Generating Multiple Clicks in Waveform... Also, Options for Volume and Pan Faders and Phase Check??

[tmaworks]

1. So, the one thing that keeps me coming back to Audacity is just how easy it is to create multiple click tracks. All you've gotta do is go to generate "rhythm track" and it automatically prints a click track to a new track. It's sooo convenient for me because I write music with a lot of tempo changes and it's really easy to test out different sections of the song at 120bpm, 130, 140, 142, etc. Makes a world of a difference when it comes to pre-production...

I know that Waveform has got the Metronome in the bottom right corner there, but I haven't actually found a way to perform this simple function of printing multiple clicks. Actually, there isn't another DAW I've used that can so quickly and easily perform this task as Audacity.

2. Is there a way to change the appearance of the volume and panning features to the classic knobs and sliders?? If, not I suppose I could get used to these, but would be nice to be able to customize the appearance a little more. Haven't seen anything other than font and contrast options in the setting.

3. Phase Check on tracks?? I don't see a way to check the phase on tracks. I read somewhere that there might be a plugin for this? I suppose that could be a workaround...

Thanks, All!!

[pough]

1. I don't really know what you mean by "printing" a track, but I suspect that Audacity works fundamentally differently when it comes to timing. Is it generating audio onto a track?

Check out the Tempo track at the top of Waveform's interface. You can set and change tempos and signatures anywhere you like in the song.

2. No for customization. Are you bringing up the Mixer?

3. Open the Control Panel at the bottom to "Useful Mode". Click on a volume/pan plugin. Toggle the Polarity switch. I'm not 100% sure that's what you mean by "check the phase" but it does invert the polarity which should allow you to check the phase. I think. It doesn't check the phase for you.

[tmaworks]

1. I don't really know what you mean by "printing" a track, but I suspect that Audacity works fundamentally differently when it comes to timing. Is it generating audio onto a track?

Check out the Tempo track at the top of Waveform's interface. You can set and change tempos and signatures anywhere you like in the song.

2. No for customization. Are you bringing up the Mixer?

3. Open the Control Panel at the bottom to "Useful Mode". Click on a volume/pan plugin. Toggle the Polarity switch. I'm not 100% sure that's what you mean by "check the phase" but it does invert the polarity which should allow you to check the phase. I think. It doesn't check the phase for you.

1. Yes! It generates an individual track for each new tempo you punch in. I've got five or 6 different audio tracks floating around with tempos on them for each song -It's a super convenient feature for me when building a song because say i've got the chorous right tempo-wise, but the bridge is a little funny and i want to try 5 or 6 different tempos on that and toggle between them while listening -Audacity is super great for that...

I've had some trouble with the Tempo track at the top of Waveform. I can't even type in a tempo for some reason. I don't even see anywhere to do it -Couldn't even find a solid video tutorial for one online. Have you got a link to one?? The tempo aspect of whatever DAW I use is SOO clutch for me... Most of my time is spent listening and getting the tempos right -Much more so than mixing!!

2. No! I have not been bringing up the mixer! Will try that!

3. In both Reaper and Cakewalk each track has along with the mute and solo buttons a "phase" button. It's just a little button you can push to invert the phase of a track to make sure it's in phase (or not in phase) with the rest of them... Super convenient, as well, when tracking a drum with lots of microphones...

One more thing: When you say you suspect Audacity works fundamentally different when it comes to timing, what do you mean by that? Are you just referring to the tempos/ click tracks and how they are generated/ formatted, or something else?? Because, currently, I'm hoping to be able to do all my crazy tempo working/ pre production in Audacity and then fly those tracks into another daw should I need to do some very, very minor beat aligning or pocketing on a snare hit with melodyne or whatever. I'm operating on the premise that 162bpm is the same in one DAW as it is in another. In some daws you can make a grid with different tempo tracks, so you've got all the lines to line up things as you like, but this only works if what I said above is true: 162bpm (or whatever tempo) being EXACTLY the same from one DAW to another...

THanks for the time!

[pough]

1. Open the bottom Control Panel into "Useful Mode"...

The Tempo track starts off with a straight line running from left to right. You can add nodes to the line (I think double-click and Alt-click both work) and then when the node is selected you can drag it but you can also type in the BPM down below.

TEMPO TRACK Screenshot 2022-09-05 130103.png

3. I just meant that Audacity is an audio editor with extra features on top but at its heart it's primarily audio files. Hosts like Waveform are primarily song editors. Things like tempo and clicks are meta level and don't need to be "printed".

I would imagine BPM is exactly the same. Anything else would require strange math.

[tmaworks]

1. Open the bottom Control Panel into "Useful Mode"...

The Tempo track starts off with a straight line running from left to right. You can add nodes to the line (I think double-click and Alt-click both work) and then when the node is selected you can drag it but you can also type in the BPM down below.

