Track Lanes Discussion

[ferropop]

...you can even imagine putting all the COMPS in a folder, and then Solo Markering those - comping the comps.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by ferropop

I've never understood why pointing to other DAWs is frowned upon honestly. In what other situation would pointing to real-world examples with decades of case-studies be seen as a negative. Absolutely bizarre to me.

Only because it's limiting. We can do better than simply copying what Pro Tools does.

[MonkeyBars]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Only because it's limiting. We can do better than simply copying what Pro Tools does.

Yep. In fact, as conceived, the combination of fixed lanes + play markers (+ takes if desired!) will be far more flexible and powerful than simple comping lanes.

[sockmonkey72]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Only because it's limiting. We can do better than simply copying what Pro Tools does.

Definitely looking forward to the proof of that assertion!

[ferropop]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Only because it's limiting. We can do better than simply copying what Pro Tools does.

100%, more just touching on the culture of not being "allowed" to point to other DAWs, and it creating an ick response.

Anyone suggesting to "copy ProTools/Logic/Ableton/Studio1" is just spouting off wishes, with zero considerations. Agreed this is almost useless.

...but we need to be able to say things like "Swipe Comping works amazingly in Logic. Do we need to reinvent that wheel?". They've put 30 years into their DAW, they've made a trillion mistakes along the way and spent a trillion dollars fixing them. Surely there's something useful to be extracted from that?

[vitalker]

Originally Posted by ferropop

...but we need to be able to say things like "Swipe Comping works amazingly in Logic. Do we need to reinvent that wheel?". They've put 30 years into their DAW, they've made a trillion mistakes along the way and spent a trillion dollars fixing them. Surely there's something useful to be extracted from that?

I'm not Ken Enjoyer, but maybe Kenny meant it should be like PT, but better?

[sockmonkey72]

Originally Posted by vitalker

I'm not Ken Enjoyer, but maybe Kenny meant it should be like PT, but better?

I think @ferropop is saying that the simple mention of someone else's implementation is generally a cue for Kenny or WT to pop in to swat people on the knuckles with a ruler for the sin of noting that other people have investigated these same problems in other contexts, and for suggesting that the solutions found in those contexts work pretty well.

I don't think anyone expects, or even wants Cockos to copy someone else's implementation. Being aware of those implementations, and what's good about them (and what, if anything, needs to be improved), seems like a pretty important prerequisite to innovation, though.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by vitalker

I'm not Ken Enjoyer, but maybe Kenny meant it should be like PT, but better?

No. The only thing it needs to be that's similar to Pro Tools is that you can achieve the same result. The goal is to make comping different versions of tracks (lanes) easier. As opposed to items (takes).

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by ferropop

100%, more just touching on the culture of not being "allowed" to point to other DAWs, and it creating an ick response.

I think the most productive way to think about it is to discuss what those DAW's do and the results you get. Mentioning them by name is useless unless the person reading it uses and understands that DAW.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by MonkeyBars

Yep. In fact, as conceived, the combination of fixed lanes + play markers (+ takes if desired!) will be far more flexible and powerful than simple comping lanes.

Fixed lanes by themselves adds a whole new workflow to REAPER.

IOW - Why do I need 16 tracks of Bk Vox when they're all going to be treated the same. Just put them all on one track.

[IrishRover79]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Fixed lanes by themselves adds a whole new workflow to REAPER.

IOW - Why do I need 16 tracks of Bk Vox when they're all going to be treated the same. Just put them all on one track.

Hi Kenny,

As you must be aware (as a Pro Tools as well as Reaper Ninja!), people use PT playlists not only for comping but as a track versioning tool, e.g. for storing backups of tracks etc. So you might have your raw drum tracks from the clients on playlist 1 and your phase aligned drums on playlist 2.

This sort of workflow has always been hard in Reaper - though there are some great scripts on Reapack that help you do something similar.

Are fixed item lanes meant as a solution to that problem as well as the whole swipe comping thing?

