Track Lanes Discussion

[mschnell]

I once did a short try with grouped tracks being comped in parallel. This did not seem to work with certain actions.

[Gass n Klang]

working with synced track groups and unsyncing in between is a rather usual thing (live playing band, guitar solo overdub, another take with the whole band). It's one of the reasons I voted for one lane per take. That's how it works in pro tools: You do playlists 1, 2, 3 for the whole band takes, then guitar solo is on playlist 4. If you do another whole band take, every track will add playlist 5 (so playlist 4 is missing on every track besides guitar). In reaper that could be done by just leaving one lane free.

[mschnell]

Hmm.

IMHO a decent way to handle comping of band recording could be:

Arm a lot of tracks ad have the band play.

Group those tracks.
Do the comping in one of the tracks (or another at a later point in time, as seems convenient). The other tracks follow exactly.

Ungroup the tracks and do mixing.

I did a test on this and much of it works, but it looks like not decently tested and provides glitches.

[schwa]

Originally Posted by Gass n Klang

working with synced track groups and unsyncing in between is a rather usual thing (live playing band, guitar solo overdub, another take with the whole band). It's one of the reasons I voted for one lane per take. That's how it works in pro tools: You do playlists 1, 2, 3 for the whole band takes, then guitar solo is on playlist 4. If you do another whole band take, every track will add playlist 5 (so playlist 4 is missing on every track besides guitar). In reaper that could be done by just leaving one lane free.

The only way to handle this automatically would be if the user enables track edit grouping before recording, so REAPER would know which tracks need empty lanes.

[Gass n Klang]

Originally Posted by schwa

The only way to handle this automatically would be if the user enables track edit grouping before recording, so REAPER would know which tracks need empty lanes.

mhh shaky. I mean, ideally it wouldn't need track edit groups at all to have this behaviour. All tracks that are recorded at the same time should share the same takenumber = lane in my opinion. No matter if they're grouped or not. Pro Tools' advantage in this regard is that there aren't really empty lanes. Common takes are indicated by the playlist naming.

Adding a lot of empty lanes will aggravate the already existing problem we have with many lanes: lanes get tiny or track sizes are huge. That doesn't really help.

In Pro Tools you just need one step to go into playlist editing: Just open playlists (which are shown as some kind of subtrack below the track itself. Somehow like reaper shows envelopes). You can display or hide them easily.
In Reaper you can also switch from one lane to multiple lanes easily. BUT you then have to vertically zoom in a whole lot to really see what's going on. After your edit, you switch to one lane and zoom out again.
That will get even worse with empty lanes so I don't know how to solve that. I strongly hoped, lanes would have been implemented using the subtrack approach instead of the "inline" style like it is now for exactly these reasons.

[Gass n Klang]

Originally Posted by mschnell

Hmm.

IMHO a decent way to handle comping of band recording could be:

Arm a lot of tracks ad have the band play.

Group those tracks.
Do the comping in one of the tracks (or another at a later point in time, as seems convenient). The other tracks follow exactly.

Ungroup the tracks and do mixing.

I did a test on this and much of it works, but it looks like not decently tested and provides glitches.

yes that works, I did it a lot of times this way. Problem is, that you record a lot of empty audio if you need to overdub single instruments while making sure that later takes stay in sync. you'll always have to record all tracks. Did a drum recording today. We did some overdubs in between recording additional cymbals and shakers using the overhead mics. If I just record the OHs, all of the following drum takes will be out of sync.

[mschnell]

Hmmm some "arm but don't write file" option ?

[AZpercussion]

Originally Posted by Gass n Klang

Problem is, that you record a lot of empty audio if you need to overdub single instruments while making sure that later takes stay in sync. you'll always have to record all tracks.

Agreed! The takes system switches takes of multitrack recording in accord to source, the same we need in lanes.

[mccrabney]

i observed, but mostly stayed out of the (year+?!) comping testing cycle because i didn't have experience with it from other software, but i'm using it now and i'm really enjoying it. what an impressive undertaking, this makes editing takes so much nicer than stacking tracks. thanks!

my observation, one i've posted once or twice before, is that i keep finding my lane edits snapping unexpectedly to items in other lanes due to snap settings options logically treating items in different lanes as items in the same track, rather than as if they were items in different tracks.

tldr, i'm unable to set options so that items in different lanes don't snap to each other, but also have items in the same track snap to themselves.

tldr v2, want option so that only items in the same lane or same one-lane track snap

my snapping prefs are set to "snap media items to nearby media items up to 0 tracks away," so my items never snap to items in another track.

however, items in fixed lanes are in the same track, so they snap to each other as per the above setting. this is unexpected behavior if you're used to not having your items snap to items in other tracks. when i'm zoned out and editing, zoomed in on FILs, this intra-lane snapping behavior creates workflow friction, esp when editing alongside a non-FIL track.

it would be helpful to have an option to apply an item snapping rule to lanes: "snap media items to nearby media items up to x lanes away" to create a more consistent behavior when editing items across tracks and across lanes.

