I like the way you've presented it, and I have gotten used to the new behavior and prefer it in some ways.
 
as far as limitations of flatten comp versus rebuild layers, one example is if you're using clip fx, another is if you are actively arranging and rearranging clips for creative improvisational or compositional purposes.
 
flatten comp is great if you're comping, though

brian brock
I like the way you've presented it, and I have gotten used to the new behavior and prefer it in some ways.
 
as far as limitations of flatten comp versus rebuild layers, one example is if you're using clip fx, another is if you are actively arranging and rearranging clips for creative improvisational or compositional purposes.
 
flatten comp is great if you're comping, though

Ah, yes. Clip FX would definitely be something that would be screwed up with this. I don't really use those and can think of a few workarounds but definitely if you were used to doing things that way it would be annoying. Still though if you really wanted to work that way you could simply create splits around the desired section on the flattened comp and add the FX. This could be a pain if you have already added and tweaked the effect before flattening (because then it would get bounced directly onto the track... I think and not adjustable anymore) BUT if that scenario came up you could save a temp preset of the effect, flatten the comp, make the splits where necessary and then reload the preset for that clip making it adjustable again.
 
For compositional purposes I think Sound On Sound is the easiest to use and is what I used to create the structure of my current track. However I had not yet learned how the new Comping worked but still I'm not seeing how it would be any easier and in fact I think it would be more difficult. So a simple right click on the Record button to select SoS and then slicing and dicing pretty much works how I expect it to.
 
In comping mode that type of stuff would lead to lots of buried/overlapping clips and technically it WOULD work but seems like it would be far too cluttered and confusing so I'll probably just use Comping for actual comping for now unless my little Beep brain comes up with some strategic advantage to do otherwise.
 
Cheers!

Still very confused and frustrated, but I have no better option than to learn it. Sigh...
 
And I DO have a deadline, and though it is August, it's an entire album, so I'm freaking out a little here.
 
OK, so I do a lot of music with piano. Prior to X3 I frequently had two piano tracks, one for Left Hand and one for Right Hand. But sometimes I'd record something in the wrong track, then it would be a painstaking process to take and get it to the correct track (assuming the stuff that needed to be moved wasn't its own draggable clip - let's say it's two days later when I realize a whole mess of stuff is in the wrong track).
 
Now as frustrating and confusing as I'm finding Take Lanes to be so far, I might have had a little revelation, and I'd like to run it by folks here to see if I'm headed in the right direction:
 
So... what I'm thinking is, (and here's where you can tell me yeah this is right or no this will cause me problems), I can just have a single piano track, and keep two "permanent" take lanes, one for Left and one for Right, and then I record stuff into other lanes, and once those notes are officially "in" I can shift-drag them into the Left Hand or Right Hand lane. For that matter, I could have lanes for other lines or parts not associated with specific hands. 
 
Yeah? Is that a decent workflow method?
 
Also, is this true?: I have it set so I don't need to arm a track to record, and I only ever use Sound on Sound mode. If I am using Take Lanes, if I record something that doesn't overlap existing material, it will be added to the topmost lane. But as soon as it overlaps whatever is already in the top lane, it will make a new lane. UNLESS I have explicitly armed a certain lane, in which case it will record to that lane no matter what, even if it overlaps. And if I do that, I better beware, because layers are gone now so there's no way at all to see what's hidden underneath the layer I just recorded over it. Can I expand overlapping clips so that they no longer overlap? I can totally see many instances where eventually I didn't know where certain notes were coming from, and it turned out they were hiding under some other clip somewhere. 
 
How'm I doin'?
 
Flatten Comp isn't at all what I want, though. It just creates a new clip duplicating what's already there and locking it. Extremely confusing indeed. I have told myself never to use that feature. 
 
Lastly, what does Isolate Clip(s) in Lane do?

