Studio One - Layers are weird / Edit: still not fixed in 6.2

[jens]

Because of the Reason debacle I am in the process of switching over to Studio One for good. And while I have owned it for many years and have recorded/produced one or the other song with it and played around with it now and then, there are some things I never really looked into too closely - and Layers certainly is one of them. I avoided looking tooo closely because the whole thing seems like a mess to me.
Unfortunately most DAWs seem really weird and unneccessarily convoluted to me when it comes to dealing with audio-takes, and Studio One is no exception here.

Here are a couple of oddities that seem to make dealing with audio a pain in Studio One:

- if you record to layers, the first loop-recording you make which is done to a second region on the timeline (i.e. you first record 5 takes from bar one to bar 9, then from bar 9 to 13), will use the existing layers. Once you stop recording (and this might really just be for a moment because the telephone rings), it however will create additional layers, thus potentially causing a gap of several layers between the takes. The next recording to yet another region on the timeline will then again use the firstz layers - until you stop recording. Then it will use the newly created layers - until you stop recording, then it will create new layers. What could be the reasoning behind that?
It causes layers to add up until you might perhaps be left with a hundred of them (or more), where there may be huge gaps on some regions. And of course it cause a huge mess.

- if you try to avoid that by not recording to layers, but instead want to unpack to layers afterwards, unpacking to existing layers will really start at the top-most layer, even if some or all of these layers are already occupied. Unpack to new layers will create additional ones. In other words: there seemss to be no way to have Studio One unpack to existing but empty layers. What on earth? Seriously - you couldn't make this crap up!

- if you have "layers follow events" ticked, it will only do that if you move the events on the same track. If you however want to move them to another track, you are out of luck.

- you can't seem to move layers by hand in any way - unless you unpack them to a track first

- you can always only unpack a single layer at once


Probably some more weird stuff I can't think of right now...

What gives? How long since Studio One introduced Layers? How come it's still not working properly?

[antic604]

Probably some more weird stuff I can't think of right now...

What gives? How long since Studio One introduced Layers? How come it's still not working properly?

Maybe you're using it wrong?

Have you watched this?



And read this?

https://s1manual.presonus.com/#Recordin ... 257C_____5

https://s1manual.presonus.com/#Recordin ... 257C_____6

[jens]

Yes, I have indeed.

In which way specifically do you think it does concearn or touch what I wrote above? Shall I wade through all of that again or could you perhaps explain to me what exactly I got or made wrong to come to the above conclusions? I.e.: do you have to add any original insight or thought to it or are you just going to semi-randomly drop tutorials and what not here?

[antic604]

Yes, I have indeed.

In which way specifically do you think it does concearn or touch what I wrote above? Shall I wade through all of that again or could you perhaps explain to me what exactly I got or made wrong to come to the above conclusions? I.e.: do you have to add any original insight or thought to it or are you just going to semi-randomly drop tutorials and what not here?

The latter Thanks for listening

[jens]

Yes, I guessed as much.

If you don't record audio and thus have no real clue what on earth I am actually talking about here,
one would think it's easy enough to just stay out of it... but what do I know, right?

[antic604]

Yes, I guessed as much.

If you don't record audio and thus have no real clue what on earth I am actually talking about here,
one would think it's easy enough to just stay out of it... but what do I know, right?

I do record my clumsy MIDI playing and it always worked fine. I've read your OP twice and couldn't really understand - or relate to - the issue you've described (those numerous empty layers in particular). Perhaps you need to explain it better? Or make a video? I don't recall anyone complain about it before, so therefore I assumed you expect it to work differently, based on DAW you were using before.

[apoclypse]

It works pretty closely to how it works in ProTools and that's considered the industry standard when it comes to comping and layers so imo it's a non issue and maybe it's just how you are working with it. I don't know if you are familiar with other comping systems other than Reason. Imo S1 has probably one of the better comping workflows out there.

[jens]

Here's an example:

1) on a new track you record ten takes to Layers from bar 1 to bar 9 -> Studio One will create 10 Layers, which are the first Layers for this track

2) on the same track you now record two takes to Layers from bar 9 to bar 13 (which means there will be no overlap with the previous recording) -> Studio One will use the track's first two Layers

3) on the same track you record two more takes to Layers from bar 9 to bar 13 -> Studio One will create two new Layers i.e. Layer #11 & #12. It will not use Layer #3 - #10.
And there seems to be no way to get any additional recordings on the empty (in this region of the timeline) Layers #3 - #10 - unless you manually drag them there from another track (or the browser).