If so, it would be great if we could be able to view just one playlist/version/fixed item lane at a time, and have some actions/keyboard shortcuts to scroll backwards and forwards through them. I have suggested this on a thread for a recent dev build but no love from Schwa yet.... :-)

[ferropop]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

I think the most productive way to think about it is to discuss what those DAW's do and the results you get. Mentioning them by name is useless unless the person reading it uses and understands that DAW.

For sure, which makes it incumbent on the devs/advisors to be intimately familiar with the other DAWs when developing a feature that has existed in them for decades. I don't get the sense that this is the case, given that Justin and Schwa both have directly said not only do they not use other DAWs, but they exclusively use Vanilla Reaper sans extensions/scripts.

So yes, in this situation it's largely useless to discuss other DAWs as it's just meaningless. The sentiment here is - it shouldn't be meaningless! If anything, these things should be of intimate familiarity, no? Imagine Apple not knowing what a Virtual Desktop is, when developing Spaces.

That's all said with incredible respect of course (this is why we're here), but I just fail to see how it's a net positive to exist in a bubble.

[ferropop]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Fixed lanes by themselves adds a whole new workflow to REAPER.

IOW - Why do I need 16 tracks of Bk Vox when they're all going to be treated the same. Just put them all on one track.

Lanes are specifically a bad way to do the above, no? BGVox first get Individually Processed, then Bus Processed. This is what Reaper's Folders/Busses allow for - nested processing. Lanes don't let you individually process the lanes, making it a cripped version of Folders for this particular case.

Open to having my mind changed always though if I'm not understanding.

[ferropop]

imho, lanes can logically serve two VERY different things:

1. Layering. A bunch of stuff PLAYING TOGETHER, laid overtop each other, summing up to A Thing. FX, risers, sub drops, put a bunch of stuff inside this container and process it all together.

2. Comping. The literal opposite -- you want ONE thing playing at any given time, and you need mechanisms to select that ONE thing, audition through the CHOICES, and create the final.

Layering to me seems like it should be a mode - a FIXED LANES FIPM, where you throw in a bunch of stuff and it all plays together, and you have the benefit of Razors for precise editing of that stuff, in lanes, on a grid. .....this is already achievable using normal Folders though!

Comping should be a different mode - a FIXED LANES PLAY MARKER mode, where you have the tools to select/audition Exactly what is heard, and have mechanisms to store/recall versions of these "quilts" of audio.

I'm just concerned that this all being so open ended and shoved into the "lanes" concept, with no rigidity of workflow, is a hinderance not a benefit. And how do you identify workflow? You look at other DAWs powering the music industry for decades, weigh their benefits/negatives against each other, look at what already exists in Reaper and identify what can be leveraged and what needs to be added, etc.

...but you need to know the other DAWs inside and out to make these decisions (with confidence), and be able to talk about them, with precision. Otherwise it's arm-waving.

[MonkeyBars]

Originally Posted by ferropop

Comping should be a different mode - a FIXED LANES PLAY MARKER mode, where you have the tools to select/audition Exactly what is heard, and have mechanisms to store/recall versions of these "quilts" of audio.

This is pretty much how the play markers feature branch worked iirc...

[ferropop]

Originally Posted by MonkeyBars

This is pretty much how the play markers feature branch worked iirc...

Yup, but it was totally open-ended. You could have multiple things playing vertically, OR you could force only a single thing to play at any given time. Like putting both speed limits, and no speed limits, on the autobahn. That's a disaster.

I get the pursuit of freedom, but having to account for literal opposite outcomes, in the same place, is where things got weird with Play Markers.

I think that normal folders already gets us the "stack stuff together" workflow (with individual track processing!!) better than lanes does.

Comping imo should not allow for sounds to play together vertically. It's the antithesis of comping if anything. Those things don't belong together!

[Coachz]

Originally Posted by sockmonkey72

Definitely looking forward to the proof of that assertion!

I'm here to test !!!

