MIDI regions: why?

[Compression Records]

I've been programming MIDI since its beginning, yet I have never been able to understand why ProTools creates MIDI regions in its region list for EVERY edit-copy-cut-paste operation that gets executed, just as if it was audio. Not that I've been able to use PT for MIDI (still spastic in many ways), but if I did I can just imagine how many regions I'd end up with after scoring a feature movie. "French Horn 05-352" would mean very little on reel 4. Can anyone enlighten my ignorance? Why MIDI region list?

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Marco Marinangeli
Magelic Productions, Inc.
Compression Records
http://www.compressionrecords.com

[Baixo]

Not that I've investigated it, but does the MIDI bin have a pref to hide auto-created regions? This might make the list a little nicer to work with.

MIDI regions exist is most other MIDI apps, like Logic. Every time you use that scissors tool, you're cutting MIDI regions, only in PT you get the added benefit of having a bin like audio does to find stuff. You can rename a loop region that you made and copy and refer to it by name rather than selecting manually a range of notes every time. This is not a new concept, but PT gives you a choice of views. It's nice to handle a region, as in audio, that moves/selects just what you want.

[mike connelly]

Along the same lines, PT includes midi regions that contain no midi data. Is there any reason you'd want to do this, or just a bug?

Mike

[Compression Records]

Baixo,

Thanx for your reply. I believe you're talking about aliasing. Logic & Cubase have something similar (although they execute it in different fashions), certainly Dig. Performer & Studio Vision do not have any MIDI region bin or list. Your point about being able to label (alias) a specific region for future use is quite valid, however that should be a user-definable feature for selected regions only, otherwise a long cluttering list is only more confusing than useful, don't you concur?

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Marco Marinangeli
Magelic Productions, Inc.
Compression Records
http://www.compressionrecords.com

[Baixo]

Indeed, it could lead to rather long, hard-to-navigate lists, so I hope there will be ways to filter it more in future releases, especially since MIDI is taking a larger role in PT.

Aliasing, yes, that's the term. It's really handy to treat a repeatable line as an object.

As for the empty regions thing, I suppose Digi opted not to make them disappear automatically when separated if they contained nothing. I wouldn't say it's a bug, because it works as specified, but they should probably give you a toggle for this function.

[Fred Cannons]

I agree that midi regions are a little unnecessary - especially for each punch-in/out - there's another one. You can't even highlight all the regions and copy to another track to make one region. Being a previous Vision user it seems confusing. If anyone knows how to condense many regions into one I'd love to know. Tech support couldn't help on that one.

[mike connelly]

I believe it's under the edit menu: Consolidate Selection.

Mike