Freeze, Tracktion v2.

[piaz]

And the grouped tracks could be displayed in another tab ! Or to put it another way, you could have the entire edit on a tab, and on another tab your edit without frozen, rendered and grouped tracks.

This would be really useful to me (my 1GHz is hardly a competitor for +12 tracks with VST)

[valley]

cheers, Valley - nice idea, but actually a bit of a different story than what we were after

Not really...

yes, 'render and add' works like a charm - I only wished Tracktion would be able to hide tracks just as Sonar does

You started a slight tangent, and I just followed it out.

Specifically though, I think that render should *not* hide the source material. That's the purpose of freeze. The fact that freeze does not work in a way that fits the needs of many people is an issue that hopefully T2 will deal with.

That said, render should really exist as a way to make freezes permanent, and if freeze were properly flexible, the track level render would be obsolete anyway.

The problem with freeze however, is how to deal with situations where a frozen clip becomes part of a larger whole that is then itself frozen. Allowing those levels to unfreeze gracefully would be tricky to code.

[jens]

cheers, Valley - nice idea, but actually a bit of a different story than what we were after

Not really...

yes, 'render and add' works like a charm - I only wished Tracktion would be able to hide tracks just as Sonar does

You started a slight tangent, and I just followed it out.

Specifically though, I think that render should *not* hide the source material. That's the purpose of freeze. The fact that freeze does not work in a way that fits the needs of many people is an issue that hopefully T2 will deal with.

That said, render should really exist as a way to make freezes permanent, and if freeze were properly flexible, the track level render would be obsolete anyway.

The problem with freeze however, is how to deal with situations where a frozen clip becomes part of a larger whole that is then itself frozen. Allowing those levels to unfreeze gracefully would be tricky to code.

ah - hum - erm - what we've been asking for is actually simply that tracks who are shrunken by use of the 'shrink'-button stay shrunken until you make use of the 'grow' button because that way we can ge permanently rid of tracks we currently don't use.

But at the moment they get expanded again when you use the 'rescale all tracks to fit on screen'-command.

So in other words, I am only arguing about what 'all tracks' means. I think it should mean

'all tracks except the shrunken ones because I (your humble servant Tracktion) know of course that you asked me to shrunk them all for the sole purpose to get rid of them without losing them. (my smart programmer Julian Storer has given me the ability to shrink exactly for this purpose)'


- at the moment it seems though that the 'smart programmer' has forgotten about the 'shrink'-function when he coded the 'resize'-function (or vice versa)

[jens]

oh, and let me add:

Why is 'render and add' better than freeze':

- you can continue working on your track still the same day

- you don't waste enormously huge amounts of disk space

- you still can tweak the volume

- you still can tweak the panorama

- you can automate the volume

- you can automate the panorama

- you can mute the track

- you can solo the track

- you can rearrange your song

- you can add fx

- you can delete added fx

- you can replace added fx

- you can tweak added-fx


Still you can easily use 317 instances of Rhino.

[valley]

ah - hum - erm - what we've been asking for is actually simply that tracks who are shrunken by use of the 'shrink'-button stay shrunken until you make use of the 'grow' button because that way we can ge permanently rid of tracks we currently don't use.

But at the moment they get expanded again when you use the 'rescale all tracks to fit on screen'-command.

I get what you are saying, but:

I still feel that a dedicated grouped track collapse makes more sense, and is less fiddly overall.

The problem with just reszing tracks down to near zero is that when you need a track back but you have a number of reduced tracks, determining which one you want is not always easy. One three pixel high track looks pretty much like another to me. An entire drum kit reduced to a collection of 3 pixel high tracks just looks untidy too.

"Resize all tracks" is a fairly blunt description, and I can see people being genuinely surprised when it doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin. Having my software make intelligent guesses about what "all" means, is not my idea of hassle free computing.

[valley]

you can continue working on your track still the same day

But a componentized freeze, IE the freeze everyone has been asking for since the dawn of this forum, should be every bit as fast as a regular render.

- you don't waste enormously huge amounts of disk space

Ermm, you waste exactly the same amount of disk space.

- you still can tweak the volume

Componentized freeze; you *can* tweak the volume, and indeed anything else after the frozen block.

- you still can tweak the panorama

- you can automate the volume

- you can automate the panorama

as above.

- you can mute the track

- you can solo the track

And again.

- you can rearrange your song

Tricky to do with out an unfreeze, but since freeze will now be many orders of magnitude faster, not a show stopper.

- you can add fx

- you can delete added fx

- you can replace added fx

- you can tweak added-fx

Assuming these effects haven't themselves been frozen, see the cmooent about level.

Still you can easily use 317 instances of Rhino.

And you would be able to if freeze were not a single file model.

[jens]

ah - hum - erm - what we've been asking for is actually simply that tracks who are shrunken by use of the 'shrink'-button stay shrunken until you make use of the 'grow' button because that way we can ge permanently rid of tracks we currently don't use.

But at the moment they get expanded again when you use the 'rescale all tracks to fit on screen'-command.

I get what you are saying, but:

I still feel that a dedicated grouped track collapse makes more sense, and is less fiddly overall.