[jens]

It works pretty closely to how it works in ProTools and that's considered the industry standard when it comes to comping and layers so imo it's a non issue and maybe it's just how you are working with it. I don't know if you are familiar with other comping systems other than Reason. Imo S1 has probably one of the better comping workflows out there.

How and why specifically is what I explained not an issue?

Can you guys not be specific please?

"Works similar in Pro Tools [and does it really in regards to my issues with Studio One? (not that it would be relevant to this thread)], so it must be you" really isn't a very thoughtful reply in all honesty,

[dellboy]

Here's an example:

1) on a new track you record ten takes to Layers from bar 1 to bar 9 -> Studio One will create 10 Layers, which are the first Layers for this track

2) on the same track you now record two takes to Layers from bar 9 to bar 13 (which means there will be no overlap with the previous recording) -> Studio One will use the track's first two Layers

3) on the same track you record two more takes to Layers from bar 9 to bar 13 -> Studio One will create two new Layers i.e. Layer #11 & #12. It will not use Layer #3 - #10.
And there seems to be no way to get any additional recordings on the empty (in this region of the timeline) Layers #3 - #10 - unless you manually drag them there from another track (or the browser).

I can confirm it works like you say, but I am assuming that you failed to mention that you mixed two methods of expanding the takes, to "existing layers" and "new layers" ?

If you record say, 5 takes, to bar 9-13 and use "existing layer" it will correctly order them. if you instead choose "new layers" it will put them down below somewhere. Maybe there is a technical reason, but I guess your only option is to manually move them because thats the way Studio One does it.

[jens]

Nonono - the explaining post you quoted here was about recording to Layers directly, not about expanding them afterwards - epanding them afterwards is messy too, but for a slightly different reasons (which basically lead to the same result though). I mentioned these in my original post - but I will gladly give a specific example for this case too.

I guess your only option is to manually move them because thats the way Studio One does it.

Except you can't - unpacking them all one by one to a new track and then dragging them back in from there aside...

but yes, that's the way Studio One does it - which imo is weird and messy. I assume technical reasons too, however I doubt that this couldn't be overcome without half a rewrite.

[oneway]

You can unpack multiple layers at once. I was doing it this morning. I believe you have to map a key command to “unpack selected layers” or something like that

[apoclypse]

Nonono - the explaining post you quoted here was about recording to Layers directly, not about expanding them afterwards - epanding them afterwards is messy too, but for a slightly different reasons (which basically lead to the same result though). I mentioned these in my original post - but I will gladly give a specific example for this case too.

I guess your only option is to manually move them because thats the way Studio One does it.

Except you can't - unpacking them all one by one to a new track and then dragging them back in from there aside...

but yes, that's the way Studio One does it - which imo is weird and messy. I assume technical reasons too, however I doubt that this couldn't be overcome without half a rewrite.

Okay. After doing some testing I see what you mean. I kind of get what S1 is doing, but not sure why it's doing it that way. Basically If you stop take recording in S1 and then record again in the same region S1, actually creates a new region and kind of grafts it at the end of the previous regions and will start again from Take 1,2,3 etc which creates new layers instead of recording in the empty layers or continuing from where the previous region left off. Not ideal for sure.

I think it's because of the way S1 treats regions with the same name. For example if you have a track called Guitar, Region will be called Guitar(1) by S1, if you record another region it will be Guitar(2), then if you record another take in the same region it will actually be Guitar(3). Most apps (and I did test this in Logic, Live, Bitwig, even Reaper) handle this a bit better. In S1 You can see this behavior even if you record a one bar loop to takes. Stop recording then begin recording again. You will see it create a new region name "track name (2)" and start from take 1 again in a new layer.

So yes 100% agree that S1's comping is a bit dumb.

One way to handle it instead of unpacking the layer is to copy the layer to track ( you should see the icon on the track header if you hover it) then drag it down to the right layer. Not ideal but it's a workaround.

Sorry about earlier. I was having one of those days.

[nIGhT-SoN]

Tried it too and yes, it's kinda weird. I haven't notice it till now because I'm not using takes this way, mostly I do it in one row and then select a take, I don't think I ever came back to do some more takes over something that was already there. But I can see how this can be annoying and might be considered a bug, to be honest. You should contact support and let them know.

PS. It might take some time for this to be fixed, but most likely will get fixed. I had to wait like almost a year for an arp bug, but now it's fixed.

[abshet monkey]

Long time S1 user. I've always been annoyed by the way they implemented layers. They are really ONLY for comping, and one specific way of comping. They are not flexible at all, so you can't really use them in other ways. I never understood why you can't move or drag events in layers.

I want to use layers like take containers where I can visually see the take content and interact with it in other ways than just comping.