Extension Request - Cuetrack from track selection

[airon]

SWS and other folks coding extensions. Here's a request for a frighteningly useful function for all recording people(i.e. everyone here).

"Create Cue Bus Track from selected tracks"

This entire idea stems from a feature request that Lawrence posted two months ago in this thread.


The user selects a bunch of tracks, then activates this function, which would do the following :

1. Create a new track named "Cue Bus 1" or progressively numbered.
   
2. Each of the selected tracks gets a new PRE-FADER(post-fx) SEND targeted at the new Cue Bus track. (Pre-Fader-Post-FX is the default)
   
3. Now the difficult part. A small requester pops up with some check-boxes(and more, see the additional functions section). These check-boxes give the user the choice of copying the the Volume, Pan and Mute states and/or the automation of the tracks Volume, Pan and Mute to the sends.

Benefits and uses

1. I-N-S-T-A-N-T Headphone mixes that include all automation.
   
2. sub-mix bus creation
   
3. alternate mixes

Additional functions and dialogue details

Pop-up dialogue with the check-boxes also offers :

• a check-box each for volume, pan and mute state
• a check-box each for volume, pan and mute automation
  
• dropdown selector that defaults to Create New Cue Bus Track but also gives the user the choice to pick any existing track as a target.
  
• a hardware output instead of the standard Master/Parent flag with a choice of which hardware out to pick. Standard dropdown box. Saves doing a whole bunch of actions.
  
• Name field to name the newly created track
  
• Send mode selection via dropdown box(if possible). Pre-FX, Pre-fader-post-fx and post-fader.
  

Additional functions

• couldn't think of any just now.... anyone ?

Here's the shot by Lawrence, that illustrates it well:


note: this shot was uploaded to imageshack to save some bandwidth

[musicbynumbers]

That would be amazing!

I have a feeling that it's semi possible to do the first part with dragging and dropping those tracks (in a certain way) straight on to your headphone track but this way would add much more

Can everyone vote for the ability to have a solo ignore function so you can solo whilst recording without affecting headphone mixes. I'm typing this from my phone so can't find the link but it's there under my name somewhere and it's already got quite a few votes

[MikeLacey]

powerful idea...

[airon]

Originally Posted by musicbynumbers

That would be amazing!

I have a feeling that it's semi possible to do the first part with dragging and dropping those tracks (in a certain way) straight on to your headphone track but this way would add much more

Can everyone vote for the ability to have a solo ignore function so you can solo whilst recording without affecting headphone mixes. I'm typing this from my phone so can't find the link but it's there under my name somewhere and it's already got quite a few votes

That would be this thread here: http://forum.cockos.com/project.php?issueid=393

You're right, that's necessary. Reaper already has the smartest Solo function I ever saw, but this is missing. It preserves all tracks that receive stuff from solo'ed tracks, but pre-fader headphone mixes would be royally screwed. I'm not entirely sure this is even possible with the way Reaper mutes tracks right now. You, the engineer want to solo in to a particular track, but leave the headphone mix/sends intact. That means those tracks feeding it can't be muted, or rather, the sends feeding the hardware out or bus track for the HP mix can't be.

When muting, everything goes quiet on a track. All sends, even pre-faders and pre-fx. The mute doesn't sit where we anticipated it would. It's right at the start of the signal chain, something nobody actually ever wanted, but which may seem practical to the developers. I have no idea whether that's true or not.

[musicbynumbers]

Thanks for finding it

I think it would work if when you solo a track all headphone tracks with "solo ignore" enabled would invisibly solo at the same time you solo a track you wanted to listen to via the main outs.

I think this even works as it is.

[Jeffos]

I made a first implementation of this action: look for "Cuetrack from track selection" in the latest SWS/Xen extensions build (and let me know what you think of it).

