Beepster
Hi, guys. I appreciate the suggestions but I bounce around so many tasks that altering the settings would waste more time than it saves. I record into comping mode unless I absolutely need something else to happen. The procedure I describe is actually a two second process wheras fiddling with settings all the time would take more time and cause more confusion.
 
As far as loop record and punch ins? Loop Record has always been buggy as heck for me and I honestly dislike that workflow very much. It is much preferable to me to manually start/stop transport. It gives me that half second I need to decide whether the take is a keeper or not and if not my mind/hands are now hardwired to tap out Ctrl+Z to just get rid of it (as opposed to having to sort through bad takes after the fact).
 
For auto-punch... never use that either. Much simpler for me to just set the Now Time, start transport and use the previous method I described to whip off a bunch of takes. Even still using those types of methods and making it so the punch in/out occurs at the exact spots is not desirable to me either. I don't like waiting for click count ins (and disable click count ins on record except for very specific purposes). I much prefer listening back to the actual material to get my head/fingers into the feel of what I am about to record over. This also ensures for better edit seams as opposed to abruptly going from digital silence to full blast (the music I do is pretty much always full blast with very little true silence).
 
aaaaand a lot of those auto punch/looping features get those sporadic complaints about drifting. I have not personally noticed much of that when trying out those methods but they stick in the back of my mind and if they ever occurred would be a MASSIVE PITA to me I think so I just try to avoid anything that may send me into a rage (I am much less calm in person... lol).
 
Someday I may make a video of how I track. It's like robot shiz. R > Listen for lead in > Spazz the frack out > Space > R... OR Ctrl + Z > R > Repeat over and over and over.
 
I hardly even open my eyes anymore while doing this. It's a little freaky.
 
Good suggestions though for those who are not total wicked spazzes like me.
 
Cheers.

I'd probably use 'sound on sound' mode if I was tracking that way, IMHO.
 

Hi, Paul. I did actually use SoS until I got more comfortable with Comp Record mode but eventually there ended up being more benefits to doing things how I do now (and that's in Comp mode). I'm actually right in the middle of editing something at the moment and assessing this workflow and although perhaps odd if you saw what I was doing it might be easier to understand. It would take a long time to describe the actual workflow in text.
 
Once I get some screen cap software installed I may show my spazz out methods from start to finish. I already have a camera for outside the box vid stuff but to see this in depth really would require a screen grab.
 
Staying in Comp Mode from start to finish is way faster than bouncing/screwing around all the time provided one can navigate the little quirks and procedures.
 
Seriously I can get to an SoS state within 2 seconds by doing what I detailed in the OP. That's about 1 second longer than it takes to switch to SoS mode which leads to having to shift ones mindset to the old SoS paradigm then back again.
 
Yes... I may be completely insane. This is working though and quite well.

Interestingly, I have a very similar workflow, but I can't use Comping mode because it makes no sense to me. In fact I couldn't find a single situation where I'd want the behaviour it seems to offer. Maybe if I played through entire songs in one go, it would be useful. But usually I have data already on the track in the lead-in bars which I don't want automatically muted by Comping mode. So I've stuck to Sound on Sound all this time.