Working with lanes - recording MIDI controllers in "Sound on Sound" mode

[Elena Kolpakova]

So here's the thing. I have a synth track. It has one MIDI lane with melody (note events). Now I want to record some modulation from my MIDI keyboard, e.g. mod wheel, pitch wheel, whatever other controllers as MIDI events, not automation envelops. I want to store these recordings as takes separate from melody so that I could drag and edit them independently from each other.

My idea was to use lanes: add a lane, arm it, start recording. The recording mode was set to "Sound on Sound" as I obviously didn't need the "Comping" in this case and even more obviously didn't want to lose the pre-existing data with "Overwrite". So "Sound on Sound" it was.

However, this idea didn't work because the moment I hit the record button, the melody from the first lane got muted just like you'd expect it to happen in "Comping" mode. But I'm using "Sound on Sound", so why? Is this a bug for MIDI content on lanes? So annoying.

I mean obviously the only solution left is to record to another track and drag-and-drop the recorded clip to a new lane on the original track. And/or use track folders to organise takes for the single synth. I don't really like the latter idea though and would really have preferred to use lanes for this. Am I asking for too much, am I missing some other option, or is this a bug?

Edited October 2, 2022 by Helene Kolpakova

[David Baay]

Arming at the lane level is causing this (intended behavior I think). Just arm at the track level and let "Sound on Sound" and "Re-use Except When Takes Overlap" do its thing (personally I prefer to force 'Create New Lane' for every new take for total predictability).

Edited October 2, 2022 by David Baay

[Elena Kolpakova]

Hmm, that seems a bit counter-intuitive to me, but I'll try your suggestion. It unfortunately implies a loss of control on which lane the recorded data ends up sitting.

If I choose "Re-use Except When Takes Overlap" option then there's a chance that some CC data will be split among lanes, like in case some data starts before and/or after the notes.

And if I choose "Create New Lane", then I always end up with way too many blank lanes and it will be impossible to record the same controller to the same lane in two consequent takes.

So both options in this case imply some extra editing after the recording is complete. And that's exactly what I wanted to avoid by arming the specific lane.

I don't really understand the "intended behaviour" logic though. Why would this be intended? Would love if you could elaborate on that. There's probably an intended use case I'm totally missing, and it'd be helpful to know it.

 

[David Baay]

7 hours ago, Helene Kolpakova said:

If I choose "Re-use Except When Takes Overlap" option then there's a chance that some CC data will be split among lanes, like in case some data starts before and/or after the notes.

This isn't likely to happen because there would be no point in recording controllers that don't overlap a clip with notes in it and CbB will not split the events of a single take across lanes. That said, I've encountered issues in the past with take lanes getting out of order or clips being layered in the same lane when using the Re-Use option so I just have it set to Create New and do the housekeeping as necessary - not that much i my workflow.

I don't really have any insight into why arming a track also effectively solos that lane. I just know that it does it for both MIDI and Audio tracks and that it's not the kind of thing that would happen incidentally without being deliberately programmed so I've always presumed it was deliberate.