[smandrap]

Is there a way to snap comp areas to underlying source media items?
If not: can we have a way to snap comp areas to underlying source media items?

[MonkeyBars]

I finally had the opportunity to test out recording and editing comps in fixed lanes, and I just love how smooth the swiping is. I very much look forward to exploring more advanced use cases and features.

I was left only with a single question: I can record into oldskool takes in MIDI overdub mode, but had to turn that off to record into fixed lanes. Is there some technical reason for this requirement? Thanks!

[Edgemeal]

+ ReaScript: GetTrackFromPoint() also returns the fixed lane under the mouse, if applicable
+ ReaScript: add support for GetSetMediaTrackInfo_Value('I_NUMFIXEDLANES'), GetSetMediaItemInfo_Value('I_FIXEDLANE')

Thank You!

Get lane under mouse test

function GetLaneUnderMouse()
  local track, info = reaper.GetThingFromPoint(reaper.GetMousePosition())
  if track == nil then return end -- mouse not over a track
  if reaper.GetMediaTrackInfo_Value(track, 'I_FREEMODE') ~= 2 then return end -- Not a FL track
  if info:match("env") then return end -- mouse is over Envelope or ECP
  local _, val = reaper.GetTrackFromPoint(reaper.GetMousePosition())
  return ( val >> 8 ) -- 2nd byte is lane number (zero based)
end

[Jae.Thomas]

Originally Posted by MonkeyBars

I finally had the opportunity to test out recording and editing comps in fixed lanes, and I just love how smooth the swiping is. I very much look forward to exploring more advanced use cases and features.

I was left only with a single question: I can record into oldskool takes in MIDI overdub mode, but had to turn that off to record into fixed lanes. Is there some technical reason for this requirement? Thanks!

what is your workflow for swiping?

[ferropop]

For anyone wanting to create an immediate "Vocal Comping Track" workflow, I did it this way:

1. Create a new track, set it to Record Arm, choose your mic input
2. Set track to Fixed Lanes
3. Uncheck "Automatically remove empty lanes at bottom of track
4. Under Comping, choose "Comp into new empty lane"
5. Save as Track Template -- make sure Include Track Items in Template is checked

You should have something that looks like this:


Anytime you want to record vocals (or whatever), load this Track Template. It will immediately populate a Comp Lane and Take Lane, and automatically insert Comp Areas when you record, without having to awkwardly create manual areas just to "initiate" comping mode.

[MonkeyBars]

Originally Posted by ferropop

1. Create a new track, set it to Record Arm, choose your mic input
2. Set track to Fixed Lanes
3. Uncheck "Automatically remove empty lanes at bottom of track
4. Under Comping, choose "Comp into new empty lane"
5. Save as Track Template -- make sure Include Track Items in Template is checked

This is so helpful, thanks Ferro!

2 questions:

1. What is the reasoning behind step 3?
2. Is there any reason one couldn't create a custom action to select these options on a track in lieu of having to load a track template first?

[smandrap]

Originally Posted by MonkeyBars

Is there any reason one couldn't create a custom action to select these options on a track in lieu of having to load a track template first?

I think it's to avoid having to select the mic input, everything else can be done via custom action

[ferropop]

I was trying to force both a Comp Lane and Take Lane to stay put, and that option being on was deleting the Take Lane. For my particular workflow I also never want auto deleting of empty lanes.

And yup for vocals specifically I always want the same mic input... also wasn't aware that all the actions are actually available in the Action List. For a while some stuff was relegated to the menu only.

Hope it helps! Using this as Default Settings actually sets things up to feel almost identical to the old comping system, but without the splits nightmare! And of course, with all the new stuff like swiping/areas/lanes.

[benmiller]

Originally Posted by Gass n Klang

yes that works, I did it a lot of times this way. Problem is, that you record a lot of empty audio if you need to overdub single instruments while making sure that later takes stay in sync. you'll always have to record all tracks. Did a drum recording today. We did some overdubs in between recording additional cymbals and shakers using the overhead mics. If I just record the OHs, all of the following drum takes will be out of sync.

record the OH overdubs on a new track maybe? so you can end up with X drum takes all lane numbers in sync, and Y overdubs on your overdub track. no empty lanes, no lane sync issues. or maybe i'm missing the point.

this makes me think that it could then be usefull to have goup edits work across visible lanes when lanes are collapsed instead of on the absolute lane number. so once you've comped your drums, comped your overdubs, you could collapes lanes to your final comp, an contunie editing rearanging the drums and overdubs together in as one group