This action create a bus (new track "Cue Bus") with Pre-Fader-Post-FX receives automatically created for selected track(s): selected track(s) -> "Cue bus". For quick set-up, it also opens the I/O window for the created bus. The original thread idea is here: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=43935
The current implementation is simplier, but could be refined later (prompt for
track name, etc..)
- SWS/S&M: Cuetrack from track selection

[airon]

Good one. Works nicely here.

Things to let the user pick for the Cue Bus track could be :

• Name entry as you already mentioned (keyboard focus on this)
• Track Template(first track only I suppose) - dropdown menu?
• FX Chain - dropdown menu? last used for cue bus ?
• Hardwareoutput - dropdown meun ?
• Send to other track - dropdown menu ?
• Colour - SWS colour patch ?
• Presets that hold all the above choices - quick pick your Cue Bus track type

Bit wild, but there you go. The possibilities are endless .

The track template and fx chain drowndowns should be side by side, as picking one will generally mean you're not picking the other. POssibly the same for the send and hardware output drowdowns. Preset picker at the very top, to look as much like the preset system of plugins as possible, maybe even with the same widgets at the side to add a preset.

This is not a request, just a bunch of ideas.

[Jeffos]

Thanks for the feedback, Airon.

As you can see, in comparison with the initial description, I simply chosen to open the cue bus I/O window. I found it worked fine...

About your ideas: if you should put a priority on them, what is it? for it's 1.Hardwareoutput selection 2. prompt for name

[airon]

Others should chip in here. I'm not the primary user for this feature. Most of the time I'll be using this to bus stuff, and I know my way around Reaper routing.

Folks with Cueing concerns will need the hardware outs the most. Each of the ideas just save you a bunch of extra clicks. Maybe nobody needs the track template idea, or the extra send capability.

For me they're all equally important, so take your pick .

The hardware send/track sends are great for cues, bussing and plain routing of fx send tracks that you create this way.

The colour patch is great for organizing your session. Some folks might want to access the config panel of the SWS colour patches too. Direct way and all.

The track template is basically for getting fx, colour, pan, levels and track performance settings done in one go. Folks like BBB might go for this. I'd be putting FX send tracks, busses and master tracks together in this manner. The FX chain is a similar deal, just being a subset of the above.

One of two things I forgot to mention is having the sends on the selected track be configurable as pre-fx/pre-fader-post-fx/post-fader. That stuff cannot be changed without accessing each send individually, so I'd rate that above the others.

Second, and this is the biggest of them all and therefore lower on priority, copying the volume, pan and mute automation to the send automation lanes(no need for those to show up though). Looooads of automation might be going on, and a cue bus is supposed to be a carbon copy of that to start with. Since this is a biggy and definitely needs the yes/no checkbox, it's lower in priority I'd say. Not a whole lot of cats that need this either, but it's there for a reason in the very same function in PT.

[musicbynumbers]

This is great jeffos! Didn't know it was you behind that one!

I agree with what airon said above. For me pre or post fader is a good option. Are you thinking it might be possible to create a option box for this? If so.. WOW!

The last thing we need is to all vote no allowing us to make these cue busses ignore solo's (so the control engineer can solo without interrupting the musicians).

I put a vote fr in for this but can't link as i'm typing from my phone. Will link to it when i get the chance. Keep up the good work!

[Futures_Untold]

This really makes using Reaper a dream!

Here's a quick action list to create an FX bus.

SWS/S&M: Cue track from track selection (prompt)
SWS/S&M: Close all I/O windows
View -> Show FX browser

Thanks for making this happen!

[bradysound]

This would be great. Solo safe and pre mute options are the two things missing from REAPER that keep me using PT on tracking dates.

[Jeffos]

Originally Posted by Christof

One thing I'd like to have (though this seems not very easy):
I'd like to set up a mix on my faders and copy that mix to the Cue-Bus.
For monitors I'm using a pre-fade send, so it would be just GREAT, if the fader-values could be copied so the value of the pre-fade-send would be just the same as the faders.

-> done in latest SWS extension.

