Moving Sections of Songs

Hi Everyone - I've just recorded a new song and now want to experiment with changing the structure (i.e., perhaps starting with the chorus, or moving a verse to the end of the song).  Any thoughts on the fastest/easiest way to move entire sections around?  It occurred to me to just mix all my tracks down, export - and then start a new project with the mixdown exclusively for chopping up and moving sections around.  But is there a better way?
 
Thanks in advance!

Hold a sec:
 
vote here:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Arranger-tracks-ala-Cubase-m3186917.aspx
 
and wait for the DeathValley update.

Thank you all very much!  By chance, is there a video anywhere of the clip splitting/grouping/dragging workflow you guys described?  (For some reason, I always learn better when seeing something done.)
 
Also - I'm sorry, but how does one vote in the ifm thread?  I didn't see any button ...?  And what's a DeathValley / EastEnd update?
 
 

Thanks for the clarification, FreeFlyBertl - Will head over there now.

Gene921
Hi Everyone - I've just recorded a new song and now want to experiment with changing the structure (i.e., perhaps starting with the chorus, or moving a verse to the end of the song).  Any thoughts on the fastest/easiest way to move entire sections around?  It occurred to me to just mix all my tracks down, export - and then start a new project with the mixdown exclusively for chopping up and moving sections around.  But is there a better way?
 
Thanks in advance!

I toss stuff around when arranging all the time. I approach it differently than the illustrious suggestions above.
Under the Edit menu is Select By Time. That's my surgical precision friend.

Let's say you want to move everything from measure 7 and a half, 8 measures of a chunk of it, to measure 25. I don't know why, but that's what you want. Let's say that's your pre chorus blob.

1. First you need to open up space for inserting 8 measures at measure 25. So essentially you need to push what's at 25 to 33. If you're clean cutting at a measure number you can use Insert Measures. If your desired spot is not clean, like it's at beat 2 tick 120 of measure 25, then using the Select By Time feature allows you to grab exactly what and where you want.

2. Let's say you want to simply open up 8 measures at measure 25. Aside from the easy out inserting measures, to do it with Select By Time you would first click on any track to highlight it/select it. Then hit Control A for Select All. Under the Edit menu choose Select By Time. Pick your starting time (25) and the end time can be out there at the end of the song (which it shows by default). Control Alt X gets you Cut Special. Here you can grab the events, markers, automation as desired. Control Alt V gets you Paste Special where you can surgically indicate where you want to put your blob, for example (33), and indicate if you want to paste events, markers, automation etc. Okay, having pasted that you've opened up the 8 measures. The song has an open space between 25 and 33 now. However, with that same technique you could have opened 8 measures 2 beats and 120 ticks if you had wanted to, because this method allows plenty of flexibility and precision.

3. Now you want to copy your 8 measure prechorus from measure 7 and a half to measure 25 where the opening of 8 measures is waiting.

4. Select any track. Control A to Select All. Under Edit choose Select By Time. The starting time is 7 3 ( measure 7 beat 3 to grab from the halfway point). Ending time is 15 3. Control Alt C is Copy Special. Choose events, markers, etc. Control Alt V is Paste Special. Put in 25 for the time location you want to make the paste, check the markers, automation checkboxes as needed, etc. you've now moved your pre chorus blob to that spot.

It takes way more time to type this than to do it, which is seconds after you've done it once or twice. Super flexible and precise.

Matrix view

Thanks, Brian - very interesting!

BrianSzep
Until we have a real arranger try this little tip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XTysXLBiYqY#t=3742s
 
Brian

Thanks, Brian. I do something very similar.

1. Marker Regions is what I'd call it.
2. Create markers and be able to name regions according those markers.
3. A list of the regions display in a special part of the browser.
4. Drag region names up and down defining the playing order of the regions.
5. Make multiple play of regions selectable.
6. If not all tracks are to be included then simply selecting multiple clips will restrict regions to only contain those tracks.

I can see the advantages of both methods.
 
Yours is very Excel-like Beep, and seeing that's what i do for a living, appeals in a big way.
 
But Mike's idea is, I believe, even more elegant, but would need a bit of fleshing out.
 
This should be possible seeing as it's simply really just an extension of what we can already do, albeit with many more mouse clips.

The way I see it is enough other programs have ripped off Cakewalk over the years Cake might as well rip off the few useful features the other guys have over them.
 
You got Gibson's legal team behind ya now... roight?
 
Do eeet!

This probably sounds silly, but I envisioned something more visual - almost like a slide sorter - or perhaps like moving around video clips in Adobe Premiere.  Use markers in the track view to create sections, then go to the "slide sorter" view and move the sections around.
 
That what I kinda tried to do, before posting this thread - click up in the timeline to somehow to define a region, hoping to select all the tracks and then move them around, with some kind of ripple edit happening.

I'd be a lot happier if they changed the behaviour when it comes to how the Lasso works with (a) Track folders, and (b) Take Lanes. Right now, it selects overlapping clips outside the lasso area if they belong to takes that overlap with the one you selected, and a similar system seems to apply to track folders. Needless to say, this means that selecting a single section and just that section with the lasso is almost impossible now, unless you are very sure to ensure that you have no crossfades or overlaps. It used to be much more usable in earlier versions of Sonar but for some reason they've seen fit to change this, making arrangement harder.