Old 05-03-2006, 08:20 PM   #1
chip mcdonald
Human being with feelings
 
chip mcdonald's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: NA - North Augusta South Carolina
Posts: 4,294
Default Envelope editing follies

Ok, so I guess I'll have to wait for the "global envelope on" default...

Initial impressions are that there's something clumsy about how you select the first "pin" when editing an envelope; what's with the teeny arrow that switches to the crosshair? It's hard to look at and determin what it's doing exactly, I'd prefer one cursor that once I click it *stays the same*...

BUT, THE BIG THING IS

What performance hit does envelope editing take? In Cool Edit I've done some projects that were huge where I've infered that at some point, you cross a limit of edit points and it crashes. It's a lot, but still...

Given that, in CEP if you pull a pin all the way to the bottom (sero level), and there's bordering pins that make that one effectively redundant, it automatically removes it. Reaper doesn't, so I'm concerned about "sloppy" editing habits building up in a project and causing a potential for a crash...?
chip mcdonald is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-03-2006, 08:42 PM   #2
Art Evans
Mortal
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 6,654
Default

You've hopefully seen my quick tip for turning on envelopes on a range or selection of tracks.

The arrow points to a location on the envelope where there is no envelope point. The crosshair shows you have successfully targetted a point. Good system in my book.

I'm interested in your experience that there's a limit to envelope edit points in Cool Edit, but that's for their forum! One of the very neat things about Reaper is that its project (= CE session) files are just text files. Open one up in a text editor and you can see how they work. And... you can edit them as text, eg copy an envelope from one effect to another, once you've spotted how it works, which is pretty obvious. I'd be surprised if there was a low limit to the number of points on an envelope as they are simply a list in the project file, but Justin might be the only one who actually knows.

I suspect your next post will be about the lack of ability to move a range of points together. Maybe that's down the track. The current possibilities are listed in "Envelope editing modifiers" in the keyboard shortcut list.
Art Evans is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-03-2006, 09:13 PM   #3
chip mcdonald
Human being with feelings
 
chip mcdonald's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: NA - North Augusta South Carolina
Posts: 4,294
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Art Evans
You've hopefully seen my quick tip for turning on envelopes on a range or selection of tracks.
Yeah, thanks, but I see that as an unnecessary step for something
that should be a default... I would think most people most of the time will end up doing envelope editing on each track, so I would think they should all be on from the start...

Quote:
The arrow points to a location on the envelope where there is no envelope point. The crosshair shows you have successfully targetted a point. Good system in my book.
Hmm. Welll.....

The arrow indicating an area where there is no envelope point is redundant, because as per the editing process you're naturally looking to put one where there isn't already one in the first place;

If there *is* one already there - you can't set another one in the same place, right? The system won't allow it. So it shouldn't let you; in which case, there isn't the possibility for a false result, so likewise you don't need to be shown you have a "targeted" point. Once the cursor gets withing "range" of the envelope, you get the arrow - if you click you get your result, the change of cursor blocks my view of where the point actually is... The arrow curson is actually nice to show that you're "in range", but I'd prefer for it to change to a *dot*, for screen-accuracy sake.


After you set your first anchor point, most of the time you're going to want to do this:

1) Left click near envelope to "aquire" a "hooked" anchor;

2) THEN drag it to exactly where you want it.

3) release

..in order to make your own ADSR/fade.

What I don't like is that the big "4 way stop" crosshair covers up the point I select, and I'm not able to accurately place it. In CEP you just get the point, which is really the point IMO. <g>

A big problem I had with CEP was that the "attraction range" was miniscule and you had to be really tweaky with the mouse just to "grab" the envelope. It looks like Reaper's system works good in that respect... I just want to be able to see exactly what I've got so I can place it where I want.


Quote:
I'm interested in your experience that there's a limit to
Yeah, I think it's something crazy like 16,000+ - but I've done it. <g>

There also seemed to be an issue with laying two (or more) .wavs on top of each other in one track "lane"; seems like if you did this too much, you'd end up with a crash of some sort. That seemed to be more of a danger if there were more edit points...


Quote:
One of the very neat things about Reaper is that its project (= CE session) files are just text files.
That *is* very cool...

Quote:
pretty obvious. I'd be surprised if there was a low limit to the number of points on an envelope as they are simply a list in the project file,
Hmm. If Syntrillium did the same thing, I could see them using a smaller variable not expecting it to go beyond a certain point, for memory reasons. "who is going to need that many edit points?"... <g>


Quote:
The current possibilities are listed in "Envelope editing modifiers" in the keyboard shortcut list.
Ah, interesting, thanks for you help.
chip mcdonald is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-03-2006, 09:15 PM   #4
chip mcdonald
Human being with feelings
 
chip mcdonald's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: NA - North Augusta South Carolina
Posts: 4,294
Default

ANOTHER THING:

Why is there a button for "volume envelopes follow events"? When would you want to move an event and not have the envelope go with it? Not to mention, it leaves the old envelope behind, which is unlikely to be useful for sticking anything else in that track....?

Shouldn't this be defaulted to "ON"?
chip mcdonald is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-03-2006, 09:46 PM   #5
Art Evans
Mortal
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 6,654
Default

Once on, it's on.

Remember these are track envelopes, not clip envelopes. In CE/Audition, there's not even the option to turn on linking track envelopes to clips, let alone have it as default... The only item/clip envelope in reaper is the one for item volume and fade, which runs right at the top of the item, normally, apart from the fade at the start/end.
Art Evans is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-03-2006, 09:48 PM   #6
pipelineaudio
Mortal
 
pipelineaudio's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Wickenburg, Arizona
Posts: 14,047
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by chip mcdonald
ANOTHER THING:

Why is there a button for "volume envelopes follow events"? When would you want to move an event and not have the envelope go with it? Not to mention, it leaves the old envelope behind, which is unlikely to be useful for sticking anything else in that track....?

Shouldn't this be defaulted to "ON"?
I use it constantly without it being attached. Especially if Im doing a slip style edit where I want the content to change, but the relative volume to follow the same envelope
pipelineaudio is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 05-03-2006, 11:55 PM   #7
chip mcdonald
Human being with feelings
 
chip mcdonald's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: NA - North Augusta South Carolina
Posts: 4,294
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Art Evans
Remember these are track envelopes, not clip envelopes. In CE/Audition, there's not even the option to turn on linking track envelopes to clips, let alone have it as default...
I know what you're saying about the functional difference between a "track" envelope and a "clip" envelope, but for my end-use I want the functionality of how "clip" envelopes worked in CEP. Linking "track" envelopes/automation to events in Reaper effectively accomplishes the same thing for me. I don't have a control surface so the "Virtual Tape Machine Channel" automation analogy doesn't matter to me
chip mcdonald is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 09:08 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.