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Old 01-26-2010, 01:20 PM   #93
airon
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Berlin
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I'd like to add the following argument in support for edit groups.

Reaper has ripple editing for selected tracks and all tracks. Now imagine you have your new reference tracks from an change OMF or AAF, and the tracks of the session that need to be reconformed.

Tracks A1-8 are the reference tracks, and tracks Dia1-Dia12 are the dialog tracks you're conforming to the new cut.

For each operation, be it cutting or inserting frames, adding, deleting or moving scenes, the Dia1-Dia12 tracks have to be selected.

Edit groups relieve you of that. You put Dia1-Dia12 in to an edit group and everything you edit on one track is done to all others in that edit group. This is not parameter sharing(that's mix groups). It's edit sharing, which Reaper has a hard time doing anyway.

For example, say you want to cut two seconds from a scene that has items on several tracks. First you have to select the tracks, then you select the items, then you setup the time selection, and then you have to invoke a command hidden in the depths of the action list, which doesn't work the way we need it !!! If ripple edit for selected tracks is active you're likely to get a mess. IF you activate global ripple editing, it's done to all tracks. If you use "Time Selection: remove contents of time selection", it does it to all tracks, regardless of track selection.

If you want your rippling cut action to apply only to a few selected tracks, you can't, if it involves only pieces of some items, especially pieces that are in at the start of items for example. Simply test for yourself to see what I mean.

Because Reaper has no Area Selection and no Edit Groups, the standard CUT or DELETE command cannot be used for such endeavors. With Area Selection and Edit Groups one would simply need to click and drag to mark the area in ..one..track..., and then just hit delete, and that area deletion would be performed on all tracks in the edit group. It wouldn't matter if part of an item or just empty space were on the other tracks. If ripple edit for selected tracks were on, all tracks in the edit group would get rippled correctly.

Hence, edit groups and area selection are time-saving features that prevent having to spend massive amounts of time on manually performing uncreative mundane tasks, where mistakes can cost you very dearly indeed. And Reapers current flexibility on the one hand(so many commands that do the same thing because of the object-only editing), and lack thereof on the other(no area selection and edit groups) are holding Reaper down on all of the described scenarios.

You want to cut out a drum verse, just on the drum tracks, but some drum tracks only start having material somewhere in the middle ? Tough. If someone has a method that doesn't involve forum research, I'll gladly stand corrected.
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Last edited by airon; 01-26-2010 at 01:25 PM.
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