I do remember layers being useful to record background harmonies, so just tried something quick. Recording "Sound on Sound" I was able to achieve this with take lanes, tried a little slicing, etc. If a chunk of any of them is "comped," I cannot find a way to back out of the "comping" structure.
 
I then went back to a vocal track that I did comp with the intent to "uncomp" chorus sections to get a "duet" effect, but cannot find an easy way to do this. Is this possible to do? (That was actually recorded in "comp mode," so maybe the question is if recorded in that mode am I committed to comping or can I change my mind to sound on sound (for certain regions) after the fact?)

Sylvan

Anderton
For me, speed comping is a fantastic feature. I think the problem people have is that with Layers, you could sorta comp, and sorta edit. With Take Layers, you can comp really, really well...edit, not so much. You are 100% correct that these are Take Lanes and not Edit Lanes.
 
As to whether there could be an option for both, I don't do coding. However, my gut tells me that lanes and layers are fundamental areas of the program, so messing with them could be opening a Pandora's box...

Exactly. The majority of complaints about Take Lanes seems to be related to them wanting to be individual tracks for editing. I can see that Take Lanes are not meant for that purpose. I "COMP" with Take Lanes and once the comp is completed, I can do normal editing in the final single track.

Absolutely not! Layers were not separate tracks either... But I could SEE more of them at a given time than I can with Lanes and I can't zoom the lanes enough to do my work...
 
Believe me... I've been doing this a long time... Defining the difference between a Lane and a Layer is rhetoric... either could work for me if they were well developed. Currently I don't feel they are and Layers were already working well for me.... so I wait and wait.... Yes I do what I have to but not comfortably and with a lot of extra work that used to be unnecessary...
 
My biggest complaints with Lanes it the way they use screen space/zooms etc. Give me a switch to turn off the track's composite view and allow me to have the lanes within the track instead of stacked beneath it... and allow me to zoom as large and small as layers used to.... then Lanes will be fine for me...
 
Comping? that's another issue... A nice tool and I can see it being handy in the right situations... Hec, I've used it a few times that it was a good tool for the situation, but most of the time I need to be able to edit the takes as part of my comping and speed comping is horrible at that... why can't I have a switch to turn it off!!!
 
Keni
 

CakeAlexS
Looking at the other thread (one of many) I did an enhancement request to Cake to disable drag and drop of takelanes (as an optional default in preferences):
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Editing-woes-with-take-lanes-part-1-m2953739.aspx
 
My view is that maybe there are features here that maybe shouldn't be here and it needs to be simplified to avoid bad practices. On the other hand new functionality may be required to babyspoon the user into using it as per design. Maybe making them look like tracks is a mistake.
 
There are definitely though some weird things with takelanes that should not happen...

Always good to have features as long as they can be enabled/disabled as needs change...
 
there were many similar "bugs" with Layers but the basic working was what I need most of the time here...
 
Keni
 

neirbod

Sylvan
I "COMP" with Take Lanes and once the comp is completed, I can do normal editing in the final single track.

I find this system to be the best approach given the limitations of X3, but being able to see and move chunks in discrete layers/takes can be extremely valuable.  Editing in a single track one is limited to just seeing that one track with the chunks overlapping.  For some editing this is no big deal, but for others it is a real problem.

Too bad that's not always practical... I do a lot of micro-editing which needs to be done during the comping process!
 
 
Keni
 

Keni
... why can't I have a switch to turn it off!!!

I think I see your point now Keni. The flexibility of assigning regions in a track as "comp" versus "sound on sound" would be nice to have.

mettelus
I did not do enough with layers in the past to recall their functionality well. What "features" of the layers are desired? I am not clear on this, so reading this thread confuses me more than helps me understand.
 
I agree 100% with Sylvan's point in that takes are takes... they get comped to a track, and the track is then edited. I am confused how/why this is not sufficient?
 
Edit: Brian's post came up after I submitted this, so understand the FX bin point. I guess I am still confused with the "take comment"... if things are "that diverse," trying to 'splice them' just makes no sense to me. A "take" should be repetitions of "damn near" the same content (to me anyway, perhaps I am naïve).

