• SONAR
  • Solutions for Using Take Lanes as Layers (p.2)
2013/12/26 21:51:20
Paul P
 
This is a great thread for someone like me that never learned layers and has been waiting for the dust to settle before learning lanes.  I hope it will also help people reach a common understanding of what the different tools are or should be in a general purpose toolbox.  There is surely a lot of common ground between everyone's personal way of doing things.
 
 
2013/12/26 22:24:20
Anderton
brundlefly
neirbod
I can copy and paste fine, and put the new hit into a new lane so I can use the old one as a reference.  But pasting immediately hides the overlapping section of the first lane so I can't use it as a reference.  If I drag the edge of that clip to see the old hit, it disappears again as soon as I move the copied one.

 
I'm not understanding the problem exactly. If the copied hit is in a parallel lane, you should be able to line it up in advance and then just Shift+drag it to the other lane (Shift preserves timing). Since SONAR doesn't allow same-lane overlaps, it will automatically slip-edit the original flubbed hit out of the way. Done.




That's what I would suggest as well. Neirbod, are you using the crossfade tool that's part of the comping toolset? This hides and moves things in unwanted ways if you're just doing editing and not Sonar's specific comping workflow.
2013/12/26 22:25:57
Anderton
Paul P
 
This is a great thread for someone like me that never learned layers and has been waiting for the dust to settle before learning lanes.  I hope it will also help people reach a common understanding of what the different tools are or should be in a general purpose toolbox.  There is surely a lot of common ground between everyone's personal way of doing things.



Yes, and I started this thread so I could learn too! I have a feeling I'm using Take Lanes (and their alter ego Layers) to about 50% of their potential...maybe not even that much. I'm finding out Take Lanes are a pretty deep new feature, not just Layers in new clothes...although the more I get into this, the more it seems you can take the clothes off and find Layers underneath
2013/12/26 22:43:02
Keni
Nice thread...

Thanks Craig... I think it would be a great article...

I'll have to document what I've been doing, but I'm pretty tuned up for the coming weeks... I will do what I can...

I do much as you as far as cloning a track to do various areas and then comp them to a final track in different ways... Circumstance dependent...

While searching for answers to deal with this, I found some things that made it faster thane some of the tool shifting... It still requires some but I was able to do all but auto cross fades which I never use. I would expect thus to work fine at the track level when lanes are hidden as I think it was brindle fly who mentioned... I'll have to verify that as well...

What I seemed able to do was work with the smart tool and split... I could activate lanes/clips using K (mute) allowed me to individually manage fades... I believe that with an extra modifier added to the alt-click (such as Ctrl-alt-click) to allow splitting of individual clips instead of all lanes... I would like to see that come...

I'll do my best to document this ASAP, but that's the gist of it... So staying with the smart tool and F8 to toggle to split made it pretty fast. After the first time toggling through the F8 seek cations to split, I could quickly move from smart tool to split with a single key press from F5<>F8<>F5...

Thanks for tackling this topic. I agree that it seems quit an issue... Some such as myself have been using layers in many ways for many years and have learned how to use them to great benefit even though they fell short of the designers' hopes...

Keni
2013/12/27 00:53:29
brundlefly
Keni
I believe that with an extra modifier added to the alt-click (such as Ctrl-alt-click) to allow splitting of individual clips instead of all lanes... I would like to see that come...



Hey Keni, I didn't catch all the responses in the other thread about this, but we need to get to the bottom of why your Alt-click with the Smart-tool isn't splitting takes individually. I think you're the exception on this.
2013/12/27 03:05:24
mettelus
I think the article idea would definitely help, as these threads do have a lot of good information in them, but do not work as a good reference.
 
A couple things came back to mind as I read this thread. I probably do odd things with my work flow, but for things I do they work well.
 
1) When trying to "deal" with the comp cursor, I will at times simply add empty tracks and shift-drag the takes. Tracks are "free" and it resets the "smart tool" to its track behavior. (I do agree in a simple toggle do this for all of the others struggling) This is not a "solution," by any means, but at times quicker.
 
2) I know people find this one odd until they see me do it... vertical space is a concern on any monitor, so when "piece parting" things together, I will move the pieces into the Matrix View. For 50% of my vertical space I now can "see" 70 clips even with the inspector open. (Even just one MV row viewable will give me 10). Rather than waste that vertical space in a track/take lane, I can drag to and fro from the Matrix View easily. That way I only need 2-3 tracks "in view" at a time and still work effectively. Obviously this will not work for certain applications (like true takes used in comping), but does work as a "built in clipboard" of sorts.
 
