New Playlist Features: First Impressions

[m4tune]

I´ve been waiting long for an improvement of the playlist behaviour and usability. I´m one of those who have been asking for playlist shortcuts (cycle, new, duplicate, etc) for years.

Today I played a litttle with the new features. Unfortunately I can´t see real improvements. I have to use the mouse as often as before. I have even the feeling that I have to make more clicks than before: More popups, etc.

And I get much more visual information with all playlists popping up. What I want is a quicker way to hear different takes. Now it seems that I have to handle more visuals first. I want to concentrate more in hearing than in seeing the music. Maybe I´m missing something? What are your thoughts?

What is most disappointing for me: The interaction between groups and the new playlist/takelist features got worse than before! In all prior PT versions I have been able to choose from different takes across multiple tracks very quick: Just highlight the whole regions, command-click with selector, choose from the popup an alternative take and: all tracks in the group change to the choosen take simultaneously - in PT8 I have to do this for all members of a group seperatly or I have to choose the detour of switching to the new playlist lanes which is a much longer (slower) way !
I hope that I´m missing something...Can anybody show me a quicker way?

I don´t want to be a crank. There are a lot of great new features in PT 8, I´m sure. And I respect the hard work of all programmers and visionaries at Digidesign. But there´s a strange feeling, too. Is it the right way to spend so much into new cosmetics and visual improvements? It´s a software with a sonic goal. In the case of the new playlist features I think that the way to the ears has become longer than before...

[25ghosts]

Well, I think it has improved drastically. Sure, no short key and it is a shame but this is working good:

Click the track view to expand ALL the playlists of the audio track. In order to listen to the various playlist all you have to do is hit the solo button on the expanded playlist. That will solo in context and only play the playlist soloed while the rest of the arrangement is going. I find this to be a killer time saver.
You can also solo by click either the region in the playlist on somewhere in the playlist and then hit Shift+s

IHTH

[GeneOuse]

I think there should be an option like "track selection follows cursor" where solo follows the cursor, i.e. whichever playlist I place the cursor in is auto-soloed. That will ensure there's almost no clicking involved.

[Brandonx1]

Originally Posted by GeneOuse

I think there should be an option like "track selection follows cursor" where solo follows the cursor, i.e. whichever playlist I place the cursor in is auto-soloed. That will ensure there's almost no clicking involved.

Yep. Great idea. Right now I'm using scrub for this. Ex editing would be a breaze with a option like this.

[Shawn Simpson]

I've been toying around with it as well and I've worked out a few procedures that are working fairly well to get a basic comp going. What I do is put the cursor on the playlist I want, then solo it. I use the P and ; keys to go up and down, pressing Shift+S each time to solo the one I've moved to. (Oh how it would be great to have "solo follow selection")

Once I decide on the best one I hit Control+Option+V to move the selection up.

I know this isn't rocket science, but since we've all been wishing for a shortcut way to do all this forever, I thought I put it thru some paces. So far I'm digging it. I still find the mouse to be the fastest way to change from one section to another and I don't know how it will work when the comp starts getting complicated, but here's hopin'!

[m4tune]

Here is what the "What´s new in PT HD 8" says (p.54):



Matches and Multiple Tracks

If you have loop recorded on multiple tracks,
and each track contains multiple takes with
identical User Time Stamps, you can change all
takes simultaneously.

I think it should be mentioned that we have to create a group before record! (At least this has been the case in 7.4 and earlier)





To switch takes for multiple tracks:

1 Configure the Matching Criteria window (see
“Matching Criteria” on page52), so that the fol-
lowing options are enabled:


• Track Name
– and –
• Selection Range

This is called "Within Selection" or "Region Start And End" in the Match Criteria Window?


2 With the Selector tool, select the take range for
each track you want to replace.

How is it possible? The "Matching Criteria" should have been set for "Selection Range" and because of this there is no alternate take availiable. Only the whole Region can be choosen to get alternate Takes.



3 Do one of the following:
• Right-click the Edit selection and select a
different matching alternate take from the
Matches submenu.
– or –
• Control-click (Windows) or Command-
click (Mac) the Edit selection and select a
different take from the Alternates pop-up
menu.

The selected take replaces the previous take and
snaps precisely to the correct location on each
track.


What happens at this point: The alternative Take changes only on one singular track - not on all grouped tracks !!! This is a huge bug, Digi! In 7.4 this has not been the case. Please fix this as soon as possible.


Another point which shocked me today:

I made a piano recording with 5 Mics on seperate tracks. We made a punch in/out with some takes. To listen to all recorded takes I expanded to playlists by choosing the right matchimg criterias. Now I soloed the first playlistlane and hit play. I can´t hear anything before the punch in point !!! The Solo on an alternative take not only mutes all other alternatives but mutes the main track before (and I guess also after) the punch in/out points, too!!! Am I missing something????????

[twix]

In comping vocals I did the following:

Highlighted the selection I wanted to chose between (ie one line of verse1) across ALL the playlists, then went though them all real fast with the solo button, once I decided on the the one i liked, hit the little up arrow button. Then moved to the next line. Rise and repeat.

Now one thing I am disappointed about was I couldn't keep it on loop and just move between different playlists because of the delay between unsoloing and chosing another playlist, so I had to stop and play at the end of listening to each playlist. Not a super big deal but still.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Originally Posted by m4tune

Another point which shocked me today:

I made a piano recording with 5 Mics on seperate tracks. We made a punch in/out with some takes. To listen to all recorded takes I expanded to playlists by choosing the right matchimg criterias. Now I soloed the first playlistlane and hit play. I can´t hear anything before the punch in point !!! The Solo on an alternative take not only mutes all other alternatives but mutes the main track before (and I guess also after) the punch in/out points, too!!! Am I missing something????????

No - there is no way to audition in context when comping (without using the Undo buffer) - meaning listening to your previous selection auto switching to the choices. Personally I still prefer to use voice stealing. The comp feature is unusable for this reason IMNSHO.

http://screencast.com/t/oi2ZCVJZ

Rail

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by twix

Now one thing I am disappointed about was I couldn't keep it on loop and just move between different playlists because of the delay between unsoloing and chosing another playlist, so I had to stop and play at the end of listening to each playlist. Not a super big deal but still.

Actually a big deal for me.

With my method, (Two tracks set to the same voice) I can listen to the comp take go seamlessly into the new choices to see if they work together.

This new comping feature doesn't allow that.

Deal breaker for me. Just give me a keystroke for switching playlists.

Thanks.

[EvilElfBoy]

You guys should really check out my video that I just did for multi-platinum. It goes into track comping quite a bit and will show you how to do it "on the fly" without having to use solo's at all. I did it the way Digi intended it to be, which once you get the hang of it, is pretty fast. but just wait till you see "on the fly" it's blazing fast! it's only $10 bucks and it goes through all the new features on PT 8, with a very big emphasis on Track comping. Hope it helps you out. :)