Duplicate/Copy Paste Issue

[Roulette Records]

Have you guys noticed a issue with Dup/Copy Pasting multiple things in a single Dup/Paste ?

Here is the exact scenario, always reproducible, but with different variances (which makes the problem even worse as its not always the same off'ness)

You have a track. Say a Hat, or a Kick, or any small short piece of audio. You cut it down to its little section of actual audio, so now the region/clip is just the size of the recorded audio waveform (you know, we all do this).

Ok, Grid is ON and set to the best setting for your desired rhythm goal. Now you precisely make your pattern you want through a 8 bar section. This is now a decent amount of clips in the 8 bar section and they are perfect. You skip humanizing and everything is spot onto the grid. Your happy.

But your not going to do this for 120 bars of this, lol and the rhythm of this particular sound just repeats for the whole song. So you EITHER (both ways do the issue) highlight the 8 bar section and just hit Apple D for Dup or Copy paste this section several times throughout the end of the song.

It all should be EXACTLY to the grid as them first 8 bars were right ? Well sadly it is not. If you take the time, after the 8 bars (into the first paste/dup) go take a look at each clip individually and zoom ALL THE WAY in to its beginning. After about say 20 to 30 clips past the 8 bar pasting/dup'ing point you will notice the clips are 1 sample too early ! And even worse, as the song goes on, this grows to 2 samples, 4 samples, etc.. !!!

And to make matters worse, its not simply the same off'ness every time. Some clips are on, some are 1 sample, some are 2, etc.. So if you grab the entire area and try to move them all back 1 sample, they will still not all be spot on.

So why is this ? More importantly, how the the H. E. double hockey sticks is this even possible if this is a computer that can't make mistakes ?

Do you hear it ? No. Its 1 sample or 8 max. But it still is not right. And you can indeed sometimes "feel" it if you do want to humanize things and make it LATE. cause for some reason, things in music sound better late than early. Early is a no-no in music, either spot on or late have that pocket feel. So This becomes a issue to those that purposely sat and painstakingly made a section perfectly humanized and a few things absolutely needed to be where they are or it loses a feeling (late bass playing off a snare or something)... I feel it when it pushes it even 1 sample early !!! This is how I discovered it, or I wouldn't even have discovered it.

Please, mimic as I say and tell me what you see. I hope this helps enough people and Avid eventually fixes this issue.

[holler]

Hi,

See this

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=378115

[Roulette Records]

Originally Posted by holler

Hi,

See this

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=378115

Thanks.

Hmmmm, even though explained, it makes no sense. As I am not asking the DAW to calculate samples, round, or do anything. If I have these regions on the grid in my highlight, all the DAW has to do is copy that, not think about it and do rounding. LOL

They are making it sound like its normal cause of some math thing. But if that was the case, then why can I then grab each region and slide it right back to the where the original had it ? So if it can sit there, then it can sit there. We don't need to calculate why it can't... LOL it makes no sense. Now if I couldn't slide the region back to its original placement, ok, then I get there is some "rounding" issue and its impossible to sit exactly where I want it.

But why is the code making it calculate anything mathematical when all I want to do is copy ? It should just simply scan the scene like a picture and put everything where my highlighted original regions are = simple.

So word to Avid... Rewrite this code and make it more simple. When we want to copy, paste, dup, repeat, etc... all the software needs to do is scan the exact sample of where every region is sitting like a picture and then re-print that picture as we press the buttons to do so. Its really more simple than Avid is making it. This also might be due to the software is sitting on decades of old junk code and so doing this that I ask is not possible.

Its been overwhelming how many people ask for Avid to completely strip PT software down and recode it from the ground up, as its well past that due date of needed it. The App file is way too big for what it does, and things like this is proof its just decades of code dropped on top of old code, etc..

