3 Beginner Questions

[tmaworks]

Did some tracking in Waveform today (11mics on a drum kit) and hoping to do much more. Just ran into a few things that were a little bit hard to track down solutions for:

1. As I was doing multiple takes, I could hear the previous one playing in the background. I didn't know how to deal with this other than to mute all the tracks and keep recording. Of course this is not ideal...How can I get around this without muting each track? Each take you should just be able to hear that take as you're playing it...No?

2. There used to be a tiny "+" sign in the bottom corner on the clips that you could click on to "show all tracks". That little "+" sign seems to have disappeared for me and now I cannot figure out how to see all my takes

3. Somehow, when I'm getting levels, I'm unable to see the volume meters go up and down in the mixing panel, itself. -I am only able to see the volumes in the tiny horizontal rectangles that are hovering above each track -There are no numbers there, so I can't really see where I'm at numerically -I've got to be able to see all the meters moving up and down (vertically) nice and bold with numbers beside them when I'm setting levels on 14 microphones at once...

Also, if I'm not mistaken, the "Undo" button doesn't apply to volume and pan settings -Am I right in that? I can change the volume or pan on a track and then push undo and it won't return to it's previous state. That's kind of curious. Perhaps I'm just not in the right tracking/ mixing mode or something?

-If I can just get past these three little hurdles then I should be flying in Traction Waveform! So thankful to be working in this DAW... Just gotta get a few things figured out with my workflow.

Thanks to All.

[pough]

It sounds like you're assuming Waveform records as "takes" by default. This is not the case. You only get "comping" with the + sign when you have start and end points set and you're doing looped recording. In all other circumstances you are simply recording audio clips and they will play back as basic audio clips unless you mute them.

If you have a number of independent audio clips that you want to treat as comped clips you can select them all and use the "Pack Clips to Takes" control that shows up when the Control Panel is in Useful Mode.

Also, yes. The undo button doesn't undo as many things as you might want it to. I don't think it tends to undo things that happen within plugins.

[tmaworks]

It sounds like you're assuming Waveform records as "takes" by default. This is not the case. You only get "comping" with the + sign when you have start and end points set and you're doing looped recording. In all other circumstances you are simply recording audio clips and they will play back as basic audio clips unless you mute them.

If you have a number of independent audio clips that you want to treat as comped clips you can select them all and use the "Pack Clips to Takes" control that shows up when the Control Panel is in Useful Mode.

Also, yes. The undo button doesn't undo as many things as you might want it to. I don't think it tends to undo things that happen within plugins.

Okay. Thank you for the tip on the loops thing for comping. VERY good to know...

Waveform seemed to kind of of do takes for me? I dunno...

I was tracking a drum kit with 11 mics last night. Each mic had it's own track, of course, and every subsequent take I did just layered itself on top of the previous one. I then had to drag each take to a new track... Would be nice if every time I hit record a new track would just start -Or, if there is a button that is "break all clips out to it's own track" or something... I had problems with hearing the prior take underneath the new one, so I just muted the track and kept on tracking. But, that's not super cool because then you're not hearing the mic signal come through the headphones...Any way to get around this? Perhaps the loop tracking thing would be better for these multiple drum takes with lots of mics?? -It's just that I prefer to do it the "Straight up" tracking way, so that I can catch a break between these songs... Guess I could push pause? I don't really mind breaking the clips out and then dragging them onto new track, but ya know. -IF there is a way to mute multiple tracks at once, then that would make things a little faster for me -I thought that shift+all the tracks I want to mute and then pushing mute on one of those tracks would take care of it, but that simple action doesn't seem to work when it comes to muting tracks, for some reason... Appologies -Bit of a ramble there as I'm connecting the dots in my head... -New to Waveform and hoping to make a home in it...

The undo thing is a bummer, though. Really hope they change that. Has anyone notified them?

[Watchful]

Trying to follow this, so forgive me if I'm wrong here.

Sounds like you had 11 tracks, each with its own mic.

You would record a take, which went across all 11 tracks.

Then you stopped, jumped back, and then redid the next take(s)?

If so, then yes--Waveform will overlap the clips, and you'll need to manually separate them out since Waveform's assumption is you want them to overlap.

However, it seems more likely you want to create a stack of clips that you can separate out. You can do that--and more!

1. At the start of your recording on the bar, press "I" (that's the letter i). This puts your IN marker where you want the recording to start. FYI--you might want to put this a few beats ahead to give you time to get ready for subsequent takes.

2. Where you want the take to end, position the cursor and press "O" (that's the letter o). This puts the OUT marker where you want it to stop. Again, you might put this a bar or two after the exact stop to ensure your decays and cymbals don't get chopped off!

3. Press L. This now creates a LOOP between IN and OUT.

4. Arm all 11 tracks.

5. Press record. Waveform will play about 4-8 beats ahead to get you ready...then, when the playhead hits the IN marker, it starts recording. When it continues through to the OUT marker, it skips back to the IN marker for your next take. You can do a ton of takes this way.

