So you're basically looking for a "consolidate lanes" command. Where, for each clip not on the top-most lane, if enough empty space is available in the lane above to accommodate that clip, it moves into that space. Correct?

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk]
So you're basically looking for a "consolidate lanes" command. Where, for each clip not on the top-most lane, if enough empty space is available in the lane above to accommodate that clip, it moves into that space. Correct?

I'm pretty sure OP (and many others) want a return to how Rebuild Layers used to work. Personally I thought that was a mess. Too hard to identify what went where without actually listening back to everything and there wasn't a Notes section to keep track of stuff.

Having watched the video on take lanes, I would say several important improvements have been made.  To start with, it looks like in a collapsed track the visible audio data will be that which is actual audible, rather than the impenetrable hodge-podge of yore.
 
For comping the new functionality looks very deep and well-considered.  God willing there will be no bugs. "Consolidate lanes" sounds like a move in the right direction.
 
I did not use track layers merely for comping, but also found other techniques which allowed for creative possibilities and simplified workflow.  Hopefully the more-developed iteration of take lanes will provide new possibilities outside of comping.
 
The idea of an "intended workflow" bothers me - I would prefer to have powerful tools with which I can develop techniques.  To an extent the designer's preconceptions necessarily drive the design, so that a hammer, for example, has a heavy flat nail-hitting part, and a stick, and a removing-nails part.  But hammers are hugely useful in all sorts of other cases - as a wedge, a lever, a club, a toy, etc.  A nail-gun, on the other hand, may well fasten things with nails very well, but it's fairly limited outside of that one purpose.

OK now I realize that CW concept is very different to what I want for my workflow and what I read as requests from users last year. Now if I move clip to another lane it really deletes those clip, so nevermind. I'll learn to live with this new concept - I dont use take lanes for recording multiple takes, I would like to follow X1 concept.

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk]
So you're basically looking for a "consolidate lanes" command. Where, for each clip not on the top-most lane, if enough empty space is available in the lane above to accommodate that clip, it moves into that space. Correct?

Wouldn't that (in the background of the cleanup pahse) be a bounce to clip like function?

bapu

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk]
So you're basically looking for a "consolidate lanes" command. Where, for each clip not on the top-most lane, if enough empty space is available in the lane above to accommodate that clip, it moves into that space. Correct?

Wouldn't that (in the background of the cleanup pahse) be a bounce to clip like function?

 NO. But as I said nevermind. Now I understand new CW concept...

bapu

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk]
So you're basically looking for a "consolidate lanes" command. Where, for each clip not on the top-most lane, if enough empty space is available in the lane above to accommodate that clip, it moves into that space. Correct?

Wouldn't that (in the background of the cleanup pahse) be a bounce to clip like function?

Well, that we have. You can "flatten comp," which will bounce the "active" takes to a new lane. What you lose here is all of your splits and edits... it's just a new individual clip.  We consider that a clean solution, and offer "delete muted takes" to retain the edits.  A consolidate command would retain all of the clip borders, with each clip cropped, while also moving clips to the minimum number of lanes needed to accommodate them. That could be added in a patch or future version, if it's truly desirable. But my reaction is that it's messy, as you typically would have minimal control over where those clips end up going.

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk]

That could be added in a patch or future version, if it's truly desirable. But my reaction is that it's messy, as you typically would have minimal control over where those clips end up going.

Please no!! That was the downfall of take lanes!!!

"consolidate lanes" is a classic case of what I'm talking about.  For the specific workflow of comping takes it may not be necessary, since once the compositing is done the lanes can be collapsed and that's it.
 
However, if you're doing something else with those clips, it could be convenient to have all the clips in as few lanes as possible.  If you have a clip in each of a dozen lanes, it might be impossible to see them all at once, for example.

For example, with the new clip envelope behavior (which I assume is unchanged in X3), clip envelopes are activated for every clip in a lane.  Perhaps you want to do something with those envelopes - independently of an already well crafted track envelope.  Collapsing the clips to one lane would enable that more easily.
 
I'm just thinking of random use scenarios here - the real benefit is in "unforeseen synergies".
 
I can't see any way that something like "consolidate lanes" would be a negative as an option.