Nothing wrong with the take lines concept. It just doesn't work in X2A the way it should do. Hoping X2B will come up with enough enhancements to make it useful.

I admit, not an X2 user, but keeping an eye on these discussions for sure... 

From what Strummy posted I can see why Cake prefers lanes over layers... layers is sorta kinda these special case clip containers, while lanes are really just like another type of track -- what you can do to a track you can pretty much do to a track lane without a bunch of special case logic and code -- record, mute, solo, automation, fx bin, whatever... The only special case code required is making make the parent track the logical "container track" for the sub-tracks (lanes). 

From a functional perspective lanes appear more like an ordered set of sub-tracks, similar to how "layers" are provided in graphical programs like Photoshop, GIMP, whatever. You can hide/show graphical layers, edit and apply FX only to selected layers, etc. But you can also merge layers, which would appear to be the only thing required to consolidate X2 lanes.... I would imagine you want to multi-select some number of lanes, and either "merge up" or "merge down" -- the merge replaces the first(up)/last(down) lane in the multi-select, the merged lanes are removed. Now you simply have a merged lane with multiple clips, like any other track, and consolidated like the old layers. Also, the user has total control over up/down merging, unlike "rebuild layers", which could potentially just do whatever it felt like.

Now the hard part is defining what it means to merge overlapping clips in multiple lanes... or for that matter overlapping controls like automation, etc. I would think sonar first has to determine whether any clips overlap, then give the user the necessary options to deal with overlaps: abort merge, merge only non-overlappin lanes, merge all with crossfade, merge all with prioritized truncate(whatever that is?), manual merge (for each overlap provide subedit screen for direct clip editing at overlap point -- user can slip, crossfade, whatever), etc. etc. 


 

Bristol_Jonesey


@Strummy:

Steve, what happens if in your 3rd screen shot (X2 Layers) you simply choose to switch Take Lanes off?

I can't check at the moment, the DAW is still in Dry Dock

Yeah, that's one of the parts I don't get. You just turn off take lanes and everything is consolidated in the parent track, each clip fully editable as if the lanes don't even exist. And you can still turn lanes back on at any time and mute a lane, etc.

MY FAV and most used option was remove unused lanes. boy i miss that command
x1 was perfect for my workflow do 5 passes pick what i like deleat the rest.
 now its been removed, and im confused why

SteveStrummerUK


+1 William (Saxon1066)

Mind you, I don't know about "Death to lanes" though. Maybe the (re)introduction of a Rebuild Lanes option and a Remove Empty Lanes single command might appease those of us who miss them without infringing on the workflow of those who like Take Lanes.

I fully accept that we all work differently, but for me anyway, Lanes have taken away a couple of features that I used all the time in Layers. I acknowledge that there are workarounds to accomplish what I want to do in Lanes, but in common with a lot of changes between 8.5 and X1 they all involve extra steps and mouse clicks.

My apologies for those who've seen these screenshots before, but they do illustrate my point, and they are from a real project where I was recording a guitar solo in easy to manage pieces, planning to comp them all together afterwards.
 
This image shows the 8 takes I recorded to get a 'complete' solo in X2. All the editing I've done at this stage is to split each clip at the optimum point and muted the unwanted parts either side (that way I can play through and check for pops and clicks before I perform the next stage):
 

 
 
Here's the amount of screen real estate I could save in X1 using Rebuild Layers:
 

 
 
Back to X2 - even if I delete away all the unwanted stuff I'm left with 8 non-overlapping clips in 8 separate lanes:
 

 
 
But in X1, after deleting the unwanted clips, I would simply hit Rebuild Layers again and get this:
 

 
 
Neat, tidy, and still fully editable.
 
  WOW ITS LIKE LOOKIN IN A MIRROR dAW
;THEY WILL FIX THIS,
 FOR 99 BUCKS YOU'LL SEE IT IN X3B OR Y1 WHATEVER??

'Been lurking here a bit (an X2a noob with plenty of problems).  'Appreciate Strummy's elaboration on his excellent workflow using 'rebuild' and hope to employ it in X2b.

Rebuild does not move the clips in the timeline but if the clips overlap, perhaps several times, then clips from one take layer could end up on any layer as long as they fit and there and they could end up on any layer regardless of whether they were recorded earlier or later in the tracking phase.

So for instance some clips from layer 1 could in up in layers 2, 3, 4,... and takes recorded in layer 4 that end up overlapping clips that were originally in layer 1 could get moved to layer 1 and the clip in layer one would move to another layer.... ad infinitum.

That is the kind of caos that cause me to dread the rebuild function as it existed in x1.

I would completely welcome a more logical approach to the rebuild function but not as it existed in x1.

I would imagine you want to multi-select some number of lanes, and either "merge up" or "merge down" -- the merge replaces the first(up)/last(down) lane in the multi-select, the merged lanes are removed. Now you simply have a merged lane with multiple clips, like any other track, and consolidated like the old layers. Also, the user has total control over up/down merging, unlike "rebuild layers", which could potentially just do whatever it felt like.

 
This is the same thing I had in mind for a lanes rebuild/consolidate function.  Let me choose which lanes are affected, and in which direction.  IOW, more logic.
 
 
 
PS... Oh, and a single Remove Empty Lanes command would be great.  
 

CakeAlexS


Nothing wrong with the take lines concept. It just doesn't work in X2A the way it should do. Hoping X2B will come up with enough enhancements to make it useful.

Agreed there's nothing wrong with the concept of Sonar's Take Lanes, but the implementation was poor, "slapped-on". This weekend, I opened an old session that had Layers in X1. I felt immediately refreshed that navigation was 10-times easier in X1 with Layers.