Multi-track Editing Workflow Requests

[dRowAudio]

Hi everyone, we’re currently discussing adding new multi-track editing capabilities to the DAW but would like to gather feedback about exactly what kind of features and workflows people need.

Can you please post workflows that you’d like to see and examples of videos of how other DAWs do this.

Please try to keep this concise so we can summarise nicely to the team.

[PierreG]

Applause for putting this feature focus on the map, and for opening this up for input!

This is the thread where we kicked around the theme of - Group Editing:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... dit+groups

May this thread be fun and fruitful!

[Robert Randolph]

Oh boy. Im gonna dig in on this when I get home.

[Robert Randolph]

Ok, I can provide images/videos for any of these points as necessary. Here's the core capabilities that I find necessary:

• Easily link selected non-contiguous tracks so that all edit commands work on them identically.
• Easily dissolve a group
• Easily dissolve a selection of a group
• A modifier key to temporarily make an edit to a single clip in a group.
• A modifier key to temporarily make an edit to a selection of clips in a group
• Linked warping. Linked tracks should all warp similarly. This should result in phase locked movement (video/image 1)
• Comping should work for all linked tracks
• Changing record-enable states should apply to all linked tracks
• Toggling big meters should for for all linked tracks
• A single 'group edit' should count as a single undo and redo
• Automatic input assignment should be able to apply to only groups
• A window that shows active groups and allows for enabling/disabling these groups
• Shortcuts for enabling at least groups 1-9 (as listed in the previously mentioned window)
• Maintain the ability to use ghost tracks on a single track (or optionally for all)
• A separate between groups for editing functions, and groups for mixing functions. I want to edit my drums together, but I do not want to have all of the faders moving together. However there are times when I want mixing features grouped.
• All of these functions should apply to MIDI clips

And here are some things that would be nice to have, but not completely necessary:

• Groups with selectable group options (see image 2 below)
• Quantize item position that intelligently considers the vertical position of neighboring clips (so all clips that'd have a snare and snare leakage are moved the same).
• Proper trim silence function (image 3)
• Overlapping groups. For instance I may want a drum group, but also a snare only group. Or I may want a group that functions only for solo/mute and another group that functions only for record, and be able to toggle either on/off
• It would help if the current VCA behaviour was improved (as we've discussed)
• Scroll to next transient function. During many multitrack edits it's nice to get in a good zoom and tap a key to snap the screen to the next transient centered on your screen. (same with previous)
• Better colouring. Currently there's very few colours to set on tracks, which makes differentiating a 16 track performance of a single drumset difficult. At the very least it'd be useful to have gradient colouring for selected tracks, or some sort of 'smart colouring' that's based on track name and uses rgb values.
• Perhaps an easy way to select 'the last children' in a folder/submix hierarchy. That way the audio/midi tracks can be selected easily without needing to click around folders/submixes
• Enhance the current folder track editing to apply to only the linked tracks, and the folder clip shows waveform of the mix of the children (reaper does this with busses, it's very nice)
• A fill gaps command (image 4)

Images:

1. https://streamable.com/y9plu

2.

3.

4.

I'm sure I forgot some bits, but that's a quick brain dump.

[klangbastler]

just a few basic thoughts that i find most important in regard to editing (multitrack and singletrack):

1) there needs to be a thorough grouping-feature for clips!
it should enable grouping of clips across all tracks and whatever order one wants/needs.
the clips should stay in that group, once grouped together.
needless to say, ungrouping must be possible also.
there should be an "options" window, what grouped clips share regarding the editing: split, start-fade, end-fade, gain, plugins, ...
the options dialog could be either global for all groups or if you want to lay it out more complex, for each group specifically definable.

2) the crossfade model needs to be reworked to enable fluent multi-/singletrack editing!
add a specific "crossfade-mode" which can be switched on or off, with an editor in the properties panel.
once enabled there should be an automatic crossfade between clips when a split is made. the global "preset" crossfade-length should be definable.
the crossfade on the clip itself should work like this:
it has two handles, one on the lower left corner to move the crossfade around.
one on the upper right corner to change the length of the crossfade.
when a crossfade is moved, the start and end of the two involved clips adjust accordingly, meaning the crossfade-length always stays the same. it is only adjusted by the "length-handle" described above.
please make the handles big enough or give a switchable option for bigger handles! when editing fast, i very often miss the small handles for fades we have right now.

the crossfade editor:
a representation of the crossfade will be displayed, where the fade-shapes can be edited precisely with models (sin, cosin, ...) and faders, and also by switches with the most common options (linear, power, ...). S-curves should be possible also and seamlessly editable.
there could be more options added into this editor, when requests arise ...

