Beepster


TH2 Producer won't load in X1? hmm...

And it sounds like maybe you bounce back and forth between tracking and editing so I guess my suggestion isn't ideal. It's a lot easier to edit with X2s drag zoom ruler thingy too so that's a drag.

Hope you figure out a happy workflow. Cheers.

stevec

Max/min height is definitely a problem. Don't understand why it was made that way.

 
Me neither.   I like that I can resize one lane and they all change, but not each every and time.   I think we need a modifier key for that and independent lane sizing otherwise.
 

Keni

STinGA


Hey Keni,

I am not getting the problem of empty lanes when loop recording, I was pre X2a but since, I've been loop recording plenty, and not one empty lane.

However, once I've comped and bounced my midi to a single track the lanes are left empty, I'm sure they could be removed in the process. That said its a 2 second job to remove them after. 

Have you been opening the track's lanes prior to recording? If I do this I don't get the extra tracks, but as the track icon does not change color when the track is empty, I find it hard to know that Lanes are "exposed"... I have to watch the area that displays the db scale as that disappears when lanes are open (they show on each lane)...

In X1, when it created the extra lanes, they were also in solo mode tho I don't think they forced actual solo to engage...

Keni

SteveStrummerUK


 
I much preferred Layers, and for most of the reasons others have mentioned above. 

But for the way I work, the big deal-breaker for me is the lack of a 'Rebuild Layers' type function.
 
 Here's a copy of a post I made in another thread, detailing my reasons:
 

---

 
For me, the most important factor is the 'why' I use Lanes or Layers, as opposed to using separate tracks.

And sadly, for the way I work, the single most important feature for me is no longer in Lanes, but I used it a lot in Layers, and that is the Rebuild function.

Let me explain why.
 
Lets assume I'm recording a 32 bar guitar solo. Unless it's a passage I know off by heart, there's a good chance that it's not going to get laid down successfully in one take. Therefore I'm going to have to do some comping at some stage. My approach may be dissimilar to how some of you might accomplish this. I know some like to record the whole solo a number of times and then use comping to piece together the best parts, and I know some like to punch record to correct the parts they might have misplayed.
 
My modus operandi is slightly different. If I know I'm going to struggle to play the whole passage, I'll break it up into comfortable phrases and record them separately. Comping then allows me to trim and edit each clip as I assemble the jigsaw that is the complete solo. The most convenient method of doing this for me is to use Lanes or Layers (especially as in most of my templates, I have my tracks already set up with pre-assigned Pro Channel and VST effects, as well as panning, levels etc).
 
In the interest of keeping the project 'tidy' and easier to manage, the Rebuild feature is ideal for my purposes. As I delete bits and pieces off the individual clips I've recorded, rebuilding the track does this for me.
 
Here's an example of how the same solo looks in X2 Lanes and X1 Layers after comping.
 
In X2 Lanes:
 

 
 
Even when I now trim off the unwanted muted parts I'm still stuck with the same amount of Lanes:
 

 
 
Contrast this with the same project in X1.
 
Even before I trim off the muted parts, Rebuild gives me a much tidier view of the track:
 

 
 
And once I do trim them off, I end up with this:
 
 
  
  
  

---

  
  
  
  
 
 
 

stevec

Absolutely! Tho I think this would rate as an improvement as opposed to a fix (for me)...

 
Ditto, Keni.  The "T0" issue seems to be fixed in 2a, and aside from some random copy/paste weirdness I'm really hoping for lane enhancements more than anything.  And though it doesn't seem to get mentioned often, I'd like to see the same size enhancement for automation lanes too for better flexibility.
 
 
 
Hehehehe...   I said size enhancement.  
 

STinGA


Hey Keni,

Sorry to report mate but lanes working as advertised with loop recording.  

I've recorded about 20 takes this morning with lanes open and closed and there are still no empty lanes.  For me this problem completely disappeared with the X2a update.

Sorry I cant be more helpful.

fooman


I agree with Steve.
Screen real-estate is kinda important. Having overlapped parts all along 10 lanes/tracks is wonky.

It seems we should have went the other way, start with take lanes and moved to layers haha

joegab


I have a particular strange problem with lanes:
sometimes I get 2 lanes named T1, one empty, and one with my recordings.
Well, if I try to delete the T1 empty lane, the one with clips inside will be deleted.... grrr.

Workaround found moving clips to another lane .....

Not a good deal...

Giorgio

VariousArtist

SteveStrummerUK :

I much preferred Layers, and for most of the reasons others have mentioned above.  But for the way I work, the big deal-breaker for me is the lack of a 'Rebuild Layers' type function.   

Here's a copy of a post I made in another thread, detailing my reasons:     

For me, the most important factor is the 'why' I use Lanes or Layers, as opposed to using separate tracks. And sadly, for the way I work, the single most important feature for me is no longer in Lanes, but I used it a lot in Layers, and that is the Rebuild function. Let me explain why.   Lets assume I'm recording a 32 bar guitar solo. Unless it's a passage I know off by heart, there's a good chance that it's not going to get laid down successfully in one take. Therefore I'm going to have to do some comping at some stage. My approach may be dissimilar to how some of you might accomplish this. I know some like to record the whole solo a number of times and then use comping to piece together the best parts, and I know some like to punch record to correct the parts they might have misplayed.   

My modus operandi is slightly different. If I know I'm going to struggle to play the whole passage, I'll break it up into comfortable phrases and record them separately. Comping then allows me to trim and edit each clip as I assemble the jigsaw that is the complete solo. The most convenient method of doing this for me is to use Lanes or Layers (especially as in most of my templates, I have my tracks already set up with pre-assigned Pro Channel and VST effects, as well as panning, levels etc).   In the interest of keeping the project 'tidy' and easier to manage, the Rebuild feature is ideal for my purposes. As I delete bits and pieces off the individual clips I've recorded, rebuilding the track does this for me.

