I have to admit this is the one area  of X3 that I haven't really explored in depth - I've had cursory attempts at it but never really progressed far, mainly because I thought it seemed too fiddly and besides, I've never really been a "comping" guy, more of a "stop, curse, hit CTRL-Z and hit record again for the 74th time" kind of guy. 
 
But tonight while recording a 32-bar section of quite fast and finicky Telecaster chickin' pickin', I finally realized it was time to delve into it. The problem was that I'm eventually putting the part through a sort of DIY tremolo effect in Guitar Rig (for some reason I find hooking an LFO unit up to a volume pedal seems to sound better than all the dedicated tremolo effects I have). The problem is that unless the timing of my picking is absolutely bang on (and it's fast 16th notes we're talking here), the attack of the notes would poke into the tremolo and ruin the effect. I was doing take after take and no matter how hard I tried to turn myself into a human metronome, there'd always be a few bars where I'd screw up and ruin the passage. 
 
And then it dawned on me - speed comping. Without further ado I watched Eli Krantzberg's Groove3 tutorials on the subject and whipped up 15 takes. I'm speed comping them now, literally bar by bar, picking the most perfect bar out of each take. It sounds great! I can't believe how fast and easy it is. Sure I've heard others gripe about certain aspects of it and I'm sure that now the technique is in my arsenal I'll see room for a few improvements as well. But right now I am totally blown away by the workflow Cakewalk have given us with this. Thanks Cake! 

I've never really been a "comping" guy, more of a "stop, curse, hit CTRL-Z and hit record again for the 74th time" kind of guy. 

Great to hear. As you know the forum has been hit hard in the past by posters complaining about X3's comping. It was then and is now a matter of not understanding how to use it.
 
What you did should be an example for all of us. learn about it and then try it.  

Sharke you have never tried the comping? Man you been missing out!

I love it. And here is the thing. Divide it into bars, luke yiy did, but if that ain't quite right, you can decide it into a section at a time on the fly and the go back to a bar at a time!! The flexibility is really unbelievable!

With vocals, with guitar, bass, all works well.

I have not used it for midi yet. And not sure if it's workable with that.

But yes, it's one of the best features of X3!

sharke
74th time kind of guy. 
 

Way to brag dude!

John
Great to hear. As you know the forum has been hit hard in the past by posters complaining about X3's comping. It was then and is now a matter of not understanding how to use it.
 
What you did should be an example for all of us. learn about it and then try it.  

I dunno, seems to me the complaints weren't so much about comping but about layers becoming take lanes as a result. This meant people couldn't use take lanes as they had in the past. 
 
What Sharke underscores is that what you get in return from comping is really pretty spectacular. The biggest drawback is the learning curve and dealing with the new tools, but once you get that squared away, other comping methods seem very inefficient.
 
I did try it with MIDI, however the resulting display made no sense to me - I could only see some notes as blocks, the rest were hollow outlines. Anyone using comping successfully with MIDI?

Although, tbh, I personally do not see a REAL need for comping MIDI. In the case of the OP, if it were MIDI, those odd bars where he was "out" could be simply and quickly edited later. Which really is the case for all work involving recording MIDI.  For me, audio is the only target for the comping tool.

joden
Although, tbh, I personally do not see a REAL need for comping MIDI. In the case of the OP, if it were MIDI, those odd bars where he was "out" could be simply and quickly edited later. Which really is the case for all work involving recording MIDI.  For me, audio is the only target for the comping tool.

What about when you're improvising a MIDI part and you want to combine the best phrases of multiple takes? It's not just about editing out mistakes. 

sharke

joden
Although, tbh, I personally do not see a REAL need for comping MIDI. In the case of the OP, if it were MIDI, those odd bars where he was "out" could be simply and quickly edited later. Which really is the case for all work involving recording MIDI.  For me, audio is the only target for the comping tool.

What about when you're improvising a MIDI part and you want to combine the best phrases of multiple takes? It's not just about editing out mistakes. 

That's exactly what I was going to say but you already did.
 
Hey Sharke - have you discovered the joys of "Speed Comping Meets Dim Solo" yet?

Also track grouping midi tracks with audio tracks is important for speed comping. For the last couple of years, I've been playing a lot of midi guitar where I record...
- Guitar Direct
- GR-20 Synth out Left
- GR-20 Synth out Right
- Midi to Rapture
- Midi to Zeta2
 
When I record they quick group in the folder so I can use speed comping and when I do, it does the same across all 5 tracks at once. Pretty cool.
 
For this reason, I definitely need speed comping in the midi lanes as well as the audio.
 
Also, I use speed comping similarly to Shark. I usually can't remember thirty takes back what it was like. I just keep recording until I get a take I MOSTLY like. Then I look for the parts I don't and find corresponding parts I DO like in the previous takes. This is pretty fast work.