6. Press STOP when you have enough takes.

Each track will now have one super clip, with all the takes stacked up. It usually loads the first take, but you can audition other takes. Look for the tiny + (plus) in the lower right corner of each clip.

Options:

A. You can audition which one you like best by selecting its take number. When you find one you like best, the + button has an option to "delete" unused takes, or you can just leave the one you like on top.

B. You can burst these clips to separate tracks...again, that's an option from the + menu in the lower right corner. Note: you will NOT overwrite existing tracks--Waveform will create new tracks for each clip, so you never accidentally overwrite or overlap previously recorded material. It's totally safe and also very undoable.

C. Best of all, you can do a COMP track. Check the Waveform manual on how to do this. There are a few steps to it, but it's super-super-easy to do, and you can create a perfect track out of a whole bunch of near-perfect or even totally imperfect performances. Then, you can FLATTEN the comps (again, from the same + menu) and create that super track for yourself.

[tmaworks]

Trying to follow this, so forgive me if I'm wrong here.

Sounds like you had 11 tracks, each with its own mic.

You would record a take, which went across all 11 tracks.

Then you stopped, jumped back, and then redid the next take(s)?

If so, then yes--Waveform will overlap the clips, and you'll need to manually separate them out since Waveform's assumption is you want them to overlap.

However, it seems more likely you want to create a stack of clips that you can separate out. You can do that--and more!

1. At the start of your recording on the bar, press "I" (that's the letter i). This puts your IN marker where you want the recording to start. FYI--you might want to put this a few beats ahead to give you time to get ready for subsequent takes.

2. Where you want the take to end, position the cursor and press "O" (that's the letter o). This puts the OUT marker where you want it to stop. Again, you might put this a bar or two after the exact stop to ensure your decays and cymbals don't get chopped off!

3. Press L. This now creates a LOOP between IN and OUT.

4. Arm all 11 tracks.

5. Press record. Waveform will play about 4-8 beats ahead to get you ready...then, when the playhead hits the IN marker, it starts recording. When it continues through to the OUT marker, it skips back to the IN marker for your next take. You can do a ton of takes this way.

6. Press STOP when you have enough takes.

Each track will now have one super clip, with all the takes stacked up. It usually loads the first take, but you can audition other takes. Look for the tiny + (plus) in the lower right corner of each clip.

Options:

A. You can audition which one you like best by selecting its take number. When you find one you like best, the + button has an option to "delete" unused takes, or you can just leave the one you like on top.

B. You can burst these clips to separate tracks...again, that's an option from the + menu in the lower right corner. Note: you will NOT overwrite existing tracks--Waveform will create new tracks for each clip, so you never accidentally overwrite or overlap previously recorded material. It's totally safe and also very undoable.

C. Best of all, you can do a COMP track. Check the Waveform manual on how to do this. There are a few steps to it, but it's super-super-easy to do, and you can create a perfect track out of a whole bunch of near-perfect or even totally imperfect performances. Then, you can FLATTEN the comps (again, from the same + menu) and create that super track for yourself.

Okay, yes -Right on everything! Thank you SO MUCH for this. Was driving me crazy...

Regarding doing it the "old fashioned way" with just recording, pushing stop, pushing "w" and going back to the beginning and then pushing record again -Am I always going to hear the pervious take in the background?? This was my main problem with this method. Although, I do think that the "loop" method is the obvious choice when you've got as many mics and you're doing as many takes I am, but it would be nice to know... The only way I could get around hearing the previous take was to mute the mic'd channels, which isn't ideal since you want to heat those signals when you're playing...

One more thing: I just opened up last nights session with the 11 mics. i was expecting waveform to remember which inputs each mic had, but it looks as though I'm going to have to re-assign those inputs again. Is this correct? Is there a way to save which inputs each mic had or will I have to re-assign each time I want to record in the same session again?

[Watchful]

Glad I helped. A couple more comments based on your replies.

The reason you were hearing the previous takes is because you were hearing them overlap each other. When you use looping, you only hear your current take (plus any backing tracks you don't have muted, of course). You will NOT hear the previous take at all.

And, when you're done looping, Waveform will reload your first take: so you only hear the first take you captured. By clicking on that + symbol in the lower right corner of the clip, you can change that. I often do, because the first take is usually not the best. Even when I'm planning to comp, I still load the best-sounding take so that it sounds as good as it will get before I start cleanup editing, etc.

Second, not sure what happened with your project when reloading it. Waveform will remember the previous input you saved, exactly like you expect. The only thing I can think of is that you opened the project first, then turned on your audio interface or mixer, or whatever controls your inputs. In that case, I can see Waveform losing track of what your current inputs are.

For example, I will almost always delete the input from the track as soon as I'm done with it (no particular reason why...just what I do). Often, I'll either forget or I'll leave it assigned as an input on, say, Track 5, because I'm coming back to do additional recording later. When I relaunch Waveform and reopen the project--there's my input, on Track 5, ready to work.

