FR- mute clips and lock tracksize

[aldi]

headline says it. mute clips is good for composing (hmm, how does it sound, when guitar is not in there (allways a bad idea )

lock foldersize could be an alternative for foldertracks or as a combination. tracks in tracktion can be very small so if i shrink them together it's nearly the same as a folder. think of selecting 10 tracks and push the "allways small" button. no vertikal zooming can affect them.

[haydxn]

yeah, locking the tracksize would definitely be handy. perhaps a little 'hide' button with the shrink and grow ones. when you freeze a track it behaves like this, so it's not like it's impossible. it's buggering to have to keep resizing the 'source' tracks of my rendered parts when i just want them out of the way til later.

[_oswald]

Grouped tracks would kick ass. Say you want to hide/shrink all your drum tracks to little thin lines, boom. They all would go.

Then say you want to look at them again, they'd come back and the rest would shrink... or some such monkeybrains.

I'd hit it.

[djsubject]

yes i would verry much like to see all the requests from this thread in Tracktion!

would realy realy like to be able to lock my midi grid to the 4th beat

[kL]

Mute clips: absolutely essential and subject to a criminal exclusion. Vegas does this best: a right click clip submenu that does mute, loop, group (!), lock, invert phase, take list, and normalize.

[Lunch Money]

Guys,

Before you go yelling at me that it's just a workaround, just please try this for real. In other words, don't make up your mind in advance because it "sounds" like a workaround, *actually try it*:

Drag a volume filter to the clip you want to mute. Press the 'mute' button that appears in the context menu.

When you want to hear that clip again, click the volume filter that's floating around in the clip and press the 'unmute' button.

Pretty easy, right? But you're thinking-- I dunno, Greg, that still sounds like a workaround and it's a real drag. <pun intended. >

Now, let's say you have 4 other tracks you want muted. Instead of repeating this process each time, (ie the dragging and selecting 'mute'), just CTRL+drag a muted volume filter to the clip in question.

A creative person could even set up a blank clip in their edit that would contain all of their 'tools' like a muted volume filter, a summed-to-mono patch bay, or whatever, and keep it in the edit. Then you just CTRL+drag it to the clip in question.

As long as you don't accidentally record automation into your 'master' filter, it'll be there whenever you need it.


Now,

I know there will be people who will jump on this post and pretend that they tried it or say that they don't even want to. But please please please... just try dragging and muting, and then CTRL+dragging a muted filter. It's ultra-fast and if you do it right it will actually be much much faster even than the second-quickest method, which is the right-click and select 'mute' method that I assume Vegas uses.

It's easy. It's quick. It works. And it's not a workaround. It's just a different way of doing things. A workaround would mean that you're using unconventional methods to accomplish a goal, in a way that it wasn't meant to be done. This IS the Tracktion way.

Greg

[MADatGOD]

Great idea, LM, as long as you're only working with audio clips, unless there's some way of dropping filters into midi clips that I'm unaware of (which is entirely possible).

[Lunch Money]

Hrm. Actually, I DO use almost exclusively audio clips, so that hadn't occurred to me. Drat it all to er.. heck... and stuff....

The empty-clip-as-toolbox idea is pretty bonzer, though. <chuckle>

Thanks for the perfectly balanced sarcasm-- funny but not offensive.

Greg

[braj]

Greg, the only problem is you have to do it every time you want to mute a clip. It would be much handier to have it be a default option for every clip.

[MADatGOD]

No sarcasm, LM, you give me too much credit.... There's plenty I don't know about T and I was just covering my ass to avoid looking foolish if I was wrong.

I, being exclusive to heavy metal/hard rock, work mostly with audio clips myself and will more than likely be putting your method to extensive use.

[Lunch Money]

Greg, the only problem is you have to do it every time you want to mute a clip. It would be much handier to have it be a default option for every clip.

Tsk, tsk.

You didn't try it, did you?

Greg

[drlazy]

@aldi: your lock track size idea is a very good and simple idea. All jules has to add is a little lock icon next to the Shrink/Grow button. When locked to a certain size clips would not be affected by vertical zooming. It can also be added at options as a default behavior.

[MADatGOD]

Think about it, though, LM... what if you want to alt/drag select a bunch of clips and mute them? Your method doesn't work there. You have to shift/select each volume filter before muting. Your idea is a good one for a few clips, but anything beyond that and I'm afraid it's still a workaround.

[drlazy]

@Lunch Money: Loved the toolbox audio clip idea. I only wished filters could be gragged on midi clips.

[Lunch Money]

MADatGOD: if you're muting that many clips at once, I suspect you need to work on your composition. And if you're that meticulous that you want to try a bunch of different variations, you WILL be muting them one at a time, not in a batch.

So, really... in terms of songwriting, the whole concept of muting clips is a workaround. <grin>

Just busting your chops on that one-- but in all seriousness, why would you want to drag-select a bunch of clips and then mute them? When I mute a clip, it's because I'm thinking, "I wonder how it would sound here if I took the rhythm guitar out of the equation."

I'm admittedly someone who just does things his particular way and has little experience with other people's methods. For example, I continually forget that many people here don't even record Audio and work strictly with virtual instruments. By the same token, I can't imagine a real-world recording situation in which you'd NEED to do what you described.

PS, you didn't try it, did you?

PPS, the debate IS completely academic anyhow-- I fully acknowledge that until you can drag a filter to a MIDI clip, it simply doesn't cover the spectrum of what's needed.