My use of take lanes has mostly been for comping so far, and I can envision people comments about comping drum sets but never done it, so a "nice reference" would be very handy for folks.
2013/12/27 09:33:35
neirbod
Anderton
brundlefly
neirbod
I can copy and paste fine, and put the new hit into a new lane so I can use the old one as a reference.  But pasting immediately hides the overlapping section of the first lane so I can't use it as a reference.  If I drag the edge of that clip to see the old hit, it disappears again as soon as I move the copied one.

 
I'm not understanding the problem exactly. If the copied hit is in a parallel lane, you should be able to line it up in advance and then just Shift+drag it to the other lane (Shift preserves timing). Since SONAR doesn't allow same-lane overlaps, it will automatically slip-edit the original flubbed hit out of the way. Done.




That's what I would suggest as well. Neirbod, are you using the crossfade tool that's part of the comping toolset? This hides and moves things in unwanted ways if you're just doing editing and not Sonar's specific comping workflow.




Thanks for your thoughts. I found a workaround that helps.  To be more clear about the issue, say you have already comped and have just a single take, and now want to copy and paste a note from one section to another.  Paste the copied note, drag it to a new lane, and then move the edges of the original take (which now has a hole where the pasted note was) so you can see the flubbed note and use it as a timing reference.    So far so good.  The issue I had was I would then drag the clip for the new note to adjust the timing, which immediately resulted in recreating the hole in the original take.  The solution - use the "move data within a clip" feature of slip edit instead of moving the clip itself.  This leave the original take visible.  Once lined up, you can collapse the lanes and use crossfading on the track to make the edit seamless.
 
Three thoughts that may be useful in developing this article, and more generally for those trying figure out how to edit using them:
 
1) I found that "move data within a clip" is essential for editing within take lanes. I rarely used this with layers, instead moving entire clips and then using layers' good tools for trimming edges of overlapping layers.  With lanes, using this approach I would get lots of tiny clip fragments and small gaps between.  Moving data within clips is much better for my workflow.
 
2) The tools associated with editing with takes expanded vs. collapsed are quite different which can result in confusion (at least for me!).  For example, some powerful crossfading tools within lanes are simply not available with lanes collapsed, and auto-crossfade works only with lanes collapsed.  That being said, each has strengths and you can toggle back and forth to use the best of each.  In the example I gave above, I found the best workflow is to copy/paste and adjust timing with lanes expanded, then create the crossfades with lanes collapsed to take advantage of "auto crossfade", and then make any fine adjustments to the crossfade with lanes expanded again due to the nice tools available (e.g., one can move the timing of the entire crossfade as a unit in lanes, but not in the parent track).  
 
3) In general, while comping and editing steps can be combined I find this can be quite confusing and result in clip fragments and gaps.  For me, I try to comp first (perhaps making a minor edit or two at this stage) and only begin editing once you have a single comped take to work with.  Of course not all mixing is this linear, so sometimes you may want access to a different take once you are deep into editing.  So, prior to comping I duplicate the entire track(s) with all reasonably good takes and archive it so I have everything available if needed even if I am deep into the editing phase.
 
Looking forward to the article, Craig.
 
Cheers,
 
David
2013/12/27 09:43:24
neirbod
brundlefly
Keni
I believe that with an extra modifier added to the alt-click (such as Ctrl-alt-click) to allow splitting of individual clips instead of all lanes... I would like to see that come...



Hey Keni, I didn't catch all the responses in the other thread about this, but we need to get to the bottom of why your Alt-click with the Smart-tool isn't splitting takes individually. I think you're the exception on this.




ALT+click works for me as well, splitting just the actual take I click on.  
 
Are we all talking about the same thing here?  If I have grouped clips (e.g., Overhead and kick) with takes 1 and 2, ALT+click on take 1 will split *both* the OH and kick on take 1, but neither mic on take 2.  This makes the most sense for multi-miced instruments, at least the vast majority of the time.  Not sure if Keni means he wants the ability to split "OH take 1" without splitting "kick take 1."  To my knowledge this is possible only if you remove the clips in question from the groups.
2013/12/27 11:21:54
Anderton
Wow, all your suggestions are great!!! Much appreciated. Had to jump off and do other things, but will check into other Take Lane/Layer elements over the weekend.
2013/12/27 11:38:50
stevec
neirbod

...The solution - use the "move data within a clip" feature of slip edit instead of moving the clip itself.  This leave the original take visible.  Once lined up, you can collapse the lanes and use crossfading on the track to make the edit seamless.
 
...1) I found that "move data within a clip" is essential for editing within take lanes. I rarely used this with layers, instead moving entire clips and then using layers' good tools for trimming edges of overlapping layers.  With lanes, using this approach I would get lots of tiny clip fragments and small gaps between.  Moving data within clips is much better for my workflow.
 


That is an often forgot editing ability that could really come in handy just as you've outlined.   And it's definitely something that I can see Craig including in his article since it completely eliminates editing clip boundaries. 
  
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