Hide empty tracks

[jkoseattle]

Simple question: Is there any way to hide empty tracks? I'm trying to reduce clutter in TV so I've done away with track folders completely because I can't remove those "ghost clips" which look exactly like real clips but serve little purpose, and now I'd like to be able to quickly hide empty tracks so I'm just looking at the piece I'm working on and not a bunch of instruments I'm not using.

[Robert Bone]

Well, I happen to love track folders, because I can easily collapse or expand them, to display or hide groups of tracks.

For instance, I have track templates set up for every drum synth drum kit I use, where each kit piece has its own audio track, etc., and when working on anything other than the drums, I collapse that folder, and poof - 12-16 tracks collapse.

For audio and midi tracks that are not part of a track template, I tend to create a track folder for my audio tracks, and another for all the midi tracks, and if I am tracking or editing midi, I will often collapse the audio tracks track folder, since any of those that are there for the audio coming from the soft-synths are empty until I bounce/freeze, again quickly collapsing/expanding sizable numbers of tracks.

SO - I suggest you look at organizing your tracks into groups of them, based on seeing them when working on them, and collapsing them when working on others, and that will help keep the clutter down.

Also, if you have a number of tracks in a track folder, where it is a combo of audio, midi, and synth tracks (synth tracks are the audio tracks connected to soft synth audio output), you can quickly hide or display one or more of those three groups of those tracks.  Simply click on the downward-pointing double-arrow on the right side of the track folder, and it will open up a drop-down that allows you to hide/display any of those 3 groups of tracks in the track folder, by just clicking on any of the three categories the expansion of the track folder shows.

Also, you can hide individual track folders, by right-clicking on one, and clicking on Hide Track Folder, and can use the Show All Tracks and Buses option in the Tracks tab in the Track Pane, or also in the Tracks tab options, you can selectively hide or display tracks, folders, or groups of tracks, using the Track Manager - which is in those Tracks tab options - and it has a shortcut key binding of 

In that same drop down menu - when you click on the Tracks tab, in the Track Pane, you can hide selected tracks, by first having them selected, via quick grouping them, and clicking on the Tracks Tab, then click on Hide Track.  You can display them again, by clicking again on Tracks tab, and clicking on Show All Tracks and Buses, or you can selectively display them again using the Track Manager (in the Track tab options).

Of the above, the quickest way to deal with hiding or display selected individual tracks, groups of tracks (synth, audio, midi), or track folders, is through using the Track Manager, and using its shortcut key binding 'H' to bring it up or to close it again.  This is quick, and not difficult to remember, once you have done it a time or two.

Bob Bone

[jkoseattle]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Muchof this stuff i'm already aware of, but not all, so I picked up a few tips! 

We are actually doing things very similarly. I have one track folder for all my vocals, which I'm keeping. I also have a track folder called "Dummy" that has half a dozen scratch tracks. Everything else is instrument tracks, of which there about about 40. Used to be that sections each had their own folder. Now sections are distinguished by track colors (which reflect the output bus). Where I used to have track folders for "Band", "Strings", "Percussion", "Brass" etc., now I'm relying on the colors.

The big problem I have with track folders, which your post doesn't address, is that it shows clips representing the aggregate of all the clips in that folder's tracks. I don't want this. Say for example I have a piece with a violin, bass gtr, flute and xylophone. In my previous setup each of these instruments resided in a different track folder, so in addition to the clips for the four instruments, there are these useless "folder clips" as well, so my TV screen looks like there are eight tracks with data in them, only that four of them are fake news as they are these track folder aggregate things. Once things start to get thick, and different instruments come in and out over the course of the piece, and you can see how this would get unnecessarily cluttered.

I do use the H shortcut all the time, but what I was hoping for would be another button in the Track Manager labeled "Empty" that would allow me to toggle empty tracks.

[Robert Bone]

Sure - that makes sense - also glad something usable came from my earlier response.

I use all caps when naming track folders, and that makes it easier for me to distinguish them from real tracks, visually - it is not perfect, but after doing it that way for a while, I kind of can tune those out, just from the corner of my eye seeing the capitalized track folder name.

The track folders aren't displayed on the console view, if that helps any, and perhaps if you grouped tracks that were set up and empty, into an empty tracks folder, you could hide that whole folder until you were ready to populate one or more of them, and then you could selectively display those again, and quickly move them into whatever folder the would really belong in.  (quick random thought there).

I normally only have 3 track folders in my projects - all audio tracks, all midi tracks (except drums), and then the drums midi track and its audio tracks for the kit pieces - brought in as a track template, and I always have the audio tracks displayed first - in an AUDIO TRACKS folder, followed by midi tracks in a MIDI TRACKS folder, and then the drum tracks in a DRUM TRACKS folder.  I also hide midi tracks when using the console view, and I pick a color and make all midi tracks that same color, just for the visual cue - and audio tracks are in colored by groups, like backing vocals, lead vocals, keys, guitars.  It is MIGHTILY helpful to hide the midi tracks from the console view.

I do agree with you, that it would be nice to have a way to quickly selectively or globally hide/display empty tracks.  I would also love to see nested track folders

Bob Bone

[user 905133]

27 minutes ago, Robert Bone said:

I also hide midi tracks when using the console view, and I pick a color and make all midi tracks that same color, just for the visual cue - and audio tracks are in colored by groups, like backing vocals, lead vocals, keys, guitars.  It is MIGHTILY helpful to hide the midi tracks from the console view.

We all have preferred settings/configurations to help focus our attention; so, this is more of a footnote for an option others might want to consider. (I am assuming you don't want to change what already works for you.) It is possible (using Theme Editor) to set the text color for the names of audio, midi, and instrument tracks (a) in the Track View and (b) in the Console View*. [*For some reason, my console track name text colors aren't showing up.]

And I agree, being able to hide types of tracks in the Console View is handy!

Oh, and I looked up to see if empty tracks could have their own text and background colors [think "greyed out"]; unfortunately, there aren't corresponding colors for empty tracks.

[jkoseattle]

Funny, I also keep track folder names in all caps. I also put a bunch of spaces before the name so that track folder names are indented. But no more, since they're gone now.

OK, so Bob, you've given me a great compromise idea here. I'm going to keep the track colors for sections, which is handy, but I'm going to put every track I haven't used yet into a big empty Tracks folder. Then when I decide I want to use a certain instruments, I'll just take it out.

So.... this is what I have now in my "Jim Anything" template: 

DUMMY folder - a couple piano tracks, a couple organ tracks, for instrumental and vocal line scratch pads. These instruments are the quick loading TruePianos and DimensionLE. all other instruments are unloaded, so that should an idea strike I can open a new project quickly (important!).

VOCAL folder - contains a dozen or so audio tracks for leads, BGV, etc., with the buses and everything already set up. I usually don't record vocals until later on down the line, so this is ok

UNUSED folder - contains about 40 tracks, colored by section, all ready to go except their instruments are unloaded. When I want to bring an instrument into the fray, I will drag it out of the UNUSED track folder. It son't be in a folder at all in fact.

DRUM OUTPUT folder - contains all the audio outputs for my drums, only used at mixdown time. In fact, I should just hide this folder.

This is gonna be great!

Edited November 10, 2019 by jkoseattle

[Robert Bone]

YAY!  Good news, there, @jkoseattle - compromise - one of my favorite words, right next to 'My way, or the highway'.  hee hee

And, @User 905133, I like the notion of the colors in the Track Pane, for the different kinds of tracks.

Hope it works out well for you and your brain, seems like it ought to help some. 

Bob Bone