The new comping features for vocals

I saw the video of the new comping features in Splat and I'm wondering if I can start using comping. When comping vocals, I've always done this manually, not by using the comping feature and take lanes in Splat.
 
After recording a bunch of individual vocal tracks, I first pick one vocal track as what I think is likely the best one and clone that track and rename it comp vocal.  I typically listen to one phrase at a time - several performances, and then pick out the best line and copy and paste that into my comp vocal track.
 
 I then use V-Vocal to tune it and I "bounce it to track" to basically make the tuning permanent. V-Vocal has been unstable in the past and this has been the usual workaround to avoid crashes. Maybe V-Vocal is not causing instability anymore. If so, someone let me know that I don't need to do this anymore.
 
 This step of bouncing to track is why I don't think I can use Splat comping, because if I bounce to track, I think it will permanently alter that take and not leave an untuned copy like in my method.
 
I know comping has a feature of consolidating the comp track into one new track and that would be fine if I did the tuning after I did all the comping. But I prefer to work on the tuning as soon as I pick out the vocal, when it's fresh on my mind what needs to be done and also sometimes the tuning doesn't work right and I may decide to use a different track.
 
Also if I did start using comping. Can I take 5 vocal performances and convert them to track lanes in 1 track? So please anyone that’s really into comping vocals using these new features, give me your thoughts.

I'm glad you mentioned drag-copy. I've never even tried that before. The way I just did it was to first select then hold shift and control wile dragging. Is that how you did it? That's actually better than the way I was copying, which was select, copy, move to new track and paste. Your way is much better - thanks.
 
So when you create 2 new audio tracks A + B, do you mean these are 2 actual audio tracks or do you mean take lanes in the 1 audio track with take lanes? If that's what you mean, it seems to be pretty much what I'm already doing. When I was in Command Center a video about the new comping came up and it seems to me that there wasn't any copy and pasting. You just selected the spots you liked and they ended up in the topmost clip.
What I was hoping is that if I used V-Vocal on the topmost clip and used bounce to track that it leaves the original take lane clip unaltered.

The clip at the top of the take lanes is a 'virtual' clip and only exists as a view of the other clips and we can't edit it independently. I wish we'd have an option with this, because I think it'd be far more flexible if we could edit it independently, leaving the original clips in tact. That would certainly solve my problem with having to use bounce to clip for V-Vocal edits.

notscruffy2
Have you tried using Flatten comp?
 

 
What is that? Is it in Platinum?

You guys are doing this old school.
 
The new Comping workflow is...
 
1) Record multiple takes of the enitre song (or specific sections if you prefer). Doesn't have to be loop recorded but can be (I just hit R and Spacebar over and over again and Ctrl + Z on the takes I KNOW I screwed up)
 
2) With Take Lanes open on the track using the Smart Tool Click Drag across the bottom portion of ONE clip (doesn't matter which one) to create splits/segments. This splits ALL the takes at the same spots. Generally I start with swiping across sections at a time (so for vocals I might do each verse and chorus and bridge... whatever. Just so it's all split in neat chunks that make sense).
 
3) Start playback (can be looped but again I prefer to manually start playback with the Spacebar). In the first song section (let's call it Verse 1) I'll click the bottom half of each clip going vertically from top to bottom listening back to each clip/take I recorded and making notes on each in the Take Lanes "Notes" section. There is also the "Speedcomping" method that loops a section and you can use the keyboard to navigate each take but I dislike that method because it doesn't give you time to make notes and it is kind of prone to dropouts and glitches on my system.
 
4) I repeat that for each section of the song (to demarcate the notes in the lane for each section I may put numbered Markers on the timeline... like 1 2 3 4 etc then in the Take Lanes Notes section I will use those numbers to make specific notes about each take at each section of the song. So 1=Good, 2=F*ckup, 3=Maybe Alt take, etc... then I'd delete thos markers once I have my final comp done).
5) Once all my notes are done and I have a better idea of what takes and segments work and which don't then I'll cobble together a comp by again clicking on the bottom half of the clips and listening back.
 
6) Once I feel I've gotten a good overall take for the ENTIRE song cobble together I use the Comp Tool X-Fade feature (you just hover over a split and the tooltip will change... then you just move the split left and right to move it on the timeline and up and down to adjust the X-Fade). This allows you to get the absolute BEST split point and X-Fade between all your best takes (and it affects ALL the takes too so if you create another comp it's usually pretty close as well).
 
7) Optional... if I have a bunch of awesome takes/segments comped together but there are a couple momentary mistakes/flubs then I can do a second pass of swiping (in the lower half of a clip) to replace that mistake with another take's section. These swipes could literally be a split second (like a dropped syllable or note). Adjust the split points and X-Fades so the "dub/splice" is perfect and listen back.
 