regarding multitrack editing for grouped clips across tracks and this crossfademodel:
only crossfades that match vertically (in length and time-position) should be moved/changed together.
(for start/end fades of grouped clips: they should move in relation to each other, even with different start/end points. also fade lengths should change in relation to each other. all these things could be made definable in more detail in the group properties)


this would be the basics for the long outstanding (my personal viewpoint) editing enhancements in waveform.
if this comes to life, it would enable me to do my editing work completely in waveform.
for now i have to rely on samplitude for this task.

hope i described everything clear enough, contact me personally if you want more details or testing of new features or examples from samplitude.

mathias

[Steve Bolivar]

Something I miss from my Sonar days is Control Groups. At its most simple you can group track volume faders together without having to put them together in a folder, or group track mutes together but invert them so as one track is muted the other is un-muted - a great way to A/B mics, or inverse link the pans of two tracks to collapse or expand the stereo image if you don't want to combine them into a stereo track and use a plugin. Sorry if this is already in Waveform, but I did a search in the manual for groups and links as well as going through any chapters I thought it may be in but couldn't find anything.

basic video I found:


Here's a more complete explanation from Cakewalk.
https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation? ... ng.52.html

Copied from that link:
Using control groups
SONAR lets you link faders, knobs, or buttons in the Track view, Track Inspector and Console view into groups. Groups are collections of controls whose movements are linked together. For example:

Two Volume faders or controls can be grouped so that when you increase or decrease the volume of one track, the volume of the other track changes in exactly the same way.

Four Mute buttons can be grouped so that when you click on the Mute button to mute track 1, tracks 1 and 2 are muted and tracks 3 and 4 are un-muted.
The Console view and Track view identify controls, knobs and faders that are grouped using a colored group indicator that is displayed on the controls in each group. The controls in group A are displayed with a red indicator, the controls in group B with a green indicator, and so on. Controls, faders and knobs can be grouped together.
When you group buttons together, the way they work is based on their position when you create the group:

Buttons that are in the same position when grouped will turn on and off together at all times.

Buttons that are in opposite positions when grouped will always remain in opposite positions.
When you group buttons with knobs or faders, the button turns on/off when the knob or fader reaches its halfway point.
You have several additional options. There are three general types of groups: absolute, relative, and custom. Here’s how they work.
Absolute
The range of motion in all controls in the group is identical. When you move one control in the group, all other controls in the group move the same amount in the same direction. The controls do not necessarily need to start at the same level.
Relative
The range of motion for controls in the group is not the same. All controls in the group have the same value at one point—the lowest level for send, return, and volume levels, and zero for pan controls.
Custom
Sometimes you want to define a more complex relationship between the controls in a group. For example:

You want two controls to operate in reverse—when one fader drops, the other increases (cross fade).

You want two volume faders grouped so that they are locked together at maximum level, but drop at different rates.

You want two faders to be locked together with the same range of motion, but a third fader grouped with them to have a different range of motion.
Custom groups let you set the range of motion for each control in the group by entering a starting and ending value. As any one control in the group is moved from its starting position to its ending position, the other controls in the group exercise their full range of motion.
When you have defined a custom group, you can adjust the starting and ending position of each control using the Group Settings dialog box or using pop-up menus on the controls in the group.

[AGreen]

I'd like to see Waveform take a slightly different approach to other daw's. Why not have a special editing mode where edits only apply to selected tracks or clips and only those tracks or clips are visible while editing. You would select a number of tracks or clips and then press a button to enter this editing mode. All other tracks or clips would become invisible and all edits carried out on one clip or track would be carried out on others. This would include cuts, inserts and dragging of clips at the same point in the timeline and would also include beat detection and quantising across multiple clips or tracks and manual insertion of warp markers which would be applied across all clips and tracks at the same point in the timeline. The ability to quantise using an existing clip as a reference could be added by allowing one clip to be designated as a reference clip. Maybe a button would appear on clips to set a particular clip as the reference when entering this editing mode.

A separate but useful ability would be simple grouping of controls utilising the tagging system. For example, when a tag or multiple tags are selected, all controls for those tagged tracks could be manipulated simultaneously via a pop-up menu that would appear when clicking on the tags. This menu would include a volume and pan control, mute and solo controls, record arm controls etc. Changes made in this menu would apply to all tracks with that particular tag or tags, thus allowing easy and quick grouping of faders and other controls. The tags themselves should be moved out of the browser and put horizontally above the timeline to allow instant access to the tagging and grouping system. This would make for a very flexible and intuitive grouping system.

I think Waveform should do things a bit differently to other daw's because in the end that is and will be it's strength. No point slavishly copying other DAWS.