Also, as a non native english speaker, I don't understand "Cuetrack", so I've renamed those actions into "Create Cue Bus Track from selected tracks" as proposed by Airon.

[Jeffos]

Big update of cue bus actions in the latest SWS extensions (v1.7.2 #1), it begins to look like a feature:



Added "true" GUI:
=> new action "Open cue bus window" (the previous "prompt" action still there too)
=> non-modal: you can change the track selection, undo the cue bus, re-tweak it, .. without losing its parameters
=> the last created cue bus parameters are also remembered (saved in <REAPER_install_dir>\plugins\S&M.ini)
- Cue bus track can now be created from a track template
*OR*
- When the cue bus is configured manually, the GUI allows setting: cue bus name, up to 8 HW outputs, Main/Parent send state and solo-defeat option
- Show routing window (after bus creation) is now optionnal: tick box

.. and reminder: with pre-fade send, the selected tracks' fader-values are copied to sends (so the value of the pre-fade-send is just the same as the track faders).

Enjoy!

[EDIT1] the actions I'm talking about are:
- SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection, Pre-Fader (Post-FX)
- SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection, Post-Fader (Post-Pan)
- SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection, Pre-FX
these 3 actions use the last cue buss parameters (except reveives type) saved in the cue buss window
- SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection
this action uses the last cue buss parameters saved in the cue buss window
- SWS/S&M: Open cue bus window

[EDIT2] last update for SWS extensions v1.7.2 #8

[sws]

Looks great, Jeffos!

[Bevosss]

Awesome Jeffos...I just got an HP4 headphone amp today, so nice timing! I will test her out...

[musicbynumbers]

JEFFOS!!

this is really cool!

Thanks man!

[Bevosss]

Ahhh Jeffos...I might be missing something here, but it doesnt seem to be working as I expected.

First, these 2 actions seem identical:

- SWS/S&M: Open cue bus window-

and

SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection (prompt)

both do the same thing here...?

Open Cue Bus window is very cool once set up, EXCEPT I cannot put it in a macro because it requires a manual Enter and Escape after running it. ( I need to macro it to cut it, select my first track which is my click source, and paste it after that.)

So I thought the other 3 actions would do that automatically, but not here...they create a track called Cue Buss and open the in/out window, but it still needs to be set up manually. I thought receives would be created here automatically from the selected tracks? Judging by the names at least. I refer to:

SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection, Pre-Fader (Post-FX)
- SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection, Post-Fader (Post-Pan)
- SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection, Pre-FX

What I would really like if possible, is after setting up the cue bus window, running the Create Cue Bus From Track Selection would automatically create a Track named Cue Buss with receives from the selected tracks, and Hardware Output as already setup in the Cue Buss window, done...with all routing windows closed. This would be awesome and macro-able.

Apologies if I missed something Jeffos,this is really useful so nice work!

[Bevosss]

If this helps Jeffos, I tried creating a receive in the in/out window afterwards and THEN it created the selected track receive, along with whatever new receive I chose...so it looks like the action has stalled somehow. This is reproducible every time here...hope it helps you debug.

[Jeffos]

thanks all!

Bevosss, yep both do the same thing (kept for compatibility). About the 3 other actions, yes, confirmed too: what you describe for those 3 actions was what they were supposed to do (!) but for some reason, this part of code was not comitted (i.e. those 3 actions behave exactly as before, they don't use last entered params). Very easy to do.. though not possible today: coming soon!

[Jeffos]

hey Bevosss!
sorry but I just get your point in post 19, the point was a bug! Yeah it's worse than what I said, those 3 acions are simply broken, confirmed and fixed. Though, cue bus created with the cue bus window are OK (I should have test the rest too ).
also, do we say "buss" (rather than "bus") ? If so, let me know so that I also put a correct wording in next sws extension build.