Steve


This is brilliantly explained, along with images that make your point very well**.  
This clearly shows the workflow difference and impact, which pretty much makes one of the cases for layers and why it was so important to many of us.  I understand that not everyone is impacted by the loss of layers, but for me the analogy would be getting touch screen functionality at the expense of mouse/keyboard access.  Yes, the impact is that much for some of us...

**note:  I didn't copy your images in my response to avoid too much duplication of them, but they can be seen back here: http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.ashx?m=2749131

Funkybot

VariousArtist

SteveStrummerUK :

I much preferred Layers, and for most of the reasons others have mentioned above.  But for the way I work, the big deal-breaker for me is the lack of a 'Rebuild Layers' type function.   

Here's a copy of a post I made in another thread, detailing my reasons:     

For me, the most important factor is the 'why' I use Lanes or Layers, as opposed to using separate tracks. And sadly, for the way I work, the single most important feature for me is no longer in Lanes, but I used it a lot in Layers, and that is the Rebuild function. Let me explain why.   Lets assume I'm recording a 32 bar guitar solo. Unless it's a passage I know off by heart, there's a good chance that it's not going to get laid down successfully in one take. Therefore I'm going to have to do some comping at some stage. My approach may be dissimilar to how some of you might accomplish this. I know some like to record the whole solo a number of times and then use comping to piece together the best parts, and I know some like to punch record to correct the parts they might have misplayed.   

My modus operandi is slightly different. If I know I'm going to struggle to play the whole passage, I'll break it up into comfortable phrases and record them separately. Comping then allows me to trim and edit each clip as I assemble the jigsaw that is the complete solo. The most convenient method of doing this for me is to use Lanes or Layers (especially as in most of my templates, I have my tracks already set up with pre-assigned Pro Channel and VST effects, as well as panning, levels etc).   In the interest of keeping the project 'tidy' and easier to manage, the Rebuild feature is ideal for my purposes. As I delete bits and pieces off the individual clips I've recorded, rebuilding the track does this for me.

Steve


This is brilliantly explained, along with images that make your point very well**.  
This clearly shows the workflow difference and impact, which pretty much makes one of the cases for layers and why it was so important to many of us.  I understand that not everyone is impacted by the loss of layers, but for me the analogy would be getting touch screen functionality at the expense of mouse/keyboard access.  Yes, the impact is that much for some of us...

**note:  I didn't copy your images in my response to avoid too much duplication of them, but they can be seen back here: http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.ashx?m=2749131

Sorry to be the Debbie Downer here...but I disagree. The above example, doesn't illustrate why lanes don't work as well as layers IMO, it illustrates why knowing when to "Auto-Punch" (or punch in) is so important. 


Look at the takes, there's no overlapping parts. Steve's recording one section at a time until right, then building a comp that way. That's exactly how auto-punching the different parts of the solo would work, meanwhile it would lead to the same result on a single track, without having to do additonal slip editing or muting. He's essentially auto-punching the hardest possible way.


Even using his X1 example above (the one with Layers), he would have got the same result on a single track without having to mute/edit the clip start end times by auto-punching until nailing the take, then moving to the next part of the solo.


Lanes/Layers aren't best suited as an auto-punch replacement, they're best used for recording the same passage, and identifying the best take. Example, the best of the singer singing "she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah." The singer would sings it five times at the start of the song, and you sift through the fave takes to identify the best of those passages. If you were going to have the singer do it one word at a time, then move on to the next word, that's where you'd want to punch in.

I'm not trying to discredit the idea that there's no room for improvement in lanes, but I just want Steve and others who might be using lanes for something like the above workflow, that auto-punch is the right tool for that particular job. 

If you're recording consecutive sections of a song: use auto punch. 

If you're recording overlapping sections of a song: use layers.

adjusting

Funkybot

Keni


We all/each have our reasons and methods to our work...


I for one never use auto punch anymore as I've found more ease and accuracy using separate takes and editing/compositing afterwards...

Of course we can find work arounds and other methods to accomplish our work but Cakewalk/Sonar has always made one of it's strong points that it allowed us each to work how best suited us...

So I don't try to tell people how they "should" work... I only look to the programmers to supply us with the tools we each need to suite our work methods.... Not only a single work method... ...and Cakewalk has been wonderful about that until X1.... Now many methods have been trashed and replaced with things that (for some) make work easier and for others, not so...

Keni

I hear what you're saying, but ideally, you'd be looking at these features as tools, and you want to be using the best tool for the job. Can you use layers/lanes for recording consecutive parts? Sure...but they're not going to work as well for that because auto-punch is the right tool for that job. You can choose to ignore that if you'd like, but by doing so you'd only be making things harder on yourself. As I point out above, even the old layers approach doesn't work as efficiently as auto-punch for that task.

Why make things hard on yourself when there's a better way? I'd suggest you stop fighting Sonar and try adjusting to it. And if you want to make things hard on yourself, why all the threads/posts about how awful lanes are? It took some getting used to for most, but right now, it seems like a lot of people (myself included) are happy with the new approach and prefer it. It could be improved, but it's a nice step forward.

VariousArtist

FWIW, I often do complete takes of a solo that overlap from start to finish.  I found with layers I could very quickly organize parts in a way that was flexible and suited my workflow.  I have been really trying to do the same with lanes, but it is just not the same at all...