Edit:

Alternatively, the editing system could be integrated in to the tag grouping system mentioned above. There could be an option in the pop-up menu such as "Apply edits to all tracks with currently selected tags".

[jabe]

I'd like to see...

I'm getting the impression from your post that you might not know that you can already restrict the tracks that are visible via the tagging system. Not the same as editing only those as a group, of course, but I thought I'd mention it, just in case.

[Robert Randolph]

just a few basic thoughts that i find most important in regard to editing (multitrack and singletrack):

1) there needs to be a thorough grouping-feature for clips!
it should enable grouping of clips across all tracks and whatever order one wants/needs.
the clips should stay in that group, once grouped together.
needless to say, ungrouping must be possible also.
there should be an "options" window, what grouped clips share regarding the editing: split, start-fade, end-fade, gain, plugins, ...
the options dialog could be either global for all groups or if you want to lay it out more complex, for each group specifically definable.

While I think that clip grouping would be cool, this does not help multitrack editing per se.

Reaper handles things only this way and it's a a complete mess. The second you do an overdub or start wanting to offset clips from each other, all hell breaks loose.

Clip grouping would be awesome, but it's not multi-track editing.

2) the crossfade model needs to be reworked to enable fluent multi-/singletrack editing!
add a specific "crossfade-mode" which can be switched on or off, with an editor in the properties panel.
once enabled there should be an automatic crossfade between clips when a split is made. the global "preset" crossfade-length should be definable.
the crossfade on the clip itself should work like this:
it has two handles, one on the lower left corner to move the crossfade around.
one on the upper right corner to change the length of the crossfade.
when a crossfade is moved, the start and end of the two involved clips adjust accordingly, meaning the crossfade-length always stays the same. it is only adjusted by the "length-handle" described above.
please make the handles big enough or give a switchable option for bigger handles! when editing fast, i very often miss the small handles for fades we have right now.

the crossfade editor:
a representation of the crossfade will be displayed, where the fade-shapes can be edited precisely with models (sin, cosin, ...) and faders, and also by switches with the most common options (linear, power, ...). S-curves should be possible also and seamlessly editable.
there could be more options added into this editor, when requests arise ...

regarding multitrack editing for grouped clips across tracks and this crossfademodel:
only crossfades that match vertically (in length and time-position) should be moved/changed together.
(for start/end fades of grouped clips: they should move in relation to each other, even with different start/end points. also fade lengths should change in relation to each other. all these things could be made definable in more detail in the group properties)

[Robert Randolph]

I'd like to see Waveform take a slightly different approach to other daw's. Why not have a special editing mode where edits only apply to selected tracks or clips and only those tracks or clips are visible while editing. You would select a number of tracks or clips and then press a button to enter this editing mode. All other tracks or clips would become invisible and all edits carried out on one clip or track would be carried out on others. This would include cuts, inserts and dragging of clips at the same point in the timeline and would also include beat detection and quantising across multiple clips or tracks and manual insertion of warp markers which would be applied across all clips and tracks at the same point in the timeline. The ability to quantise using an existing clip as a reference could be added by allowing one clip to be designated as a reference clip. Maybe a button would appear on clips to set a particular clip as the reference when entering this editing mode.

I'd hate this if it was the only option.

When I do multitrack edits, it's because I have a single instrument that's recorded to a number of tracks. Edits often happen relative to other tracks at various times.

Having to constantly switch out 'reference tracks' would be annoying.

The option to instantly hide/show an edit group would be great though.

A separate but useful ability would be simple grouping of controls utilising the tagging system. For example, when a tag or multiple tags are selected, all controls for those tagged tracks could be manipulated simultaneously via a pop-up menu that would appear when clicking on the tags. This menu would include a volume and pan control, mute and solo controls, record arm controls etc. Changes made in this menu would apply to all tracks with that particular tag or tags, thus allowing easy and quick grouping of faders and other controls. The tags themselves should be moved out of the browser and put horizontally above the timeline to allow instant access to the tagging and grouping system. This would make for a very flexible and intuitive grouping system.

I think Waveform should do things a bit differently to other daw's because in the end that is and will be it's strength. No point slavishly copying other DAWS.

Likewise, there's no reason for Waveform to do it different for the sake of it.

There's products that already do this really well, and they've come to that position after millions of hours of combined use and development from dozens of developers.

Sometimes it's better to stand on the shoulders of giants than to tickle their toes.

[Robert Randolph]

Something I miss from my Sonar days is Control Groups. At its most simple you can group track volume faders together without having to put them together in a folder, or group track mutes together but invert them so as one track is muted the other is un-muted - a great way to A/B mics, or inverse link the pans of two tracks to collapse or expand the stereo image if you don't want to combine them into a stereo track and use a plugin. Sorry if this is already in Waveform, but I did a search in the manual for groups and links as well as going through any chapters I thought it may be in but couldn't find anything.

