I am a more or less happy cubase sx user.
But I am looking for a feature - that would revolutionize my workflow. I am wondering what the closest thing out there would be. Live has elements of it - and DP actually may have something like it but I'm on PC.
Any comments welcome....
Here's the feature explanation:
On any track you would be able to create a loop region and assign it X number of times to play. The playback of that track would repeat the looped region in place of any audio material that exists on that track during those bars. As soon as the looped region has been played X times - then playback continues as normal on the track at bar the playback head has reached.
What I'm looking for is a way to quickly combine any segment of audio with any other in a looped fashion without having to do time consuming copy paste repeats and rearranging of the raw track material.
SX3 has a Playorder tracks which just let you jump around and repeat across all tracks .. but something like is on a per track basis would MUCH more useful.
If I could add a loop region of any length and set a property of X reps; that would enable so much more flexible experimentation of overlapping different elements from different parts of the performances on different tracks. Eg., let me hear bar 27 of the bass with bars 12-16 of the congas - each looped.
It strikes me as I write that what it should be is maybe a so-called LOOP Channel that is available for any track. Almost like an automation layer. You show the loop channel. Then drag "Parts" or "Regions" from the main track into it and set the X times property. When the loop channel playback is enabled - it overrides playback of the main track - only when there is information (Loop Regions) in it. I would be able to drag a region of audio from say bar 32 to bar 4 of the LOOP channel and set its repeat to 4 times. This would mean that bar 32 would be interjected in the playback from bar 4 to 8.
Soooomething like this - would add almost a vertical dimension to the 2D arrange view.
Any of this resonating for anyone else here???
missing the 3rd dimension (seeking a better arrange toolset)
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- KVRAF
- 2696 posts since 3 Aug, 2003 from Narnia
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- KVRAF
- 8705 posts since 24 May, 2002 from Tutukaka, New Zealand
There's an easy way of doing the same thing as that with any host. I worked with an engineer who on any project his first job was to copy out every single part out to the length of the song. Any variations of a part (but played with the same VSTi or whatever), then he moved that onto a channel of its own. So if you had a 5 minute track - every channel was copied out repeatedly upto the 5 minute length.
Then to create the full song he simply automated mutes on the inspector or on the channel depending on the host. occasionally he'd just mute individual parts - but to actually find the basis of the track, he'd use channel mutes and transfer those mutes to individual parts towards the end.
I personally hated that way of working, but it made sense to me. You just spend a couple of minutes copying everything ad infinitum at the start of the arranging and it saves on the copy/pasting and rearranging later on. I used to work in a very similar way back in the day when I used h/w sequencers - in fact that was probably the only way you could work with some h/w sequencers. I'm sure that's how he developed his work style (it's how bands like Orbital work...endless repeated sequences, and they just mute and unmute mixer channels) - from h/w sequencing. I prefer doing it all ad-hoc simply because I'm not an organised song arranger - I do things on the fly and go back and change and rechange things endlessly. And PC hosts give me the flexibility to do it my way.
But it's worth considering working that way (especially if you're making anything dance orientated (and therefore by definition has alot of repetition in it). Sounds like it'd suit you, and certainly speed up the workflow.
And of course one of the other benefits that way is that you can simply loop endlessly around your 8bars or whatever while you get some inspiration. Then transfer those ideas out into the full song. And another benefit is that when you want to do any channel tweaking for levels or Eq or whatever...you can do it at any point in the song - you simply use the global unmute and everything automatically plays at once, so you can do the mixing at any position instead of zooming around the arrange page to find the full bit towards the end. In fact this particular engineer simply used one 8bar space within the arrange page to do probably 95% of his work on loop repeat.
Often it's not about features in a host...it's about lateral thinking. Any host can do that.
Then to create the full song he simply automated mutes on the inspector or on the channel depending on the host. occasionally he'd just mute individual parts - but to actually find the basis of the track, he'd use channel mutes and transfer those mutes to individual parts towards the end.
I personally hated that way of working, but it made sense to me. You just spend a couple of minutes copying everything ad infinitum at the start of the arranging and it saves on the copy/pasting and rearranging later on. I used to work in a very similar way back in the day when I used h/w sequencers - in fact that was probably the only way you could work with some h/w sequencers. I'm sure that's how he developed his work style (it's how bands like Orbital work...endless repeated sequences, and they just mute and unmute mixer channels) - from h/w sequencing. I prefer doing it all ad-hoc simply because I'm not an organised song arranger - I do things on the fly and go back and change and rechange things endlessly. And PC hosts give me the flexibility to do it my way.
But it's worth considering working that way (especially if you're making anything dance orientated (and therefore by definition has alot of repetition in it). Sounds like it'd suit you, and certainly speed up the workflow.
And of course one of the other benefits that way is that you can simply loop endlessly around your 8bars or whatever while you get some inspiration. Then transfer those ideas out into the full song. And another benefit is that when you want to do any channel tweaking for levels or Eq or whatever...you can do it at any point in the song - you simply use the global unmute and everything automatically plays at once, so you can do the mixing at any position instead of zooming around the arrange page to find the full bit towards the end. In fact this particular engineer simply used one 8bar space within the arrange page to do probably 95% of his work on loop repeat.
Often it's not about features in a host...it's about lateral thinking. Any host can do that.