TEMPO TRACK Screenshot 2022-09-05 130103.png

3. I just meant that Audacity is an audio editor with extra features on top but at its heart it's primarily audio files. Hosts like Waveform are primarily song editors. Things like tempo and clicks are meta level and don't need to be "printed".

I would imagine BPM is exactly the same. Anything else would require strange math.

Honestly, the last thing you said there -About audacity as an audio editor and waveform primarily being a song editor really helps. Thanks for that...

And thank you big time for the screen shot above! Thanks for taking the time!

Would you see any limitations in Waveform as a "one stop shop" for song production? Mixing, recording, etc. -The whole thing. I'm still learning to get around in it (only had if for a few days), but it seems to be able to do just about everything. I only have the free version... Perhaps there might be some limitations in quantizing or pitch correction?? -But, other than that, I can't really think of anything in particular... Maybe something really esoteric... I'm really leaning towards Waveform over cakewalk because it just seems less convoluted as a whole. Creating Auxs and busses, for example, is a much more straightforward process to me and I really enjoy the simplicity of the interface. There are a few things I would change, but at least it's not too complex and you don't have to spend a lot of time undoing/ reconfiguring things...

[Watchful]

If this helps. I use Waveform for everything from sketching out new ideas to mastering and everything in between.

I will use Audacity to convert .wav recordings to high-quality .mpg and .flac formats because Audacity can do an entire album of tracks at once. But everything else is now in Waveform for me.

[tmaworks]

If this helps. I use Waveform for everything from sketching out new ideas to mastering and everything in between.

I will use Audacity to convert .wav recordings to high-quality .mpg and .flac formats because Audacity can do an entire album of tracks at once. But everything else is now in Waveform for me.

Really cool. Appreciate it! Thank you!

What sold you on Waveform over some other DAWS?

[Watchful]

It was a few years ago, and Tracktion was giving T6 away, free, with the launch of T7. Since it was unlimited in track count, I tried it. From there, I loved its free-form ability to route audio... connecting inputs to outputs, auxes, sends, return...I could create busses, parallel tracks, whatever, with ease. It occurred to me that it was like working with an unlimited studio set up like the 1980s...without cables strewn all over the floor...or a fully digital studio from today with clean work surfaces. Whatever my project needed, there was a way. Very quickly I moved over to it full-time.

So I quickly upgraded to the paid version. And here we are at v12!

[Watchful]

A note on metronomes in general. I'm not a big fan of how they're usually implemented anywhere: BEEP-bip-bip-bip BEEP-bip-bip-bip is annoying to me.

When needing a metronome to record a live performance, I usually just create one with a plug in and a looped MIDI clip or two. By using a percussion plug in, I can select very distinctive sounds for the beats, especially useful when not working in 4/4 time: BAM-tick-tick-pok! BAM-tick-tick-pok!, where the last sound reminds me we're about to start a new bar.

If you change the tempo of a project, the nice thing is that the MIDI track follows. If you use mixed time signatures within a project, you can readily create a clip for each time signature--potentially changing the percussion sounds to equally unique sounds so remind you that "we're in 5/8 time now." Often, at the end of a chorus, bridge, or other important section, I might put some additional sounds in a new clip to warn me "the bar is ending soon... and now it's over." Very helpful in long passages where it's easy to lose my place.

When you're done, just delete the metronome track and it all goes away in one shot, to be replaced by real (final) percussion or no percussion if it's not that type of music.

In my mind, better than any DAW's BEEP-bip-bip-bip. In the 1980s, this was really annoying with a PC sequencer's limited beep sounds: sometimes you couldn't hear an error beep because it was drowned out by the metronome, which sounded exactly the same.

[tmaworks]

It was a few years ago, and Tracktion was giving T6 away, free, with the launch of T7. Since it was unlimited in track count, I tried it. From there, I loved its free-form ability to route audio... connecting inputs to outputs, auxes, sends, return...I could create busses, parallel tracks, whatever, with ease. It occurred to me that it was like working with an unlimited studio set up like the 1980s...without cables strewn all over the floor...or a fully digital studio from today with clean work surfaces. Whatever my project needed, there was a way. Very quickly I moved over to it full-time.

So I quickly upgraded to the paid version. And here we are at v12!

I was STUNNED when I discovered how intuitive/ easy it was do auxs and busses in Waveform. Like, DUH!! Haha! That's how it SHOULD be. I was messing around going back and forth between Waveform and Cakewalk the other day and once I got to auxs and busses Waveform came out the CLEAR winner. Ditched Cakewalk after that... NOW, I'm messing around going back and forth between Waveform and Ardour. Ardour feels very similar to Audacity to me which I really like. Waveform is like learning a bit of a different language, but it seems really great. I'm definitely happy I stumbled upon both of them...

have you experimented with Ardour at all?

