track, as long as you know what you're doing. In many cases, it's midi, you might have a bunch of clips that all trigger the same midi sound etc. and don't want to have tons of tracks in your session. Many of my files have over 100 tracks in some cases, if I had a separate track for every different cross-faded clip or added midi harmony etc. the file would get very messy.

I just kind of liked how "layers" worked in previous versions. The new features are cool but a little confusing for me to get the work flow happening.

I guess I'll look for some good tutorial vids online. The ones I've looked at perhaps aren't detailed enough.

J

 

[Starship Krupa]

Okay, sorry, it happened again, I misunderstood. I fully agree that using lanes that way is logical when we're talking multi-timbral instruments or the same instrument playing different parts. What I was referring to was an audio track with multiple takes.

That's why I asked "MIDI or audio."

The way I do it is with a single instrument track with multiple MIDI tracks feeding it, but I haven't gotten as far as trying crossfades with that method.

Where I trip up when discussing Lanes with people is that they work differently, but more importantly, as in your case, the goals can be different, when the medium is MIDI rather than audio.

When you said "record," I assumed audio, but of course one records MIDI as well.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Starship Krupa