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Old 01-24-2006, 04:07 PM   #1
Ben Zero
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Default Editing functionality that I think REAPER needs

As (another) Vegas user , I'm loving the way REAPER is heading. I know you've been concentrating lately on the routing and mixing side of things, but I'd like to throw in some feature ideas from the editing side that I think would be really useful. All of these features will be familar to users of a certain app by Sony Media Software

1. The crossfade functionality is fantastic, but would be nice if it was taken further. In Vegas you can use CTRL+ALT to move the position of a crossfade whilst retain its length. Great for perfect music edits.

2. Would be good to be able to 'slip' an event/clip, whilst still keeping its original length in tact, ie using audio that's there but currently not seen or played on the multitrack. Hope I'm making sense. This is currently achieved by clicking ALT+dragging within an event in Vegas.

3. 'Ripple', as Vegas calls it. This is the ability to grab an event/clip and everything to the right of that clip (including automatation envelopes, etc) moves with that clip. Like a temporary grouping of everything to the right of that clip. Also a way of having this on a per track basis only, so only everything to the right of the clip on its track moves.

4. Explorer and Media pool windows, perhaps 'nestable' with the mixer so that one can flick between the three. Explorer is basically a media explorer where you can preview files before dragging them to the multitrack. Media Pool has the same functionality, but only includes files that are within the session already. Plus perhaps like the ability to replace one existing session file with another. Hope that makes sense!

5. Event/clip mute. Maybe it's there already, but haven't seen it.

6. Something like Vegas' Trimmer window - very useful for grabbing bits from long voice or vocal sessions and dragging them into the multitrack.

7. The ability to just use an event's left or right channels, but panned to centre, or to combine L+R to mono.

9. All the event take options we have in Vegas, as Pipeline mentions in another post.

10. Eventually, and obviously I can see this is something that could come later, would be nice to see CTRL+event edge drag for timestretching, pitch shifting and resampling the clips on the multitrack.

Hopefully at least some of that makes sense. Keep up the fantastic work Justin!

Ben
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Old 01-24-2006, 04:19 PM   #2
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It pretty much all makes sense! But we'll see. Right now I have alt bound to disabling autocrossfades. otherwise making it 'slip' would be pretty straightforward...

-Justin
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Old 01-24-2006, 04:21 PM   #3
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Cool! Well, doesn't have to be alt really - shift, ctrl... whatever modifier keys you have spare

Thanks

Ben
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Old 01-24-2006, 04:25 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Zero
Cool! Well, doesn't have to be alt really - shift, ctrl... whatever modifier keys you have spare

Thanks

Ben
That's the problem... shift toggles snapping, ctrl ignores grouping... soo....

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Old 01-24-2006, 09:37 PM   #5
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Yep, I concur with Ben's suggestions. The Slip and Slide Editing features are what has kept us on the Vegas band wagon for a long time. Slip=Alt button, and works on the Head or Tail event depending on which one the mouse is over. Slide Edit Point= Cntrl+Alt. No problem changing the key assignments to something else.
Also, very useful in the editing department are the Vegas Numeric keys 4/6, 1/3, and 2/8.

You have to put the NUM/LOCK on the numeric keypad in Vegas. 4 and 6 nudge events an amount depending on the current Zoom level that you're at, which I actually don't care for in Vegas, since I'm always zooming in and out and never have an indication of what that "nudge" value is. I wish it was a user definable nudge amount that is independant of the zoom level.
I usually use numeric keys 1 and 3 because of that, 1 and 3 will ALWAYS nudge the event 1 frame at a time independant of the zoom level, which is pretty good for most editing. This is particularly useful when setting a loop section and then nudging the event until the edit sounds right.

Numeric 2 & 8 allow you to move an event onto another track without moving it's position on the timeline. I prefer this method rather than dragging with the mouse, because I always have a tendancy to move the event right or left when trying to drag it to the track above or below it.

I feel like I might be missing some of the keyboard short-cuts on some features at this point, since this is my first test drive. You probably haven't had a lot of time to work on the Help file, but it would be nice to see just the keyboard short-cuts for now, so we aren't making suggestions on stuff you have already done and we can take some of the guess work out of it.