[tmaworks]

It was a few years ago, and Tracktion was giving T6 away, free, with the launch of T7. Since it was unlimited in track count, I tried it. From there, I loved its free-form ability to route audio... connecting inputs to outputs, auxes, sends, return...I could create busses, parallel tracks, whatever, with ease. It occurred to me that it was like working with an unlimited studio set up like the 1980s...without cables strewn all over the floor...or a fully digital studio from today with clean work surfaces. Whatever my project needed, there was a way. Very quickly I moved over to it full-time.

So I quickly upgraded to the paid version. And here we are at v12!

I was STUNNED when I discovered how intuitive/ easy it was do auxs and busses in Waveform. Like, DUH!! Haha! That's how it SHOULD be. I was messing around going back and forth between Waveform and Cakewalk the other day and once I got to auxs and busses Waveform came out the CLEAR winner. Ditched Cakewalk after that... NOW, I'm messing around going back and forth between Waveform and Ardour. Ardour feels very similar to Audacity to me which I really like. Waveform is like learning a bit of a different language, but it seems really great. I'm definitely happy I stumbled upon both of them...

have you experimented with Ardour at all?

yeah, click tracks can be SUUUPER annoying! Took me a while to find out what worked for me -sound-wise and "layout-wise" I could say -Like, where i wanted certain accents and such. It's definitely a whole thing! The whole pre-pro side...

[tmaworks]

A note on metronomes in general. I'm not a big fan of how they're usually implemented anywhere: BEEP-bip-bip-bip BEEP-bip-bip-bip is annoying to me.

When needing a metronome to record a live performance, I usually just create one with a plug in and a looped MIDI clip or two. By using a percussion plug in, I can select very distinctive sounds for the beats, especially useful when not working in 4/4 time: BAM-tick-tick-pok! BAM-tick-tick-pok!, where the last sound reminds me we're about to start a new bar.

If you change the tempo of a project, the nice thing is that the MIDI track follows. If you use mixed time signatures within a project, you can readily create a clip for each time signature--potentially changing the percussion sounds to equally unique sounds so remind you that "we're in 5/8 time now." Often, at the end of a chorus, bridge, or other important section, I might put some additional sounds in a new clip to warn me "the bar is ending soon... and now it's over." Very helpful in long passages where it's easy to lose my place.

When you're done, just delete the metronome track and it all goes away in one shot, to be replaced by real (final) percussion or no percussion if it's not that type of music.

In my mind, better than any DAW's BEEP-bip-bip-bip. In the 1980s, this was really annoying with a PC sequencer's limited beep sounds: sometimes you couldn't hear an error beep because it was drowned out by the metronome, which sounded exactly the same.

yeah, click tracks can be SUUUPER annoying! Took me a while to find out what worked for me -sound-wise and "layout-wise" I could say -Like, where i wanted certain accents and such. It's definitely a whole thing! The whole pre-pro side...

[Watchful]

have you experimented with Ardour at all?

I have not. I did use its predecessor, LMMS, which had extremely little MIDI support at the time. I understand--could be wrong--that even today, Ardour has issues with doing full MIDI exports. Someone can correct me, but I believe this was true at least a couple years ago.

I do export MIDI tracks in bulk in order to generate sheet music, and Waveform makes that very simple.

The only other DAW I've used in the last couple years is Cubase, but haven't launched it for any reason in quite a while.

Products I've used in the past are no longer available for purchase! Started out with Sequencer Plus 3 back in the previous century.

[tmaworks]

have you experimented with Ardour at all?

I have not. I did use its predecessor, LMMS, which had extremely little MIDI support at the time. I understand--could be wrong--that even today, Ardour has issues with doing full MIDI exports. Someone can correct me, but I believe this was true at least a couple years ago.

I do export MIDI tracks in bulk in order to generate sheet music, and Waveform makes that very simple.

The only other DAW I've used in the last couple years is Cubase, but haven't launched it for any reason in quite a while.

Products I've used in the past are no longer available for purchase! Started out with Sequencer Plus 3 back in the previous century.

Very cool. I appreciate hearing about your experiences! Thank you!

I'm gonna have some downtime in the next few days. Looking to do a deep dive with Waveform and really see what it's all about! Might mess around with Ardour a bit, too, and do a head-to-head! I don't do any midi at all, so it's not a big deal to me -What I'm most concerned with is ease of editing etc., but ALSO -how strong it is during tracking. I've got 14 drum mics going on at the same time and crashing is a NO-GO. That is the OOOOONE thing that Reaper has going for it in my opinion -that darn thing is STABLE! I can run take after take with all those mics and it never skips a beat! Editing in it is next to impossible for me and I can't STAND the UI/ workflow, but I'll be darned if that things isn't stable as all get out...

[Watchful]

Well, good luck, and hope Waveform works out for you. It's not for everyone, of course, but no product is. But it's a great community, here, and beginners seem to become experts pretty quick with it! Hope to see you around here.