Take Lanes/Comping Questions [Answered]

When recording some guitar tracks last night, I noticed some unexpected (at least to me) behavior when working with take lanes and planning to comp.
 
I set the record method to comping and played my guitar part.  Then I clicked on the take lane icon in the track, muted the first take and played a second part.  The second part went into the T2 lane.  I played an third part and the waveform was showing in the main track while I was playing but disappeared after I hit stop.  I found out later that it recorded it to the T2 lane (not overwriting the wave that was already there).
 
I would have thought that being in comp mode would automatically place the new audio in its own lane.  Is this designed behavior, user error or something not working right?
 
Note - I was not looping (I hit record at the beginning of each take and stop at the end) and I did not use take lanes in X2 much.

Hmm,  I will reconfirm tonight that I had the record mode set to comping, but I am pretty sure I did.
 
I definitely had to manually mute the previous take (makes me think maybe I inadvertantly CTRL-Z'd out of comping mode or something).

dwardzala
I found out later that it recorded it to the T2 lane (not overwriting the wave that was already there).

Are you saying you ended up with overlapped clips in the same take lane? That shouldn't be possible, and you should report it if you can reproduce it. I tried your sequence, and got a new T3 lane as expected.
 
Comping mode should automatically place takes in new lanes, but I've found that you still need to have Create New Lanes on Overlap enabled in order for the muting to take place, which is a little weird. Actually, Sound on Sound mode also creates new lanes on overlap automatically, and Overwrite won't create overlaps, so I think that option just needs to go away now.
 
EDIT: Oops. Didn't see Dan's post. Dan, what do you think about having to have Create New Clips on Overlap enabled in order for muting to take place in Comping mode? That doesn't seem right to me.

OK, so I just tried what I did last night again.  Here are the settings and workflow.
 
Record mode is comping.
Create new lanes on overlap is checked.
Store takes in a single track is checked (under looping).
 
1) Arm guitar track.
2) Record guitar track (through TH2 - if it matters).
3) Open take lanes - previously recorded material goes into T1 but is not muted.
4) Mute T1.
5) Record second take - wave form shows in main track during recording but disappears (moves to T1) upon stop.
 
Is this correct behavior?
 
If I add T2, it will record to T2, so that will be my workflow if the above behavior is expected.
 
Obviously, I thought that a new take would be created if record was hit after stopping in comping mode, but if that's not the case I can adapt easily.

If I don't mute T1, it plays while recording the second take.
 
I will have to try playing a second take without opening lanes when I get home (but I expect the behavior to be recording over the first track.)

gswitz,
 
Thanks for confirming what the expected behavior is.  However, following the process I outlined above, X3 did not produce the expect behavior.
 
I agree with usefulness of the comping functions working like they are supposed to.  And I can work around this little niggle if I have to - but if there is a circumstance where Sonar is not behaving as it should, I want to give the bakers an opportunity to fix it.

dwardzala
OK, so I just tried what I did last night again.  Here are the settings and workflow.
 
Record mode is comping.
Create new lanes on overlap is checked.
Store takes in a single track is checked (under looping).
 
1) Arm guitar track.
2) Record guitar track (through TH2 - if it matters).
3) Open take lanes - previously recorded material goes into T1 but is not muted.
4) Mute T1.
5) Record second take - wave form shows in main track during recording but disappears (moves to T1) upon stop.
 
Is this correct behavior?
 
If I add T2, it will record to T2, so that will be my workflow if the above behavior is expected.
 
Obviously, I thought that a new take would be created if record was hit after stopping in comping mode, but if that's not the case I can adapt easily.

Hi Dave,
 
I'm looking into this issue and am not able to reproduce. In another post you mention that you are hearing audio while recording in comping mode. The condition this can happen under is if you have Auto - punch enabled and mute previous takes not checked. This will over-ride comping behavior so you can punch in a specific point while still monitoring your current active lane. Is this the case? Do you also have loop markers enabled?
 

gswitz
The new behavior of Take Lanes is that the most recent lane sorts to the top. (This is new).
 
[snip]
 
For me, on the second record, I get a new lane (T2) which has the first take in it. I also get a new lane (T1) which has the latest recording in it.
 

Good post, Geoff. I just wanted to point out that your second statement about lane order is backwards. T2 will have the new take in it, and T1 will remain beneath it with the original (and now muted wherever there's an overlap) take in it. Also, if you expand lanes after the first take, you'll already have a T1. The clip in the header area of the track is a Comp clip that is a representation of what's in the lane(s), even when there's only one take lane.
 
BTW, I am able to reproduce a problem like the OP describes (related to opening and closing lanes between takes), but only if Create New Lanes on Overlap is not enabled, and not until the third take. That third take and all subsequent takes end up stacking up in T2. If I have Create New Lanes enabled, I can't reproduce the problem.

Dan,
 
I will check to make sure I don't have loop markers enabled (I don't think so) and I will verify that Auto-punch is not enabled later tonight.
 
I should note that this is a new project in X3 that was created from template that was created in X2.  I don't know if that makes a difference, but it is certainly another piece of data.
 
Thanks for looking into this.

I just ran a test - new project Normal template (i.e. no tracks) from X3.
 
Record mode is comping
Place new takes in separate track
 
1) Add audio track (set inputs, etc, add TH2)
1a) Open take lanes
2) Arm track (not lane)
3) Record take 1 --> goes into T1
4) Record take 2 (take 1 does not play but the mute button is not lit - this was throwing me off) --> goes into T2 (T2 automatically created)
5) Record take 3 (takes 1 and 2 do not play) --> goes into T2 on top of previously recorded T2 (both play together when played back)
 
Note for this test the length of T1 > length of T2 > length of T3 (not sure if this matters or not.
 
Another test
1) Add audio track (set inputs, etc, add TH2)
1a) Open take lanes
2) Arm track (not lane)
3) Record take 1 --> goes into T1
4) Record take 2 (take 1 does not play but the mute button is not lit - this was throwing me off) --> goes into T2 (T2 automatically created)
5) Add T3 manually and record take 3 --> goes into T3 (takes 1 and 2 do not play)
6) Add T4 manually and record take 4 --> goes into T4 (takes 1,2 and 3 do not play)
 
It seems as if there is a problem getting to the third take lane automatically (and this is where I noticed the problem originally).
 
I will go back to my original project and try it again with the track I am working on to see if I can reproduce the behavior in test 2 because at least the tracks are not playing there.  The auto take lane add for T3 and above looks like an issue.

I will definitely submit a problem report, since it seems we've confirmed a problem/bug and not operator error.  Thanks.

Hi Dave,
 
I have confirmed the issue and reported it to development. The problem occurs if you have "Store Takes in Separate Tracks" enabled for loop recording. If you close and reopen the takes after record the GUI refreshes properly however, the comping behavior of muting previous takes is not working under this setting.
 
In general I don't recommend this setting, particularly with audio as it can add up quickly. These settings pertains to loop recording, not take recording in general so it's not necessary for this scenario. In the meantime, please apply the setting of "store takes in a single track" to avoid this issue.
 
Let me know if you have any questions.
 
 

Thanks, Dan!