Other things I miss:
1. Event ASR- Currently I see Event Volume envelope, but it seems to be missing the ability to do a fade IN and Fade out on the event.
2. Event Reverse for reverse audio playback
3. During playback it will auto-scroll with the cursor position. But if you click your cursor on the track view during playback then the scrolling stops like it should. The problem is that I don't know how to get back to the current cursor position so that it starts scrolling again. This is Vegas keyboard short-cut "\"

Like Ben mentions regarding the Vegas Media Pool and Trimmer window these are very useful when doing V.O. type of work.

Example of typical workflow:
You record 20 plus takes of a V.O. and record them all on the same track consecutively. All these individual takes get numbered consecutively and get placed into the "Project Media Pool". The producer says, Let me hear Take#10. Instead of scrolling the track view along the timeline, you just go to the media pool and playback the take labeled "Take 10". They then say, ok I liked take 5 also, can you play that back. You just click on take 5 in the project media pool. The producer then says, Ok I like the first half of Take 10 up to the word..."whatever". You double click take 10, and it loads into the trimmer window. You select everything in the trimmer window up to the word "whatever", then drag that onto a new audio track, which will be your composite edit track. The producer then says, I like the second half of "Take 5". So same thing, double click on take 5 in the project media pool, and then loads it into the trimmer window, and then select the second half of take#5 and stick that onto the back half of Take#10. Then you playback that composite edit track. The Producer says, I didn't like how he said the word "Blah". So you edit out the word "Blah" on your composit edit track, then goto your media pool and start double clicking on each take to load it into the trimmer window, where you can quickly jump to where the word "Blah" is located. The producer says he likes the word "Blah" from Take#2. Again in the trimmer window you select that section and drag it onto the composite edit track, where you previously edited the bad "blah" out. You do a little slip and nudge editing if necessary to make the new "blah" fit.

Ok, now you've done all this composit editing. It's for a 60 second radio commercial. The final composit edit comes in at a duration of 64 seconds. Your next step is that you go to the composit edit track and do what's called "de-breathing". You basically cut out wherever the V.O. person took a breath and then nudge those events closer together. So back to the Split, Slip and Nudge editing. At this point you have the time cut down to 62 seconds....F**K!!!! It's still 2 seconds too long and now you've spent all this time editing and the producer loves how it sounds. Another Vegas feature to the rescue. Select all events on that composit edit track, and do a simultaneous "time compress" of all the events. 60 second V.O. edit perfect....Now let's edit the background music and Sound FX's.

Thanks for listening. Don't worry, I understand some of this will probably take some time. It only took the Sonic Foundry guys working with me as a Beta tester from v1.0 up to Vegas v4.0 before they got it all done.

Last edited by Rednroll; 01-24-2006 at 09:45 PM.
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Old 01-24-2006, 09:58 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rednroll
Yep, I concur with Ben's suggestions. The Slip and Slide Editing features are what has kept us on the Vegas band wagon for a long time. Slip=Alt button, and works on the Head or Tail event depending on which one the mouse is over. Slide Edit Point= Cntrl+Alt. No problem changing the key assignments to something else.
Also, very useful in the editing department are the Vegas Numeric keys 4/6, 1/3, and 2/8.

You have to put the NUM/LOCK on the numeric keypad in Vegas. 4 and 6 nudge events an amount depending on the current Zoom level that you're at, which I actually don't care for in Vegas, since I'm always zooming in and out and never have an indication of what that "nudge" value is. I wish it was a user definable nudge amount that is independant of the zoom level.
I usually use numeric keys 1 and 3 because of that, 1 and 3 will ALWAYS nudge the event 1 frame at a time independant of the zoom level, which is pretty good for most editing. This is particularly useful when setting a loop section and then nudging the event until the edit sounds right.

Numeric 2 & 8 allow you to move an event onto another track without moving it's position on the timeline. I prefer this method rather than dragging with the mouse, because I always have a tendancy to move the event right or left when trying to drag it to the track above or below it.

I feel like I might be missing some of the keyboard short-cuts on some features at this point, since this is my first test drive. You probably haven't had a lot of time to work on the Help file, but it would be nice to see just the keyboard short-cuts for now, so we aren't making suggestions on stuff you have already done and we can take some of the guess work out of it.

Other things I miss:
1. Event ASR- Currently I see Event Volume envelope, but it seems to be missing the ability to do a fade IN and Fade out on the event.
2. Event Reverse for reverse audio playback
3. During playback it will auto-scroll with the cursor position. But if you click your cursor on the track view during playback then the scrolling stops like it should. The problem is that I don't know how to get back to the current cursor position so that it starts scrolling again. This is Vegas keyboard short-cut "\"

Like Ben mentions regarding the Vegas Media Pool and Trimmer window these are very useful when doing V.O. type of work.