Then for those macro improvments, I plan what follows:

Originally Posted by Bevosss

Ahhh Jeffos...I might be missing something here, but it doesnt seem to be working as I expected.

First, these 2 actions seem identical:
- SWS/S&M: Open cue bus window-
and
SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection (prompt)

both do the same thing here...?

ok, there'll be just 1 action ("Create cue bus track from track selection (prompt)" simply renamed into "Open cue bus window")

Originally Posted by Bevosss

Open Cue Bus window is very cool once set up, EXCEPT I cannot put it in a macro because it requires a manual Enter and Escape after running it. ( I need to macro it to cut it, select my first track which is my click source, and paste it after that.)

those 3 actions will now use the last saved cue bus properties (except the receive type which is of course overrided by the action one):
- SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection, Pre-Fader (Post-FX)
- SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection, Post-Fader (Post-Pan)
- SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection, Pre-FX
for macros I also added:
- SWS/S&M: Create cue bus track from track selection, this one will use the last saved cue bus properties

Originally Posted by Bevosss

What I would really like if possible, is after setting up the cue bus window, running the Create Cue Bus From Track Selection would automatically create a Track named Cue Buss with receives from the selected tracks, and Hardware Output as already setup in the Cue Buss window, done...with all routing windows closed. This would be awesome and macro-able.

for the 1st part, yes, see above, then no prob for opening or not routing windows as this is part of the cue bus properties (see tick bow in the cue bus window). so, what you will be able to do:
- open the cue bus window once
- set your favorite cue bus setting (e.g. form track template with "show routing window" unticked )
- "Save properties" (yeah, I've added that button not to force people to create a useless cue bus in order to save the cue bus parameters)
=> now the "Create cue bus track from track selection" will use your favorite parameters

(following another Q) note that a track template includes: bus name, hw outputs, main/parent send state. that's why those fields are grayed when using a template.

[Bevosss]

Sounds great Jeffos, waiting to test it here mate...btw I think buss is technically correct in pro audio, althought perhaps there is a shift in spelling recently? I found this quote regarding that debate:

Yep, I guess you are correct, the website only points to Buss, and Bus. I submit Mackie, Carver, Yamaha, Roland, Trident, Otari, Soundcraft, Biamp, EV/Tapco, and just about every other company that's ever silkscreened a desk just is plain stupid, and I've got a 200,000.00 Tascam desk that is also silkscreened with the word "BUSS" on it for the 48 busses, so I guess the folks at Tascam are just plain ignorant too. So are the editors of Mix, EM, Keyboard, Recording, REP, Sam's Books, CMP, MacPherson, MacMillan, and anyone else who's ever published a book on the subject of bussing.
Adaptec, Tyan, Inko, and other makers of SCSI buss/bus equipment have it all wrong too.
Not to mention that in searching Google for Buss, audio, I came up with more than 1 million references. I happened to be in Home Depot today as well, and noticed that the GE fuse boxes advertise 16 busses. The correct spelling should it have been the word "bus" would be "buses."
It's a point of semantics, but it's also a point of what has been, and in most engineer's minds, still is correct. Pick your battle where you will, but fact is, BUSS has been in use for as long as there have been tools for diverting anything from anywhere to a different destination either via splitting the original source or diverting the original source.
Split hairs (or buss/bus hairs) if you will, but the point remains, both terms are in use, and the term BUSS is very old, very common, and if nothing else by it's sheer history, correct.

Theres also existing sws actions that select/deselect tracks with BUSS (upper case only) if that helps.

[Lawrence]

Who cares how it's spelled bus or buss? It can only be one thing anyway. You'll find "bus" on commercial products all over the place like on the SSL bus compressor...

http://www.solid-state-logic.com/mus...%20compressor/

Or the Euphonix System 5 and many other places.

New Feature! Master Bus Inserts
The D8B v5 software enables you to insert your D8B plug-ins directly into the 8 bus outputs to enable plug-in effects to work with your output bus signal.