[vitalker]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

No. The only thing it needs to be that's similar to Pro Tools is that you can achieve the same result. The goal is to make comping different versions of tracks (lanes) easier. As opposed to items (takes).

Agreed.

[Gass n Klang]

Originally Posted by ferropop

1. Layering. A bunch of stuff PLAYING TOGETHER, laid overtop each other, summing up to A Thing. FX, risers, sub drops, put a bunch of stuff inside this container and process it all together.

do we really need a mode for that? If lanes can't be processed, isn't it possible exactly that way right now by changing the item mix behaviour to "items always mix" and using "offset overlapping media items vertically". Ok, no item specific razor edit possible here, but I think in all other ways it's the same.

But I totally agree with everything else you said in your previous posts.

[ferropop]

Originally Posted by Gass n Klang

do we really need a mode for that? If lanes can't be processed, isn't it possible exactly that way right now by changing the item mix behaviour to "items always mix" and using "offset overlapping media items vertically". Ok, no item specific razor edit possible here, but I think in all other ways it's the same.

But I totally agree with everything else you said in your previous posts.

It is possible, that's why I wrote "this is already achievable using normal Folders though!". Was kinda just working through my thinking in realtime.

You can get the current lanes behaviour just by throwing tracks into a folder - but better because they are fully-fledged tracks.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by IrishRover79

Hi Kenny,

As you must be aware (as a Pro Tools as well as Reaper Ninja!), people use PT playlists not only for comping but as a track versioning tool, e.g. for storing backups of tracks etc. So you might have your raw drum tracks from the clients on playlist 1 and your phase aligned drums on playlist 2.

This sort of workflow has always been hard in Reaper - though there are some great scripts on Reapack that help you do something similar.

Are fixed item lanes meant as a solution to that problem as well as the whole swipe comping thing?

If so, it would be great if we could be able to view just one playlist/version/fixed item lane at a time, and have some actions/keyboard shortcuts to scroll backwards and forwards through them. I have suggested this on a thread for a recent dev build but no love from Schwa yet.... :-)

I don't know that we can say anything was "meant" to do anything. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's a happy accident and will be further supported when that workflow is noticed. Either way, the ability to have multiple lanes and only see one at a time would be great. Unless we stumble on to a better way.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by ferropop

For sure, which makes it incumbent on the devs/advisors to be intimately familiar with the other DAWs when developing a feature

Or maybe they're smart enough not to need to see other's sub-par work?

[sockmonkey72]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Or maybe they're smart enough not to need to see other's sub-par work?

You said the quiet part out loud.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by ferropop

Lanes are specifically a bad way to do the above, no? BGVox first get Individually Processed, then Bus Processed.

Not always. I print my vocals using a compressor and an EQ. So I only need to do buss processing after. But that's what's great about REAPER. You can do it your own way.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by ferropop

I'm just concerned that this all being so open ended and shoved into the "lanes" concept, with no rigidity of workflow, is a hinderance not a benefit.

One could say the same thing about all tracks being the same thing. Yet it works!!!!

[ferropop]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

One could say the same thing about all tracks being the same thing. Yet it works!!!!

They're not all the same!

Folders don't work like normal tracks. They're special, they do behind the scenes routing that breaks the "typeless track" concept.

And thank god, because they're super useful. They solved a problem by making Folders "typed", by giving them special abilities and automating a ton of manual routing.

And you can absolutely argue the pros/cons of "anything is anything", the major con being that you have to be extremely careful and structured with how you do things in Reaper because you can get into an incredible routing mess if you're even slightly careless. As one example.

[ferropop]

Imagine the easter-egg hunt of trying to track down an accidental breath - buried in a 100-take Lanes track where you can have multiple items playing at the same time.

[Coachz]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Or maybe they're smart enough not to need to see other's sub-par work?

It's non-sensical to talk about others sub-par work when you have nothing to show for yourself. Gimmie something equal or better that quick swipe comping and change my mind.

