Looking for tips - Editing layers

There are a few different ways* to vertically zoom just one track. Then the layers are just as tall as if they were in their own tracks. Also, you can zoom the contents of a layer to make it easier to see what the audio is doing.

* zoom tool, mouse wheel w/ modifiers, up/down arrow keys w/ modifiers, and good old click & drag on the boundary between tracks. Or double-click in the track header.

Hi Randy,
 I'll check those zoom things later. I forgot, and thought I was answering on the X1 forum, though. And I had just read Scott's new book on all those zoom controls. Sorry if I mislead.

For now, maybe "rebuild layers" will make more space for layers in your tracks.

  Bill B.

this is what i need to work on most..i love this feature but very rarely use it.where should i go to learn more about using track layers??(sorry 4 the small highjck

bvideo


Good deal, Randy. Below is an excerpt (from 8) on zooming with the mouse wheel. I was also thinking of audio scaling, but the audio scale is not displayed when layers are showing, so I wouldn't know how to change the audio scale in a layer/clip.
  Bill B

To Zoom Using the Mouse Wheel (Fast Zoom)
• Hold down the Alt key and roll the mouse wheel forward to zoom in,
backward to zoom out.
• Hold down Alt+Shift to intensify mouse wheel zoom effect.
• Hold down Alt+Ctrl to adjust track scale (Track View Clips Pane only)
   [edit]--- Aha - this last option adjusts the scale of audio in clips, even in layers mode (makes the waveform taller/shorter).

Thanks, Bill - What did it for me was "remove empty layers," because I had 10 and more empty layers taking up room unnecessarily.  With the three actual takes I needed to work with in each track, now I'm getting a fine, big display with the empty layers gone.  Zooming is something I use all the time, but I needed just vertical height, not zooming horizontally at the same time.  In any case, I had a good day of editing now - nice to finally see the detail in layers that I needed.  Thanks again.

RB

Chrisma


I've worked with clips in the manner your speaking of for years and got good results but I learn its better (at least faster workflow wise) track all the takes you want one track and use lanes to keep things clean. But when it comes mix your gonna want each part on its own track.  Oh and Shift-Click-Drag is your friend. It keeps clips align when you move them to another track.

Thanks for the reply, Chrisma

Most of my work is with MIDI, and I rarely look at the layers with MIDI tracks, I just let them pile up - bouncing to clips sometimes when it's more practical to deal with a single clip.

But currently I'm needing demo vocal tracks on a whole slew of projects, and decided it was high time to deal more efficiently with layers in audio tracks.

Finally seeing that you can get rid of empty lanes, as bvideo pointed out, did the trick for me.  I would have 12 or more takes of a single vocal line in a track, and then I'd drag clips to keep things tidy (I'm hip to Shift-Drag)--like you're talking about - That would leave the empty lanes which were taking up unnecessary space.

The current project has three part harmony, so each vocal line is on its own track.  But I'm also thickening the sound by using three complete, edited versions of each part.  That's giving me nine voices doing the three parts.  For these purposes, it's sounding fine to leave the 3 melody line vocals on one track, and the two harmony tracks panned, one leftish, one rightish - each of those backing tracks with 3 vocals.  I could drag them out so I have 9 vocal tracks, with more detailed panning - not sure I can do that though since I have a large amount of instrument tracks and I'm putting a strain on my laptop as it is.

--side note--Excellent Argyle in your Avatar.  Inspires me to get out my Argyle sweaters and vests - I've been neglecting them!

Randy B.