I never personally seen a small format modern console listed or named as an 8-bus with two S's. See the original Mackie 8-bus.

[Bevosss]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Who cares how it's spelled bus or buss?

Jeffos since he has to name it haha ...I dont mind either way. This is a great feature!

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by Bevosss

Jeffos since he has to name it haha ...I dont mind either way. This is a great feature!

Yes it is.

Anyway... as current methods for creating cuemixes go Studio One has one of the slickest I've seen and had that been out when I made the original FR I would have suggested it instead. It's not only fully automatic but it's linked.

Easiest cuemix system I've ever used in software daw... especially with their hardware because in that case it all works at zero latency which can be set on an individual channel/send basis.

1. Designate output paths (one or many) for "Cuemix" and the sends get created automatically across the entire mix.
2. Fader and pan settings are matched per channel across the mixer to those sends.
3. The send levels and pans are initially physically linked to the main mix. Moving a channel fader/pan changes the send fader/pan but moving any send control while locked automatically unlocks it from the channel.

With linking you can create one cuemix, unlink it, create another and unlink it, from the main faders/pans without switching outputs or monitoring paths. The whole thing works really well and the cue sends are always separated from the other sends. The little lock icons are for linking the cuemix faders and pans to channel faders and pans.

You can create all of your cue mixes with the channel faders and pans ... which is obviously better than using send controls. When you turn off your cuemix busses all of the cuemix sends disappear from the mixer.

[sightlessness]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Those strip channels belong to which program? Looks very good! Very very good and neat!

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by sightlessness

Those strip channels belong to which program? Looks very good! Very very good and neat!

PreSonus Studio One...

I'm not pimping that host there so, not the intent. I just think the cuemix method is unique so I wanted to describe it. All of these professional hosts copy things from each other anyway and nobody can be best at every single thing so it's good to see how methods differ from host to host.

Case in point, I FR'ed Reaper's "dual stretch at a split point" for S1, and showed a video of it there, since it also doesn't have warping and that method is a really nice and innovative interim solution.

[Jeffos]

What I described in my previous post is available in SWS extensions v1.7.2 #5.

@Bevosss: many thanks for the detailed feedback and report, much appreciated! I would have completely pass-thru the bug otherwise (I tested one thing but released another!)

@Lawrence: not as straight forward, but you can do things like the ones you described in REAPER.. Here, I use another complete different approach for easy sends controls. My own cue buss action (which isn't part of SWS extensions) also automatically generates TCP knobs with the names of received tracks, result shown here:



.. as you can see, then it's very easy to update the cue buss mix (here, on the left, I've just opened the routing window to show you but no need to open it, of course: even no click need, just with the mousewheel!)
As you surely know send controls in the TCP isn't a native feature, among other things, you need SendReaControl for that. If interested:
- get/install the plug here: http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...0&postcount=62. This a REAPER VST extension plugin (it's a bit lost in the depths of the forum right now, I'll start a proper thread about that, one day)
- use the attached track template in the cue buss window.
=> the only difference with my specific action is that you'll have to alias the (and perharps remove some) knobs yourself.

Many other things you can do with that
.. oops! got to go! the buss arrives

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by Jeffos

@Lawrence: not as straight forward, but you can do things like the ones you described in REAPER.. Here, I use another complete different approach for easy sends controls. My own cue buss action (which isn't part of SWS extensions) also automatically generates TCP knobs with the names of received tracks, result shown here:

Yeah, that's very cool. Not quite the same as doing it from the mixer with faders but cool nonetheless. Thank Jeffos.

P.S. In all honestly every pro daw should have a straight away "fader flip" function for cuemixes to flip the faders/pans to any send path. None of my daws have it afaik. I'm not sure why...

[jmcecil]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Yeah, that's very cool. Not quite the same as doing it from the mixer with faders but cool nonetheless. Thank Jeffos.