You can already do this in Waveform with macro parameters and racks.

Edit: I'll write a post about this tomorrow and include some presets.

[klangbastler]

just a few basic thoughts that i find most important in regard to editing (multitrack and singletrack):

1) there needs to be a thorough grouping-feature for clips!
it should enable grouping of clips across all tracks and whatever order one wants/needs.
the clips should stay in that group, once grouped together.
needless to say, ungrouping must be possible also.
there should be an "options" window, what grouped clips share regarding the editing: split, start-fade, end-fade, gain, plugins, ...
the options dialog could be either global for all groups or if you want to lay it out more complex, for each group specifically definable.

While I think that clip grouping would be cool, this does not help multitrack editing per se.

Reaper handles things only this way and it's a a complete mess. The second you do an overdub or start wanting to offset clips from each other, all hell breaks loose.

Clip grouping would be awesome, but it's not multi-track editing.

true. should have called it "multi-clip editing"

i prefer this kind of editing over multitrack-editing most of the time. you can do similar things and be more flexible. a mess only arises, if you loose track of your grouping. so it is not the feature, but the person before the daw that may produce chaos ...

i'd say, it is working one level below the track-scheme, audiostream-wise.
it probably all comes down to workflow habits. i don't have problems with doing overdubs with this kind of editing in samplitude, maybe reaper hasn't got it right ...

[AGreen]

I'd hate this if it was the only option.

When I do multitrack edits, it's because I have a single instrument that's recorded to a number of tracks. Edits often happen relative to other tracks at various times.

Having to constantly switch out 'reference tracks' would be annoying.

The option to instantly hide/show an edit group would be great though.

Yes, I understand this, but reference tracks could be selected in advance of entering multitrack edit mode and still be visible in multitrack edit mode. They would be excluded from edits themselves though. I only suggested this method because it eliminates the problem of non-contiguous tracks. Sometimes a reference track can be a large number of tracks away and not easy to see and then you have the hassle of hiding all those tracks in between to see the reference.

Likewise, there's no reason for Waveform to do it different for the sake of it.

There's products that already do this really well, and they've come to that position after millions of hours of combined use and development from dozens of developers.

Sometimes it's better to stand on the shoulders of giants than to tickle their toes.

I agree there's no point not looking at good solutions, but this should not inhibit out of the box thinking. Sometimes there are better ways of doing things. People can be tied to convention and a lot of daw's have been mimicking one another for years. Some more novel interface designs have emerged over recent years and it can be a breath of fresh air sometimes.

[AGreen]

Something I miss from my Sonar days is Control Groups. At its most simple you can group track volume faders together without having to put them together in a folder, or group track mutes together but invert them so as one track is muted the other is un-muted - a great way to A/B mics, or inverse link the pans of two tracks to collapse or expand the stereo image if you don't want to combine them into a stereo track and use a plugin. Sorry if this is already in Waveform, but I did a search in the manual for groups and links as well as going through any chapters I thought it may be in but couldn't find anything.

You can already do this in Waveform with macro parameters and racks.

Edit: I'll write a post about this tomorrow and include some presets.

You don't need to use racks for this Robert, there's a much simpler and more convenient way to do it. Simply add additional volume plugins to the tracks you wish to control and then use an lfo modifier to control them. Set the "intensity" level to zero and then use the offset control to set fader levels. I usually use a trim utility rather than the built in volume control because then you don't confuse the vca fader with the normal fader.

Edit:

Sorry, I misread the original post, I thought it was about vca's on tracks. Yes you might need racks to mimic some functionality.

[Robert Randolph]

Something I miss from my Sonar days is Control Groups. At its most simple you can group track volume faders together without having to put them together in a folder, or group track mutes together but invert them so as one track is muted the other is un-muted - a great way to A/B mics, or inverse link the pans of two tracks to collapse or expand the stereo image if you don't want to combine them into a stereo track and use a plugin. Sorry if this is already in Waveform, but I did a search in the manual for groups and links as well as going through any chapters I thought it may be in but couldn't find anything.

You can already do this in Waveform with macro parameters and racks.

Edit: I'll write a post about this tomorrow and include some presets.

You don't need to use racks for this Robert, there's a much simpler and more convenient way to do it. Simply add additional volume plugins to the tracks you wish to control and then use an lfo modifier to control them. Set the "intensity" level to zero and then use the offset control to set fader levels. I usually use a trim utility rather than the built in volume control because then you don't confuse the vca fader with the normal fader.

I'm aware of the LFO method, but the benefit of using racks is that you can utilize presets and auto-connecting for an easier workflow.