However, Waveform can be a bit funky about turning on and off devices while it's open. Waveform would *prefer* you turn on your peripherals and audio interfaces first...then launch Waveform. True for either MIDI or audio devices. In fact, prior to v11, Waveform would typically crash hard if I turned something on or switched something off while it was open.

Today, v11 and v12 will stay fully operational, but it won't "see" those devices unless I go to the Settings tab and refresh the audio devices and/or the MIDI devices.

So I wonder if--however you're feeding 11 mics into your computer--those devices were not on or not ready when the project was opened. Or, you turned them off before closing the project. But I can assure you, Waveform *should* be remembering input assignments provided they were saved and up and running at the time.

[tmaworks]

So I wonder if--however you're feeding 11 mics into your computer--those devices were not on or not ready when the project was opened. Or, you turned them off before closing the project. But I can assure you, Waveform *should* be remembering input assignments provided they were saved and up and running at the time.

Yep. You're right. I had the project opened in Waveform and then I took my laptop downstairs where i do all my recording... Thank you for that...

I do have some concerns about the stability of Waveform when do a lot of tracking... I went downstairs to do another drum session and once I got up to around 40 tracks, it really couldn't handle it -Started getting sputtery and stalling during tracking. Went over to Reaper and no such problems. Very smooth... Hmm...

Could I have had some setting wrong?? I shouldn't have gotten that type of sub par performance from Waveform, I wouldn't think...

At this moment in time, as much as I'd love to transfer over to Waveform completely, I'm think about delegating the tracking to Reaper and perhaps all editing and such in Waveform (Editing is a NIGHTMARE For me in Reaper -Tracking and light mixing is fine, but anything else and I'm LOST, pretty much...)

Thank you so much for taking the time. It's a wild world -The one of Music Production....

[Watchful]

Well, it sounds like you're having fun, as well as being productive, so that's all great.

Waveform *can* be a big piggish on memory. I try to render tracks whenever I can, but I have some 50+ or 60+ tracks where things started to slow down and crunch the audio. It typically renders just fine though, but one thing you can do--which we did back in the pre-DAW days--was bounce tracks and merge them together...then delete the originals.

Obviously, you only want to do this when you're 100% sure you're done with them, and never if you're processing the tracks differently because once merged...you're done with editing them separately, of course.

I will however share with you that, at the moment I'm typing this, I have Waveform 11.5 open because I'm working on some vocal tracks. I have found Waveform 12 does not work as well with audio inputs, alas. I get popping and whistling noises quite often in 12, recorded right in. But if I record into 11.5, it's problem-free. I then bring the finished tracks into v12 to do the processing and arranging, balancing, mixing, etc. I like 12, but it has some definite audio anomalies for me. I haven't seen anyone else complain.

I will also add that recording in Reaper and finishing in Waveform is really not that unusual. A lot of people use 2+ DAWs, just as guitarists use different guitars and keyboardists use different keyboards for different things. There's no perfect DAW, of course, because if there were, we wouldn't be exchanging information like this!

[tmaworks]

Well, it sounds like you're having fun, as well as being productive, so that's all great.

Waveform *can* be a big piggish on memory. I try to render tracks whenever I can, but I have some 50+ or 60+ tracks where things started to slow down and crunch the audio. It typically renders just fine though, but one thing you can do--which we did back in the pre-DAW days--was bounce tracks and merge them together...then delete the originals.

Obviously, you only want to do this when you're 100% sure you're done with them, and never if you're processing the tracks differently because once merged...you're done with editing them separately, of course.

I will however share with you that, at the moment I'm typing this, I have Waveform 11.5 open because I'm working on some vocal tracks. I have found Waveform 12 does not work as well with audio inputs, alas. I get popping and whistling noises quite often in 12, recorded right in. But if I record into 11.5, it's problem-free. I then bring the finished tracks into v12 to do the processing and arranging, balancing, mixing, etc. I like 12, but it has some definite audio anomalies for me. I haven't seen anyone else complain.

I will also add that recording in Reaper and finishing in Waveform is really not that unusual. A lot of people use 2+ DAWs, just as guitarists use different guitars and keyboardists use different keyboards for different things. There's no perfect DAW, of course, because if there were, we wouldn't be exchanging information like this!

Dude, thank you so much for the encouragement!! Really nice to know that there are others working more than one DAW. It's just... Comforting... Haha!

I was really starting to think that something was wrong with my for not absolutely loving Reaper. Like... Ah -We've all heard it before -It's just a tough program, man!!

Yeah, you know, now that you mention it -I don't believe I had the same issues with whatever version of Waveform was on my computer before. I had to get a new hard drive installed and thus had to re-install waveform. I think I had version 11.5... It would've been about 5-6 months ago that I downloaded that, Maybe 3-4?? SO, might've been 12. Eh, I dunno... PLUS -I"m using a 10 year old laptop with only 4 gigs of ram and a pea-sized processor that they don't even make anymore~!

Yes, I rather enjoy waveform for all of it's simple and intuitive comping features and whatnot. But, for tracking, eh I dunno... Maybe not just yet!

Thank you again for taking the time, Watchful!!

[Watchful]

Anytime! Happy to collaborate!