Ghost Tracks?

[Dave Wiz]

Hello Chaps.
I was noodling along playing random notes to a midi backing track and it all sounded pretty good apart from the odd note that didn't seem to fit the scale.
Ah I thought, Ghost tracks, never used them in Tracktion before and I know that from other DAWs that showing a ghost track allows me to see any other notes and where they are in relation to the clip I'm working on. Right?

All that happens is you get a faint line on screen that bears no relation to the clip you're working on.
If you scroll the underlying ghost track stays static. What's the deal?
How can that be taken as a ghost track?

Dave

[chico.co.uk]

That doesn't sound right. I've definitely used ghost tracks before now to line up audio clips with each other, cut and paste clips till they fit better, that kind of thing.

Is it possible you're ghosting the wrong track? Like you're ghosting the track with nothing in it onto the track that does have something in it? Alternatively, are you maybe using a custom colour scheme? Be sure to try it in the default colour scheme, in case that's causing you an issue.

Are you ghosting a midi track onto an audio track, or what exactly?

[Dave Wiz]

Nope. Track 3 has the notes from track 5 ghosted into it, well that's the idea.
This is what I see on screen.



You can see track 5 notes show as thin grey lines instead of ghost notes.
Midi to midi, Standard colour scheme. Even changed vsts.
I've used ghost notes loads in FL Studio so its not a concept I'm unfamiliar with.


 

[dRowAudio]

The ghost notes shown are based on the standard clip view, not the expanded editor. It would be nice if the ghost notes mirrored the track's MIDI scale and range but this is non-trivial as these can differ between tracks. I'll put it down as an idea but I doubt if it's something we'll have time to do in the near future I'm afraid.

You should still be able to use the ghost notes for timing, if not pitch. The most common use case for this was for aligning MIDI to audio which obviously doesn't have the same pitch information to display.

[chico.co.uk]

I was about to say i see the notes in the right timing, and if i move them around, they move in the ghost clip, but not at the right pitch. Just taken screen grabs and stuff, but the explanation kinda, err... explains that

[Dave Wiz]

The ghost notes shown are based on the standard clip view, not the expanded editor. It would be nice if the ghost notes mirrored the track's MIDI scale and range but this is non-trivial as these can differ between tracks. I'll put it down as an idea but I doubt if it's something we'll have time to do in the near future I'm afraid.

You should still be able to use the ghost notes for timing, if not pitch. The most common use case for this was for aligning MIDI to audio which obviously doesn't have the same pitch information to display.

Well sorry but this is one of the most half arsed ideas you guys have come out with.
Ghost notes are ghost notes.
Any other DAW you select to show ghost notes then you get ghosted notes.
In Tracktion you get a faint almost obscure thin line that bears no relevance to the notes contained within clips.

The most common use case for this was for aligning MIDI to audio

But I've always found the best way to do that was to put put a marker at the point on your sound clip where you want it to start and then just drag your midi clip up to snap to the marker?

It would be nice if the ghost notes mirrored the track's MIDI scale and range but this is non-trivial.

Lost me a bit? The ghost notes are meant to mirror midi scale aren't they? That's why they call them ghost notes.

Here is how the rest of the DAW world view Ghost notes.

Fl Studio


Studio One


I believe Reaper has the same kind of thing.

Dave

[chico.co.uk]

Dave,

He gets the idea, he's trying to tell you it's not the quickest thing to code. He's not saying they won't do it, he's saying it won't happen before other things, because it's a chunk of work to implement it.

If you try ghosting an audio track onto another audio track, you'll see it works like you'd expect. It sounds like the code for ghost clips makes a copy of the graphic of the waveform, and displays it on the other track. That works fine for audio, but not for midi. Because if you think of how midi is displayed, and how you can scroll the keys up and down, on screen, just mirroring the graphic doesn't really work too well. "Non trivial" means it's not totally straightforward to code, if that helps.

Basically sounds like it's a work in progress. Ghost clips work fine with audio clips, not so well with midi clips, at present.

If you ghost an audio clip onto a midi clip, that would work fine. Ghosting a midi clip onto an audio clip currently needs work.

[TheOdin]

Hello guys, I know this is a very old thread but it is still applicable to this day. In fact I wanted to open a thread on the exact same topic but found thid one with valuable info already in.

I'm currently trying Traktion Waveform (as of now 12.5.11) and I'm in the process of being amazed by the features that a free DAW has. What hinders me from getting a license is the apparent lack of just this feature: ghost tracks.
It has all kinds of features from advanced to uber expert but unfortunately I can't seem to visually overlay MIDI tracks to get my bearings harmony-wise. It's elementary. How else would someone check the harmony? TBH currently I'm doing it on paper!
And please excuse my humble opinion but it shouldn't be that far from trivial. Just copy/paste the MIDI notes between tracks and mute them. This way they would also carry to the separate MIDI editor, as they should.
Now using ghost tracks for alligning audio almost looks like misusing them. Marker track serves very well this purpose (as mentioned).
But what about the harmonic dimension?

Please, let it be a payed feature if it has to but do it.

[nowgad]

Hello .

Hello! You can show as many midi tracks together as you like. I don't remember what update it was in. Select as many midi clips as you like and open them in the Midi Editor. For the first time, select midi clips of different colors. You will understand everything right away.
If you are looking for notes that do not match the key, then set the desired key, expand the track, or open a midi clip using a midi editor, click on any note in the midi clip and press Ctrl+a, (you need to select all notes) Select all notes and click on 4- x colored square. According to the legend, the notes will be colored. By default, notes that are not in key will be colored red. The choice of legend color and explanation can be found in Settings ->Appearance. It takes longer to write than to do
If you use the Chord function (pro version only), you will receive different hints based on notes of a different color.
TW also has another great feature called Ghost Tracks. You can find it by highlighting the track next to the track color editor.
I won’t say anything about the presence of these functions in the free version, but it is available in the pro version.
Download the pro version, there is an unlimited trial for 90 days, If nothing has changed.

[TheOdin]

Tons of thanks to you @Nowgad!
I was amazed to see how easy and helpful is that multiple tracks in midi editor feature just what I needed! I can now view the harmony!
As for the ghost tracks, I don't know if they're related to a thing it's been happening lately:
I probably accidentally copy/pasted some clips onto themselves and I got notes that didn't supposed to play or they were too long in spite of shrinking them in the editor. It took me a while to figure out
The notes were exactly on top of each other but then I saw some white lines in other clips and this is how I found out that there can be multiple clips.
I then dragged away every clip to see if there were any underlying clips
It would be nice if there was an option to not allow overlapping clips.

[nowgad]

ghost tracks

Essentially, the ghost track that I described is a quick way to find intervals, distance, silence between notes and then fill them in on the “main” track.