1) I think you may be better off using two separate tracks for your left/right hand stuff (not that your way wouldn't work but it might get weird due to overlaps and new lanes being created). That way your left and right hand parts will always be separate IF you make sure to record into the correct lane (which would mean disabling Auto Arm I think and arming manually). The reason I say this is because when you open the PRV you can see the notes of ANY track in the project within the PRV and filter them in the Tracks section in the right hand pane of the PRV. So you want to look at your left hand make only that track active in PRV. If something is missing that you KNOW you recorded then you can break open the take lanes in the other track and your clip will likely be there at which point you just create a new lane in the correct track and drag the clip there. Now it should be visible under the correct PRV filter. This also makes it easier to choose different sounds/synths for left and right hands if you so choose or EQ them based on the frequency range of the notes (which can be helpful but not really necessary if it's a well designed synth).
 
But to answer your question about keeping two lanes and recording straight into them for each hand... in THEORY this SHOULD work but I think might be problematic. Now this may not be the case in X3 but it sure was in X2... the Take Lane Arm buttons were unreliable and many times simply did not work. I have not messed with in X3 so go ahead and try but I thought it was worth mentioning in case you encounter trouble. Still I'm not really seeing much benefit to you by doing this. What I think would be easier is: Create your two main lanes, Record or input a couple notes into each at the start before where the music would start (like you could do a count in or something). This way each of the two lanes contains a clip. Then with Sound On Sound enabled start recording your parts. They will appear in a NEW lane (you want this for now). Once you have a good take selct the clip then Ctrl select the destination clip (Right hand part click the permanent right hand clip, etc) and then use Bounce to Clips and that new clip will become part of the permanent clip. If you do this as you work and pay attention to which permanent clip you are bouncing to (make a note in the lanes Notes section for a quick visual reminder) then you will have no clutter (because the bounce will remove the freshly recorded clip) and you'll know what is going where as you work. A MIDI clip bounce takes less than a second and if you make a mistake you can Ctrl + Z to undo the bounce.
 
That is just one of many possible ways to approach this but if I am understanding HOW you want to work that may be the quickest, most organized and reliable way to do the two lane method and keep you left/right hand parts separate. Another thing you could do if you wanted to keep alternate takes but not have them cluttering up your working take is create a second MIDI track to drag those clips into and keep it muted. That way they are out of your way but if you wanted to try something different you can always go back to them. Create a take lane in the new track each time you do this to drag these clips into and put a note in the notes section of the lane for later reference so you don't necessarily have to listen to every single clip to find what you want.
 
I'll try to look at the other stuff you mentioned but I think I need some tea (just woke up).

Okay... moving on to the Overlap issue. You can reveal hidden/overlapping clips by slip editing the end(s) of the top clip.
 
As far as the Flatten feature yes it does combine the clips. That's the point but it is not permanently locked and it is only the Data (the notes and other clip based stuff) that is locked. To unlock it simply Right Click on the clip > Lock > then deselect Data. Now the clip is fully editable.
 
Again I will say that even though it mashes all the clips together it is assumed that before you flatten you have arranged that part to completion. As in those are the best segments of the best takes. You can easily split it back up again for further editing using the Comp tool or the more traditional editing tools.
 
AND when you flatten the comp and the original clips and lanes remain untouched so you aren't losing anything. You are simply getting a brand spanking new clean clip. That's why I said I like to create a full clip out of my best takes/segments, flatten them (and previously I'd use Bounce to Clip(s), clone the track and archive the original in case I want to return to the original takes then in the clone delete everything except the flattened take lane.
 
However if you are trying to record into two separate take lanes and keep them separate this will not work for you because those two lanes will get smooshed together. So as I mentioned earlier you could avoid that by using two TRACKS to record your left and right hand parts into and THEN use the flatten feature OR you could crop/slip edit the segments you want to use then multi select them with Ctrl + Click (only select your right hand parts for your right hand clip and vice versa) then use Bounce to Clips. That will build a comped clip as well and you'll be able to keep your left/right hand parts separate with their own clips (which can be dragged to a lane) within the same track. HOWEVER when you bounce like that all the original clips disappear to make up the bounce unlike flatten which leaves the originals intact.
 