There are no rules or laws as to what a take should be as opposed to a track... It is data of that instrument at that point in time... Variations may not always be exact duplicates of the same data and may be alternative ideas played while recording/looping and comping them sometimes requires un-equal blocks... So you can't always comp first and then edit!
 
Layers alos allowed all the takes to be visible at one time within the boundaries of the track... so I could see more of what's going on and available... Right now Lanes still hog screen space.... After all the clamor about how crowded pre-X Sonar screen was, now we've got the opposite... Everything so space and large that we can't get enough on screen at one time.... I was much happier with what "clutter" was being complained about....
 
Keni
 

Anderton

Blades
Something I used to use the layers for was creating many layers of a single "part" of a multi-part harmony or even several layers for each of a number of these vocals.  This way I was able to use the one bus, the one EQ, the one comp - whatever and collapse the whole thing so I didn't have to look at it if I didn't want to.  I sometimes would use layers to comp a part together, but at least as often use a number of layers to create and overall single/multi part, whether layering a bunch of guitar notes to create a harmony Brian May style or a vocal stack or whatever.

I must be missing something. What about the current structure doesn't allow you to do this? You can record clips directly into lanes, or bring clips from tracks into the different lanes for processing by a single effect/bus. Clips within a lane can be slip-edited, have fades added, be split, you can insert effects into individual clips, etc. If multiple clips are selected, you can do things like add a fade to one of them and that fade will be added to all selected tracks. The only real limitations I'm seeing are:
 
1. If clips overlap on the same lane, only the top one is audible. However, you can add another lane and move the overlapping clip into it if you want to hear that clip and the clip it overlapped.
2. The composite waveform shown in the main track is the sum of all clips that play simultaneously, which means it looks like it's clipping. (When you hide the take lanes, as far as I can tell the display gives priority to whatever clips are selected, and if no clips are selected, it shows the lowest take that's not muted.)
3. You cannot create a folder and put the Lanes in it, but as you can fold/hide the Lanes into the main track, this doesn't seem particularly useful anyway as the main track is already a "folder track" of sorts.
 
What am I not seeing? I realize pretty much everyone understands the benefits of the current structure for comping, but I am genuinely confused about what makes Take Lanes unusable for the kind of functionality you describe.

What about when you need to have unequal splits? Say a note hangs over differently on one track than another... Currently it's a pain to fix... Comping wants to force many things to happen to happen to all Lanes even if I only want to change one... Slipping the start pouint for example will move the start of the clip on all Lanes instead of the single one I'm trying to adjust...
 
How about the sometimes handy tool of simply clicking on the lane and play auto-starts there... Have you tried to get it to play from before the first note? I continually find myself clicking to select the clip I want to hear then I must stop the auto playback and re-locate the the start of playback...
 
I'm sure there are more but I'm a bit overwound from all this banter... suffice it to say that we all work differently and I'm a bit displeased that Cakewalk has taken it upon themselves to change tools that worked for many... with something that doesn't work for many...
 
As in the nail gun/hammer image earlier in this thread.... there are times when one tool is better than another and I wouldn't throw out the hammer just because I bought a nail gun!
 
Keni
 

mettelus

Keni
... why can't I have a switch to turn it off!!!

I think I see your point now Keni. The flexibility of assigning regions in a track as "comp" versus "sound on sound" would be nice to have.

Absolutely.... Thank you... and there are other issues with them as well...
 
Keni
 

I did figure out that if you hold the CTRL key while clicking with the COMP cursor, it will "toggle" the comp state of the clip you are clicking on... this will allow you to toggle clips in/out of the track "mix," albeit more surgical in nature.

mettelus
I did figure out that if you hold the CTRL key while clicking with the COMP cursor, it will "toggle" the comp state of the clip you are clicking on... this will allow you to toggle clips in/out of the track "mix," albeit more surgical in nature.

Thanks for that one mettelus...
 
I'm not sure it will do what I want but it sounds promising... I will investigate...
 
I marked your post as helpful as it might be just the ticket to get around at least one of the issues I find so nasty with Lanes...
 
Keni