[ferropop]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Or maybe they're smart enough not to need to see other's sub-par work?

It's not a matter of intelligence, I just find it odd to discard 30 years of examples to study, no matter the par.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by ferropop

It's not a matter of intelligence, I just find it odd to discard 30 years of examples to study, no matter the par.

Any hoo. I'm just adding something to the discussion. We don't need to go back and forth forever. We both see each other's points.

Go play with these new toys (newest pre) and report back:

+ Media item lanes: add controls to razor edits on fixed lane tracks to move area without contents, copy contents to first playing lane
+ Media item lanes: when razor edit areas exist on fixed-lane tracks, play only the media within the razor edit area

[ferropop]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

Any hoo. I'm just adding something to the discussion. We don't need to go back and forth forever. We both see each other's points.

Go play with these new toys (newest pre) and report back:

+ Media item lanes: add controls to razor edits on fixed lane tracks to move area without contents, copy contents to first playing lane
+ Media item lanes: when razor edit areas exist on fixed-lane tracks, play only the media within the razor edit area

Absolutely. Discussion is fruitful if it's in good faith, I think everybody just wants the best for Reaper.

[benmiller]

It's very exciting to see this lane concept being developped. I have been hoping for something along these lines ever since i started using reaper!(after coming from other DAWs).
After testing it a bit i wanted to share a few thoughts.

- Currently it's either fixed item lanes OR Free item positioning. Considering my main use for these lanes would be to have different versions of a track, i would find it great to be able to have free item positioning inside a lane. So the lane concept doesn't replace the FIP, it would be just one "level" above. the hiarchy (if you can call it that) would be folder tracks, tracks, fixed lanes, FIP, takes (at the item level). FIP would be activated on a per lane basis.

- It would be nice to be able to see only on lane at a time, for controlling the visualisation of the lanes i could imagine a button on the track panel, like the "in" or "trim" buttons, it would say "lanes", click on it and you get a drop down menu with the stuff you currently get by right clicking the lane solo button + some extras (with sub menus):

Insert empty lane
Delete lane (one which is currently auditionned/selected)
-------
rename lane
-- current lane
-- 1
-- 2
-- etc
-------
Play only lane
-- 1
-- 2
-- etc
Toggle playing lane
-- 1
-- 2
-- etc
Play all lanes
Play no lanes
---------
record into lane
-- current lane
-- 1
-- 2
-- etc
--------
Lane view
-- Display All Lanes
-- 1 lanename of lane 1 (would display only lane 1)
-- 2 lanename of lane 2 (would display only lane 2)
-- etc
-------
select items
copy items to new lane at the top
duplicate lane

(trying to make sub dropdowns visible here but not sure how clear that is...)

- it would be nice to be able to paste to a different lane. currently i can drag an item to a different lane, but pasting pastes to the lane of origin.


- when using the new track edit groups, it think renaming one lane should rename the lane on the the grouped tracks (if the lane exists...)

[_Stevie_]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

No. The only thing it needs to be that's similar to Pro Tools is that you can achieve the same result. The goal is to make comping different versions of tracks (lanes) easier. As opposed to items (takes).

I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement.
It's *not only* the result that counts, it's also the workflow to get you there.
A feature is not solely defined by its result.

What does it help if the workflow is super convoluted just to create something unique that doesn't copy any other DAW?
That's like ferror already mentioned: throwing away the expertise of 30 years of DAW development and trying to re-invent the wheel.

In what regard is this helpful for the user?

[sockmonkey72]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

One could say the same thing about all tracks being the same thing. Yet it works!!!!

I don't want to belabor this point, because I think you're correct in general, and because it's not entirely on point, but since you brought it up: there are plenty of subtle things which don't "work!!!!" without (largely undocumented) user intervention.

