Comping without loop?

[kozelkral]

I've looked around and really tried to figure out how to record comps for myself, but it seems frustratingly to be unavailable in Waveform 9/10 in the way that I would most commonly use it. I'm most accustomed to simply having a 'merge takes' option when recording over a track which automatically would create a comp. As far as I can tell, in Waveform you either have to have looping enabled (why!?) or create comp groups out of separate tracks. This all seems pretty convoluted and, frankly, pretty annoying. Has anyone out there found a way to do the normal 'recording over takes' to create comps in Waveform?

[MBO]

This was discussed some time ago:
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=501765

And yes, the way audio comping works now in Waveform isn't how it is normally done during recording. For me, personally, it's the biggest drawback of this DAW (which I support anyway) and the deciding factor that I don't use it for audio recording.

[AGreen]

Can't you just record over the top of existing clips, then select them all and use the "Create comp" commands. This allows you to do it without looping.

[chico.co.uk]

Or just have the loop points at the start of where you want to start, and past the end of the whole song, and record in loop mode ... it'll not get to the point where it needs to loop

[MBO]

Of course there are many workarounds but if you record 50 takes of the same bar/fragment over and over again to get the best take (sometimes on two tracks when you record a clean guitar from a DI box for a reference - also visual - and future reamping and distorted/processed after amp) and you are focused on what you are doing, the last thing additionally needed is to think how to overcome such limitation of a DAW.

[AGreen]

If you're doing 50 takes you probably need to improve the precision of your playing. When recording you should aim to get it right within 3 to 4 takes or else your playing will be sloppy. If it's taking you 50 takes you'd probably be better off using punch in/out to correct bad areas.

[Steve Bolivar]

What if you're just improving, playing everything perfectly and just want to comp together your best musical ideas.

[MBO]

@AGreen
Normally yes. But if you record very technical guitar parts in very fast tempos with double or quad tracking you need precision around 10-15ms between peaks to get clarity so sometimes it requires many trials regardless how tight a guitar player is. Faster is to record the same part 30 times in a row in a loop and make comping after that than correct one bad area in a punch in mode. This is how it is normally done. And sometimes you cannot just tell a musician "improve your playing and come back in two months"

@Steve Bolivar
Yes, that's another case. For example sometimes you or a musician being recorded is not sure yet what should be the details etc. so the thing is evolving during a recording process.

[AGreen]

If you want to work like this, you could create a folder and keep adding tracks as "lanes". Very fast and easy to do. Then select all your clips and use the create comps functions. In waveform 10 the input follows track selection so that makes it even faster. I really can't see why this is so problematic. It seems very straightforward to me.

[MBO]

Ok, thanks, I'll try this idea later today, why not? It was problematic because there was no mixed "loop/punch in/punch in selected items" mode and when you continued loop recording after you had stopped, new takes were added in a separate clip. Obviously you can get used to almost any workflow but if you have many options (DAWs) you choose what is fastest and most transparent to get the work done.

I still use Waveform almost daily for other features and really enjoy its progression over the last years.

[AGreen]

You could also explore making use of the new waveform 10 track snapshots feature. You could use this to have as many variations of clips on one track as you want and copy/paste ideas/sections etc.

[kozelkral]

Thanks for the posts, it's a relief just to know I'm not a complete idiot and wasn't missing something extremely simple like a setting. I still think it would be the easiest thing in the world for them to add a 'merge' option for overlaying like they have already available when in loop mode, but oh well.

[AGreen]

If you use the folder method I mentioned above, you don't even need to create a comp from the clips. Instead, add the tracks in the folder to a comp group and comp on the tracks themseves. This gives very similar functionality to other daws that use a track based lanes system.

[TSC]

Its an interesting idea - and one that would be pretty easy to add - so lets really run through exactly what behavior you are looking for

Sounds like you want to be able to simply record over existing clips and have them automatically form a comp group - rather than the current behavior which allows you to record over, but does not magically put them in a comp.

If you click on the audio input and look in the properties, there are a few options for 'record mode' - by default, clips are simply overlayed - we could add the option to create comps to this list

BUT, is that any easier than recording the clips over each other, selecting them all and creating a comp group?

I don't mind having multiple ways to do a task, so open to adding workflows that perhaps are learned from other hosts - if there is a particularly elegant solution you have got used to using, let us know and we can check it out

[fde101]

Adding an option to that menu to create comps rather than overwrite when recording overlaps an existing clip sounds to me like a great way to handle this. I would even suggest a preference to choose what the default mode should be so that users can select the comping mode as their default instead of overwriting.

I would be curious as to what the others on this thread think about it, though.