Sound confusing? Well yeah... it is. Which is why I still think two tracks using the Comp/Flatten feature would probably work better for what you are describing.
 
I do not know what Isolate does but maybe I'll check later.
 
Cheers.

if it's true that it's possible after all to have overlapping clips in a lane (I assume only in a MIDI track), this is a compelling and widely appreciable argument for returning "rebuild layers", since one of its functions was always to fix cases where clips were overlapped.

Flatten comp was chosen because the work of editing to select the best takes is called comping.  The resulting selection of pieces is called a comp and flatten does what it says.  Yes it renders all the pieces into a contiguous piece of audio.  Yes it's on a new take lane.  Why is that?  Because you may want to explore other comp possibilities.  We lock the clip to prevent accidental swiping as a swipe there would incorrectly edit the other takes.  If you want to generate an alternate comp, simply click the Mute button on the comp lane.  Tweak the others and flatten comp again.
It will make another.  
 
Learn the feature by going through and understanding what each aspect does.
 
Agreed separate tracks should be used for separate inputs/material.  

Keith Albright [Cakewalk]
 We lock the clip to prevent accidental swiping as a swipe there would incorrectly edit the other takes.

Hi, Keith. Could you possibly elaborate on this a bit? I assumed after unlocking it would simply be treated like just another take. I may want to use a flattened comp in this manner.
 
Example:
 
I comp together a MIDI drum part so that I have the best performance of the general beats for each section then flatten it to one clip/lane.
 
Then from there I want to use that foundation but comp in fills I like from the outtakes.
 
Is this not recommended/going to cause problems?
 
============================================================
 
The question above is more important and probably easier to answer then the question below so ignore this next part unless you are so inclined to read my ramblings. However a clarification on the above subject would be awesome and I'll pass it along if I see anyone having troubles in relation to it because if there IS a problem I'm sure it is bound to cause some confusion.
 
===============================================================
Second... I have not yet employed that method but I did have something odd occur while creating my first comp (with MIDI drums).
 
I divided up the first take into song sections as shown in the Getting Started video (and I'll mention this now I was swiping in ONE lane as opposed to swipe one in lane 1, swipe two in lane 2 so maybe that has something to do with it and it was an error on my part).
 
Then I adjusted the split points as shown in the vid to land at more accurate points (like the start of a measure or to allow for early starts to a section).
 
Once I went into audition mode and started moving around some of the splits were in different places. Like a split in the first take where I had made the original splits was off from the splits in the rest of the takes. I thought all takes would follow the splits as I moved them and most of them did but some didn't.
 
I know that's weird and I probably just screwed something up but wondered if you had some insight into that behavior.

To the first point, if you want to unlock the take and use it to bring in fills from other takes, that can work, just be aware that if you swipe a region it will edit across the take lanes.  
 
It may be cleaner to take that flattened comp clip to a separate track assigned to the same ports and then fly in the bits you want there.  Then if you do a flatten of that, you won't get extraneous data.
 
To the second point, be aware that when you edit the split points, the comping zone is the lower 2/5 of the clip.
This means if the mouse cursor (and it changes to show you what tool you're in) were in the upper portion of the clip that would have just done a single crop.  If you'd prefer comping to be exclusive, then switch to the comping tool directly ( press F8 until it shows what almost looks like a checkerboard ).  Then when you're done with the comp edits, press F5 to be back using the smart tool.
 

Extremely helpful, Mr. Albright and I thank you for taking the time to explain. I very likely did have my cursor over the wrong section and was not aware of the dedicated comping tool (which I should have been but I've only been using the feature for a couple days).
 
As far as extra data I'd just have to make sure I am accurate with my swipes which I usually am. When working with live stuff I either set snap to an extremely fine resolution or disengage it altogether to get in tight to stuff but I see what you mean if someone is using a broader snap res or not zooming way in for precise edits.
 
Thanks again. Now run like hell before the others realize there is a developer logged in! ;-p