For instance:
- hooking up volume/pan/etc. from the track to MIDI requires manual modification
- creating measure from time selection doesn't work properly for MIDI items (unless the user manually goes in and sets ignore project tempo on the MIDI item's media)
- locked MIDI items don't inherit the project timebase and thus move around without setting them up manually (here)

Just a few off the top of my head. I think you're mostly right here, but I also think that there is some meaningful inattention to detail which detracts from the user experience of track-sameness-is-an-unqualified-win. So I would hope that any "it's crazy, but it works round-peg-in-square-hole kludges" in the track lane/comping space don't confuse working-at-all with working-really-well.

[Coachz]

Originally Posted by _Stevie_

I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement.
It's *not only* the result that counts, it's also the workflow to get you there.
A feature is not solely defined by its result.

What does it help if the workflow is super convoluted just to create something unique that doesn't copy any other DAW?
That's like ferror already mentioned: throwing away the expertise of 30 years of DAW development and trying to re-invent the wheel.

In what regard is this helpful for the user?

I agree with you Stevie. If you don't know where you're going all roads will take you there. Since we users don't have any overview or scope of what the goal of this feature branch is all we have are little actions and many features to try to assemble. If we had a defined scope and design in front of us we could all test it and see if it does what is intended to do. On the other hand if we get all the tools to do something like quick swipe comping that would be sweet to be able to assemble them ourselves.

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by _Stevie_

I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement.
It's *not only* the result that counts, it's also the workflow to get you there.
A feature is not solely defined by its result.

What does it help if the workflow is super convoluted just to create something unique that doesn't copy any other DAW?
That's like ferror already mentioned: throwing away the expertise of 30 years of DAW development and trying to re-invent the wheel.

In what regard is this helpful for the user?

I said regarding it's similarity to Pro Tools. Of course the workflow matters. But the workflow doesn't need to be similar to Pro Tool's workflow. It just needs to give you the same result.

We're hoping the workflow will be much better.

[Coachz]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

I said regarding it's similarity to Pro Tools. Of course the workflow matters. But the workflow doesn't need to be similar to Pro Tool's workflow. It just needs to give you the same result.

We're hoping the workflow will be much better.

In an effort to get up to speed Kenny I just watched your quick razor editing video and found it very helpful. I really like how you can switch between modes using the cycle actions and shortcut keys. Appreciate all of your great content

[Dubnick]

It could very well be possible already and I may have missed it, but I would really, really, really like to see an option to toggle between seeing all lanes in a fixed item lane track or tracks and seeing only the top/currently playing lane. For me this makes a huge difference in workflow in some situations. For example, comping multi-mic'd drum kit performances, where having all lanes visible at once gets unwieldy.

If this is already possible within the fixed item lanes framework and someone can point me in the right direction, I'd very much appreciate that!

If it is not already possible, I hope the developers will consider adding or testing that option sooner rather than later.

Thanks!

[IrishRover79]

Originally Posted by Dubnick

It could very well be possible already and I may have missed it, but I would really, really, really like to see an option to toggle between seeing all lanes in a fixed item lane track or tracks and seeing only the top/currently playing lane. For me this makes a huge difference in workflow in some situations. For example, comping multi-mic'd drum kit performances, where having all lanes visible at once gets unwieldy.

If this is already possible within the fixed item lanes framework and someone can point me in the right direction, I'd very much appreciate that!

If it is not already possible, I hope the developers will consider adding or testing that option sooner rather than later.

Thanks!

+ 1

[Coachz]

Originally Posted by Dubnick

It could very well be possible already and I may have missed it, but I would really, really, really like to see an option to toggle between seeing all lanes in a fixed item lane track or tracks and seeing only the top/currently playing lane. For me this makes a huge difference in workflow in some situations. For example, comping multi-mic'd drum kit performances, where having all lanes visible at once gets unwieldy.

If this is already possible within the fixed item lanes framework and someone can point me in the right direction, I'd very much appreciate that!

If it is not already possible, I hope the developers will consider adding or testing that option sooner rather than later.

Thanks!

That would be nice and if you are comping it would be nice to have the top lane be the composite of all of the comps below it