I've been using Tracktion Waveform for over a year now. I really like this DAW and want to develop more in this wonderful program!
I have a question about live switches between the looped parts of the playback in Waveform. Most likely, such functions, which I will discuss below, are not the direct purpose of this program, but I hope that in the environment of this sequencer they can be implemented at least partially.
I really hope that I can find answers here, and also maybe i give you any idea or at least food for the mind)
I want to immediately apologize for my English, since I live in Ukraine and write via Google translator)
Background to the question:
The old Korg PA50 has such a cool thing as "interactive" playback.
Image of the front panel of the Korg PA50
In the settings, you can select the style of the accompaniment, as well as tap tempo.
The playback start by pressing the START / STOP button.
I call this playback "interactive" because it can be controlled by switching parts with the buttons: "variation", "fill", "ending", "intro".
Such switching between parts is interesting because if in the middle of playing the intro you call another part, for example "variation", then this part will start playing only after the previous one is finished.
I think that many other electronic keyboards also have an accompaniment function, I just used it only in the PA50.
Recently I had the opportunity to experiment with a small midi keyboard "AKAI mpk mini".
I want to use it in conjunction with Waveform, so I remembered the Korg accompaniment features.
I see two main ways to do this through the DAW:
A - vertical: in the loop area there are several tracks, on each of which there are, for example, an intro, a verse, a chorus, and so on.
Then we have the question of how to switch between tracks at the right time.
B - horizontal: place all parts on one track and mark with markers.
Perhaps there is a third method, which involves a combination of the two previous ones, but I think that this is already quite difficult.
The second method seemed to me easier.
Also, I would like to use a vertical plane for a live overlay of different instruments.
I divided the timeline using markers and placed a part of the accompaniment under each of them, for example, the drum part: for the intro (marker 1), for the verse (marker 2), chorus (marker 3) and bridge (marker 4).
Of course, everything can be done much easier and, for example, create the entire playback in advance. But in this case it will be difficult or even impossible to make changes to the structure during the song, especially if it is live spontaneous music.
In Actions of Waveform, I found a useful toggle switch for my task. It's called "toggle loop follows selection", which allows you to immediately loop an area of the clip when it is selected. For example, during playback, I click on the chorus marker and it plays in a loop.
In order not to select markers with the mouse every time, you can select the first one, and then use the shortcuts "alt + left / right / home / end" to navigate to the desired markers.
You can also quickly jump to a specific marker by entering the digit of its number and press 'Enter', but unfortunately in this case the marker is not selected. Perhaps there is also a toggle switch for this or script?
But the main problem is that as soon as the looping area changes, playback instantly switches. Therefore, you have to switch parts very accurately in time to avoid breakage of rhythm.
The crux of my question:
Does the Waveform engine support such scripts with which you can quickly select the desired marker, but at the same time so that the looping area goes to it only after the cursor reaches the border of the nearest Bar?