8) If all is well and I like what I've done the I click on the "Composite Clip" in the "Parent Track" (this is the clip that appears in the main track). That selects ALL the clips in AL the take lanes but only the clips I've comped are audible. Right Click > Flatten Comp and then my meticulously crafted composite clip gets bounced into a new lane (and is soloed so all the other lanes are muted).
 
After that I can unsolo and mute that comp and do the process all over again to create an alternate comp that I can a/b between then choose the best OR I can create a "doubled take that I drag into a new track (but for the latter you have to make sure absolutely NO take sections are used twice or they will dump to mono when both takes play on the separate tracks at the same time).
 
So that may sound more complicated... and it is tricky to learn at first, but it is an awesome workflow once you have it down. It completely avoids all the manual dragging, fading, bouncing, muting, etc we used to have to do.
 
It's essentially exactly what the Comp mode is supposed to do... so I'm not being original at all (aside from my own personal tweaks to the method).
 
Cheers.

jpetersen
So what happens if you get sent tracks from a collaborator of a song that has a chorus repeated identically 3 times and you want to comp the best of these with a view of doubling or tripling them?

If you only have three tracks there isn't enough source material to bother comping a three part section. You've got three tracks so you just use the three tracks.
 
Comping them would not make sense.
 
You COULD use three tracks to spiffy up TWO tracks though. Like if there are any flubs anywhere in any of the tracks they could be replaced by the same point on either of the other two.
 
Just as long as you don't have the exact same source audio playing at once you're golden.
 
That's not to say there aren't OTHER tricks that can be done on IDENTICAL tracks. The simplest being the Haas effect but you can also clone a track and use Audiosnap or similar tools to scatter the transients a litte and/or pitch software to vary the pitch a little, etc.
 
Really though this is why I record as many takes as my body will allow (preferably in one sitting after rehearsing the part for a day or so). Then I have an enormous pool to work with and can mix and match to my hearts content.

Hey Beepster thank you for your in depth description. This is what I was wanting to see, someone who has explored and implemented the new comp features. I think what JPetersen was asking what if you have someone that sang the song 5 times through and you have 3 choruses that are identical, yet you have all these different performances.
 
What I do right now is as I’m editing verse 1 I have a very good idea on what the strongest performances are by the time I’m done with Verse 1 and typically #1 and #2 aren’t as good as #3,4,5.
 
So if I have 3 choruses I may copy performances 3,4,5 in chorus 2 and paste them under chorus 1’s 5 performances and go to chorus 3 and do the same I can then choose not to listen to chorus 1’s #1 and #2 since they’re not as good, so then I have 9 performances that are strong to choose from.
 
 I usually add harmony vocals to the choruses so unless the singer did some variations I’ll have every chorus cloned and end up exactly the same. This way the backup vocals only have to sing one chorus also. So with this new comping system, can we copy chorus 2 and 3 and put them in track lanes under chorus 1?

Ah... yeah. I didn't get that part.
 
Well you can still kind of use the Comp features but mainly just to split things out and make notes as I described. If you can create one full comp out of all the takes do so.
 
Otherwise it's just a matter of selecting one of the good Chorus sections (so select the clip) then paste it into a new take lane at the spot where you want to replace a bad Chorus. So Take 2 of Chorus 1 Track 1 could be copied to the Chorus 2 spot on the timeline in Track 2. Line it up to the other tracks of course so it's in sync.
 
Then you just promote that newly pasted clip instead of any of the others. Again just promote it by clicking on the bottom half of the clip with the Smart Tool (if it isn't already audible). However this may not automatically mute the other currently active take in that section so just select that unwanted section/clip and hit K to mute it (otherwise bothe will play back at the same time).
 
The other thing that can sometimes happen when pasting in material like this is it will screw up your splits. Like the new clip will be a little longer or shorter than the splits you already have which can cause slivers or overlaps (where two clips are fully audible for more than just an X-Fade).
 
In those cases you just need "swipe" again in the lower portion of the clip and readjust the splits and fades. Usually you'll have to do one long swipe that extends way beyond the original boundaries them slide the splits back in to where they should be. It's a little hard to explain. I've been thinking about making a vid of how I comp and some of these littel quirks/how to get around them. Someday. I've got some other ideas queued up first though.
 
Cheers.

So I guess the bottom line is that if you have a vocal track with 3 track lanes, you can't create 6 more blank track lanes for  a total of 9 lanes and then copy and paste chorus performances into those blank track lanes to create a 9 lane chorus. I suppose you can go to the beginning of the song and hit record for 1 sec and stop. Do this a few times to create some extra lanes. Is that easy to do even after you’ve edited verse 1?

Thanks Beepster! That's good that we can click the + button to add a lane.
 
You're right I'd never use take lanes and comping to do backup vocals, only lead vocals. After going through the 9 chorus vocals in the lanes, many times I clone the fixed vocal result to the other choruses.  Later I'd add harmonies, but use regular tracks not take lanes and since all the choruses are identical with the lead vocal, the harmonies can also be cloned

Thanks, Beepster I (finally) learned quite a bit more about comping.
All the best.