Comping Multitracks - Tips?

[teedeecee]

Hi folks,

I do a lot of multichannel orchestral pop and film work and have been using a source-destination 4point approach using playlists for years. Only recently I have started to look at using the comping feature but am a little stuck and wondered if anyone had some tips.

If I have say 5 takes of the same work recorded across 30 tracks, laid out over individual playlists then I change to "Playlist" track view mode I can then see all playlists. Selecting a time region then moving the selection to the target track it works as expected. However, if I move one of the children regions left or right in its playlist track, some of the members of the group will move the selected track to the target whilst others will not.

Is this a mode I am in or is there some approach of grouping etc that I am using that is borking this?

[dcoffset]

If all the tracks are in a mix/edit group then playlist edits should work across all the tracks. I would check your group settings as a starting point.

Generally speaking I would never do edits in the playlists with the original takes. I would comp (copy) the segments to a new playlist and edit them in this new playlist. This makes it easy to go back and compare to different takes or recover work if you go too far...

[albee1952]

I'm with dcoffset. Start by making sure all tracks you wish to comp as a set, are in an active group. Next, make sure that playlists are indeed being selected correctly(if not, you may need to disable the group and re-order playlists on some tracks). I also second his comment on adding a new playlist for the "comp" track(I usually name that "trackname.comp" or "trackname.final" without the quotes).

Further advice:
1-when auditioning playlists, hit STOP when changing which lane you are selecting(with the lane SOLO button) because if you don't hit STOP, what you hear might be the last playlist, at least for a few seconds(IOW, switching is not always instant). Hitting STOP and PLAY means that what you hear IS what you expect to hear.
2-for future enhancement of the process, name your original track as "trackname.01"(without the quotes). Doing this will make each newly added playlist automatically named with the next number(so, trackname.02, trackname.03, etc). That way, you know that .01 is the first take, .02 is take 2, .03 is take 3. This helps a lot in any tracking, but helps a ton when doing multiple takes on multiple tracks

[teedeecee]

Thanks for your assistance. From your points I can see I am doing the right things. I will upload a video of the behaviour I am observing.

[originalscottyg]

Originally Posted by albee1952

2-for future enhancement of the process, name your original track as "trackname.01"(without the quotes). Doing this will make each newly added playlist automatically named with the next number(so, trackname.02, trackname.03, etc). That way, you know that .01 is the first take, .02 is take 2, .03 is take 3. This helps a lot in any tracking, but helps a ton when doing multiple takes on multiple tracks

As an aside, I like to name the track without the suffix, then flip to a new playlist with the .01 suffix for the first take. This leaves the no-suffix playlist as my target comp playlist and the actual takes still match the playlist numbering. I just have to always remember to flip a playlist before recording the first take.

[take77]

Just contributing to an older thread.

The PT ref manual notes that, any groups that you want to follow playlist changes should be created before recording.
If a group is created after the fact, those playlists wont follow suit with the rest of the session.

[chris.d]

Originally Posted by take77

Just contributing to an older thread.

The PT ref manual notes that, any groups that you want to follow playlist changes should be created before recording.
If a group is created after the fact, those playlists wont follow suit with the rest of the session.

Funny that this is noted in the manual.
To me this is still a huge bummer-bug


How could ANYBODY want that two weeks after the recording when somebody else hands you the session-file to edit and mix some groups actually work as expected and others don't and create a bloody mess?