[Terry Wetzel]

roulette records. I once shared your frustration. I still consider myself a novice but I've experienced the same frustration you describe. I'm PT's 9,Win 7 and I've tried all the methods. Copy, Paste, Repeat, etc. I like my music spot on and I agree with most of what you say. I don't do beats or rap, just pop rock. I've found that Copy/Paste works best but if I'm not in Absolute Grid mode I still have to check through all the recorded regions and correct some manually. Nothing is perfect! All we can do is try our best to deal with computerized music. Even the tightest band is still imperfect! Why try to change reality!

[Roulette Records]

Originally Posted by Terry Wetzel

roulette records. I once shared your frustration. I still consider myself a novice but I've experienced the same frustration you describe. I'm PT's 9,Win 7 and I've tried all the methods. Copy, Paste, Repeat, etc. I like my music spot on and I agree with most of what you say. I don't do beats or rap, just pop rock. I've found that Copy/Paste works best but if I'm not in Absolute Grid mode I still have to check through all the recorded regions and correct some manually. Nothing is perfect! All we can do is try our best to deal with computerized music. Even the tightest band is still imperfect! Why try to change reality!

Hey Terry, nice to hear you chime in and thanks for your response.

I wholeheartedly agree with your statement of "Even the tightest band is still imperfect! Why try to change reality!" Trust me man, I am the "off" king when it comes to music.

So let me clarify. I used the "grid" as a example of this problem cause it is absolute and you can instantly see its off if it is. If the beginning of a clip in my example was in some random off grid placement, then seeing it be off of its original placement quickly for the example would take more precise looking at. So I just used the grid placement as a "easy to try and see" example.

I love that live feel, yes even in Hip Hop and electronic music that usually doesn't have it. I have mastered ways of manually getting sections perfect "feeling" like a fluid band groove. Its painstaking, so I usually only do it for 8-16 bars max, then want to paste it throughout the song.

So as I agree, I want to clarify that a band is "perfectly off" in a breathing like fluid way. Not randomly 1 to 8 samples off in the same direction every time ! lol So actually this issue is less apparent if you are a grid locker, cause really, hearing 1 to 8 samples off the grid is close to impossible.

But my argument begins to hold serious water once you already programed placement off the grid like a band groove would be. Then if that gets nudged around more and in a stiff unorganic way like this issue does, it truly does effect the "feel", cause it just rips the feeling apart that I ever so tried to get right.

Here we are just talking about the "why you want it that way" part of it. And sure, thats fun and debatable. But this leads to my second posts reasoning of... really, there is no reason for it to do this unless they have this particular copy/paste/dup/repeat code written wrong and overly complicated for no reason. And now, thats the new point of this thread IMO - lol

[john1192]

it sounds to me like the End of your 8 bar Loop is not quite at the very end Sample Wise .. this way the accumulation of samples as you stated works every time .. make sure your beginning and End are spot on .. down to the sample level .. if you go by the counters it could be off ..

if you tried this then please just disregard ..

[Roulette Records]

Originally Posted by john1192

it sounds to me like the End of your 8 bar Loop is not quite at the very end Sample Wise .. this way the accumulation of samples as you stated works every time .. make sure your beginning and End are spot on .. down to the sample level .. if you go by the counters it could be off ..

if you tried this then please just disregard ..

Hey John, as you may be right in that particular "loop" / long clip situation, I agree with your possible solution. Actually if you click on some of the links the other poster linked us to, you will see Avid saying same thing, and understanding/justifying it does do this issue if the tempo is not set to a tempo that divides into the samples just right (or something like that).

Well in my particular situation most of the time, this is not "loops" or long clips. They are say a 8 - 16 bar section with like 40-100 clips in there (short hi hats, kicks, guitar chopped, piano, synth, anything). This is the problem, it should not calculate samples, ends, etc.. it should take a "picture" of exactly where I have all my clips in my highlighted copied section, and when I paste it, it should simply print the picture.