P.S. In all honestly every pro daw should have a straight away "fader flip" function for cuemixes to flip the faders/pans to any send path. None of my daws have it afaik. I'm not sure why...

Actually, Cubase has a sort of solution for this using a studio mix set. It isn't near this flexible, but you can on the fly route to a cue(s) of your choice. You can do it pre/post fader and panner and fx. The major issue with the Cubase way is that you have to map it all out ahead of time to make it available to the mix. But once done, it does give you good cue support.

[Lawrence]

If I were Justin (or Cakewalk or whomever) I'd just flip the faders (for mixing cues). It seems to be a more ergonomic solution than having a bunch of TCP knobs to control the auxes and/or mixing cues with send panels.

If you've ever worked on a console that had that feature, it's really nice. My d8b flips faders to trims which flips the mixer faders to digital pre-everything trim levels which makes it very easy to trim signals across a large mix before mixing if necessary. I don't recall if the faders flipped to auxes or not, it's been awhile since I actually mixed on it...

... but software daws should be able to (you would think) do all of those kinds of things since all connections are virutal. Not sure why they don't.

Here it is on the Venue .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54WeVsLHulM ... it even flips hi-pass and pan to the channel faders. Daw designers need to (imo) start thinking a little more outside of the box... a daw should do everything an SSL can do.

[Bevosss]

Originally Posted by Jeffos

@Bevosss: many thanks for the detailed feedback and report, much appreciated! I would have completely pass-thru the bug otherwise (I tested one thing but released another!)

Hey Jeffos, no problem...thank YOU for coding this! I can now insert a click track (thanks for that action Tim!) and an automapped cuetrack, with a single shortcut...that is just gold! Saves a lot of setup time on my behalf.

Time to test out your new one with buttons, I will let you know how it goes...cheers!

[Bevosss]

I tried out your vst track template...very nice! When I used it in my macro however (basically cut track-select track 1 only-paste), it crashed Reaper consistently...until I unchecked the Show Cue Buss Routing Window, that fixed it...so I guess theres a bug there somewhere (I toggled this several times to check this). I was testing with Brad Sux, nothing much different there.

Throwing some ideas out there:

1. If the controls could auto-alias/rename to the selected track names, that would be faster.

2. When you expand to show the second line of knobs, instead of staying 1-4 across the top and adding 5-8 below, it moves the knobs into vertical pairs? Not good for consistency (and probably nothing to do with you, just my observation.) Also, if you move a knob in the routing window, the knob doesnt update until you mouse over it. (Cockos problem right?)

3. Is an action possible (Expand Selected Track Height to Show Buttons/whatever) ...it would be great if we could toggle that from any size...the existing Expand Track action minimizes the other tracks, not ideal.

EDIT: well sws - track height B seems to have solved that for now.

Btw where can I get some cool knob icons for this? I assume someone has made some.

Thanks again Jeffos, the timing was immaculate on this, seeing as I just picked up a headphone amplifier the day you first posted the update.

Cheers!

[airon]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Yeah, that's very cool. Not quite the same as doing it from the mixer with faders but cool nonetheless. Thank Jeffos.

P.S. In all honestly every pro daw should have a straight away "fader flip" function for cuemixes to flip the faders/pans to any send path. None of my daws have it afaik. I'm not sure why...

We suggested something like this a long time ago.

IIRC, it was a modifier+click on the send, and all the faders would have flipped to control that send and be left blank(no fader) on tracks that don't have such a send. Same click would have unflipped. Also mentioned was displaying the master/parent out at the bottom at all times, so it could be clicked on as well, but that doesn't seem all that necessary to me.

We saw it as creating submixes a little more easily, be it for cues, fx or bus mixes. It would have been a great way to create multiple mixes without having to bother the control surface authors.

[Jeffos]

Native solo defeat option available in SWS extensions v1.7.2 #8 (ie no more "solo-safe" track grouping option, see updated cue buss window snapshot in post #14)

That's all about that. Now let's do a true thing !