The problem with just reszing tracks down to near zero is that when you need a track back but you have a number of reduced tracks, determining which one you want is not always easy. One three pixel high track looks pretty much like another to me. An entire drum kit reduced to a collection of 3 pixel high tracks just looks untidy too.

"Resize all tracks" is a fairly blunt description, and I can see people being genuinely surprised when it doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin. Having my software make intelligent guesses about what "all" means, is not my idea of hassle free computing.

erm - we surely agree that I am talking about two functions which Tracktion already provides?

[jens]

- you don't waste enormously huge amounts of disk space

Ermm, you waste exactly the same amount of disk space.

No, not at all. (at least not in my case)

[AD80]

ah - hum - erm - what we've been asking for is actually simply that tracks who are shrunken by use of the 'shrink'-button stay shrunken until you make use of the 'grow' button because that way we can ge permanently rid of tracks we currently don't use.

But at the moment they get expanded again when you use the 'rescale all tracks to fit on screen'-command.

I get what you are saying, but:

I still feel that a dedicated grouped track collapse makes more sense, and is less fiddly overall.

The problem with just reszing tracks down to near zero is that when you need a track back but you have a number of reduced tracks, determining which one you want is not always easy. One three pixel high track looks pretty much like another to me. An entire drum kit reduced to a collection of 3 pixel high tracks just looks untidy too.

"Resize all tracks" is a fairly blunt description, and I can see people being genuinely surprised when it doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin. Having my software make intelligent guesses about what "all" means, is not my idea of hassle free computing.

So the collapseable tracks would work basically like the Cubase folder tracks? That would be a good feature. The only problem I see is that I dont always work in tracks that can be grouped. If I have 16 Tracks of midi instruments then I would just want to be able to shrink a couple of tracks to get them out of the way. But when I shrink tracks now and I F5-F8 (which is very often), all the shrunken tracks are back to normal. I hate that. I dont know if grouping say the strings with the trombone to get them out of the way would be easier for me. I rather have a small track where I could still see the name.

I'm terrible at explaining things like this haha. All I know is T2 better have a way of hiding, or archiving, or locking tracks some how.

[valley]

erm - we surely agree that I am talking about two functions which Tracktion already provides?

yeah but you are suggesting making a control behave in a manner that is not in agreement with its' description to create a narrow and not entirely complete solution to another one of those "we've been asking for it for years" features. I'm saying that it should be dine properly, and sometime before T2 hits the streets, I'm hoping Jules will whip one of them damn monkeys to get it implemented.

I don't think (though I don't know) that making a track properly invisible would be hard to do within Tracktion's engine. So, assuming that, it really wouldn't be a whole lot of work over and above allowing shrunken tracks to stay shrunken.

I guess I'm just leary of seeing too many 'halfway house' fixes finding their way into Tracktion. A number have done already (I count the track render button amongst them). They just clutter up the UI and make it harder to get it right later. with T2 Jules has an ideal opportunity to clean the slate a little and get things polished up again. I really hope he takes that window and uses it well.

[valley]

So the collapseable tracks would work basically like the Cubase folder tracks?

I can't say I ever used them, but I think so, yes.

That would be a good feature. The only problem I see is that I dont always work in tracks that can be grouped. If I have 16 Tracks of midi instruments then I would just want to be able to shrink a couple of tracks to get them out of the way.

yeah that is a shortcoming. YOu could always just have a group track that exists purely as a "somewhere to route all the tracks I don't currently want to see" track though. You don't have to actually use it as a buss mix.

[valley]

- you don't waste enormously huge amounts of disk space

Ermm, you waste exactly the same amount of disk space.

No, not at all. (at least not in my case)

I'm not sure how you wouldn't so I'm probably not understanding what you mean.

[AD80]

Dont you guys miss the days when Jules used to pop in and give us a small hint as to what he was thinking about the issue?

Damned Mackie

[jens]

erm - we surely agree that I am talking about two functions which Tracktion already provides?

yeah but you are suggesting making a control behave in a manner that is not in agreement with its' description to create a narrow and not entirely complete solution to another one of those "we've been asking for it for years" features. I'm saying that it should be dine properly, and sometime before T2 hits the streets, I'm hoping Jules will whip one of them damn monkeys to get it implemented.

I don't think (though I don't know) that making a track properly invisible would be hard to do within Tracktion's engine. So, assuming that, it really wouldn't be a whole lot of work over and above allowing shrunken tracks to stay shrunken.

I guess I'm just leary of seeing too many 'halfway house' fixes finding their way into Tracktion. A number have done already (I count the track render button amongst them). They just clutter up the UI and make it harder to get it right later. with T2 Jules has an ideal opportunity to clean the slate a little and get things polished up again. I really hope he takes that window and uses it well.

.o.k. - I totally understand where you're coming from, but for me T2 currently is only a ghost - a tale if you will...

[valley]

Dont you guys miss the days when Jules used to pop in and give us a small hint as to what he was thinking about the issue?

Yeah, but then I miss the days when a Snickers[1] bar was actually enough to fill you up between meals, and CDs didn't cost upwards of $17 so I woudln't read too much into that.

[1] actually I miss the days when a Snickers bar was called a Marathon and didn't make you feel stupid asking for one...