They have their code wrong. Its that simple. We shouldn't make excuses for it. There is no reasons for calculations in a "copy and paste" feature. (IMO)

[Extreme Mixing]

Originally Posted by Roulette Records

Well in my particular situation most of the time, this is not "loops" or long clips. They are say a 8 - 16 bar section with like 40-100 clips in there (short hi hats, kicks, guitar chopped, piano, synth, anything). This is the problem, it should not calculate samples, ends, etc.. it should take a "picture" of exactly where I have all my clips in my highlighted copied section, and when I paste it, it should simply print the picture.

They have their code wrong. Its that simple. We shouldn't make excuses for it. There is no reasons for calculations in a "copy and paste" feature. (IMO)

There would be no way to make the math work for a given sample rate (say 48k) to divide equally for every possible tempo. Even at 192k it just can't work. It's the same with Video. You can't place a frame a few samples away from where the frame edge is. It has to be exactly on the frame. You can move the sound by samples, but not the video. Does it help if you consolidate the audio before you do all of the pasting? That should lock everything in place within the 8 or 16 bars. Then you only have the beginning and ending couple of samples. Everything inside should be perfect for the sample rate.

And you know that the computer is working much harder to play all those slices that it does playing continuous files.

[Roulette Records]

Originally Posted by Extreme Mixing

There would be no way to make the math work for a given sample rate (say 48k) to divide equally for every possible tempo. Even at 192k it just can't work. It's the same with Video. You can't place a frame a few samples away from where the frame edge is. It has to be exactly on the frame. You can move the sound by samples, but not the video. Does it help if you consolidate the audio before you do all of the pasting? That should lock everything in place within the 8 or 16 bars. Then you only have the beginning and ending couple of samples. Everything inside should be perfect for the sample rate.

And you know that the computer is working much harder to play all those slices that it does playing continuous files.

Hey, thats a good idea Extreme Mixing ! Thanks. Dude, even if it don't work better, its extremely easy to just slide the one giant region back to original placement than like 100 small ones.. lol It will work for sure.

Now, not to be always complaining, but even though it will work at times and better at times, in all reality even that work-a-round has it downsides. (don't want to get into here), but it does. As sometimes its cool to keep them all as them clips for later possible nudging around if needed. But could always re-cut it. or whatever. Either way, thanks for the workaround.. lol so simple. And I did not know the computer works harder to play multiple clips in this scenario, but it does make sense.

I will stand behind my statement of a "picture". It does not need to calculate all this stuff you say. Thats just one way they do it now to keep it so accurate, but in reality, its not if the calculations end up needing these roundings.

All it needs to do, or at least they should have a new feature option that allows this to be a "mode" you can toggle on and off is to simply take a "picture" in a sense of the exact beginning placement of all clips in a highlighted section, and it re-prints (pastes) that picture in the targeted paste area.

How this would work is more linear based calculation that is quick and easy and always is the same for every bar section. No tempo, sample rate relation calculations needed. Its a linear space thing more. Extremely simple.

Here it is: Simply calculate how many samples away from the highlighted section's beginning is to the beginning of every clip and then paste them the same exact distance from it the same way in the paste. = SIMPLE.

Example: I have a highlighted section with several clips in there. The first clip is 5,400 samples away from the highlight's beginning, the next is 16,0341 samples away from the highlights beginning, the next is 23,659 samples away from the highlight's beginning, and so on.

Now after I copy. When I go to paste, it puts the first clip 5,400 samples away from the highlight's beginning, it puts the next 16,0341 samples away from the highlights beginning, and puts the next 23,659 samples away from the highlight's beginning, and so on.

How would this not work ? How would it ever be off ? And how would it ever fall susceptible to the roundings calculation ? (as long as you pasted within the same session you copied from so the samples/space were identical) It wouldn't cause its thinking linear and not trying to over calculate things it doesn't need to calculate (at least for me).

So I propose this is a option you can toggle back and forth between what I call "Picture Mode Pasting" or "Linear Mode Pasting" and the way it is now "Sample/Tempo/Sample Rate calculation Rounding Pasting Mode"

Get what I am saying ? This is possible AND entirely simple and IMO a feature more fundamentally important than Cloud Collaboration.