Example of typical workflow:
You record 20 plus takes of a V.O. and record them all on the same track consecutively. All these individual takes get numbered consecutively and get placed into the "Project Media Pool". The producer says, Let me hear Take#10. Instead of scrolling the track view along the timeline, you just go to the media pool and playback the take labeled "Take 10". They then say, ok I liked take 5 also, can you play that back. You just click on take 5 in the project media pool. The producer then says, Ok I like the first half of Take 10 up to the word..."whatever". You double click take 10, and it loads into the trimmer window. You select everything in the trimmer window up to the word "whatever", then drag that onto a new audio track, which will be your composite edit track. The producer then says, I like the second half of "Take 5". So same thing, double click on take 5 in the project media pool, and then loads it into the trimmer window, and then select the second half of take#5 and stick that onto the back half of Take#10. Then you playback that composite edit track. The Producer says, I didn't like how he said the word "Blah". So you edit out the word "Blah" on your composit edit track, then goto your media pool and start double clicking on each take to load it into the trimmer window, where you can quickly jump to where the word "Blah" is located. The producer says he likes the word "Blah" from Take#2. Again in the trimmer window you select that section and drag it onto the composite edit track, where you previously edited the bad "blah" out. You do a little slip and nudge editing if necessary to make the new "blah" fit.

Ok, now you've done all this composit editing. It's for a 60 second radio commercial. The final composit edit comes in at a duration of 64 seconds. Your next step is that you go to the composit edit track and do what's called "de-breathing". You basically cut out wherever the V.O. person took a breath and then nudge those events closer together. So back to the Split, Slip and Nudge editing. At this point you have the time cut down to 62 seconds....F**K!!!! It's still 2 seconds too long and now you've spent all this time editing and the producer loves how it sounds. Another Vegas feature to the rescue. Select all events on that composit edit track, and do a simultaneous "time compress" of all the events. 60 second V.O. edit perfect....Now let's edit the background music and Sound FX's.

Thanks for listening. Don't worry, I understand some of this will probably take some time. It only took the Sonic Foundry guys working with me as a Beta tester from v1.0 up to Vegas v4.0 before they got it all done.
Bloody newbies... [rolls eyes]
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Old 01-24-2006, 11:08 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rednroll
Other things I miss:
1. Event ASR- Currently I see Event Volume envelope, but it seems to be missing the ability to do a fade IN and Fade out on the event.
This feature is already there. Select an item. Open the item properties (F2), set Fade-in length or Fade-out length.

Cheers,

Malcolm.
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Old 01-24-2006, 11:29 PM   #8
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Thanks Malcolm. I see it now, it's just a bit harder to initially set up. Maybe some preset time lengths or grabbing the corner of an event like it's done in Vegas would speed up the process a bit, instead of having to manually enter them in everytime.
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Old 01-24-2006, 11:37 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rednroll
Thanks Malcolm. I see it now, it's just a bit harder to initially set up. Maybe some preset time lengths or grabbing the corner of an event like it's done in Vegas would speed up the process a bit, instead of having to manually enter them in everytime.
Grab the edges, you can grab the fades there.
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Old 01-24-2006, 11:48 PM   #10
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This could turn into a showstopper I guess.

It should probably have an exposed option up at the top to automatically fade event edges to 10mSec like vegas. SO that if you drag an event end youll see a 10msec fade in or out if nothing else.

I agree it is a little trickier to show the fade in and out handles than it should be

You know, this is among the things that should be showing in the toolbar, like certainly an Undo button, show/hide grids etc...
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Old 01-25-2006, 12:46 AM   #11
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"Grab the edges, you can grab the fades there."

The problem is that you can't grab the fade, until a fade is created and you have to create the fade by manually entering in a numerical value first.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but here's the steps I went thru to create a fade in.
1. Right click on event, select Item properties
2. Enter in some value of length of the fade
3. Click Apply or OK.
4. Goto Track view and alter the length by grabbing the edge.

So, in the Vegas fashion. I elliminate steps 1-3, and jump right to step #4. I grab the top corner edge, and drag my fade curve. If I want to change the fade curve type, I right click on the curve. Steps 1-3 require me to use a combination of the keyboard and the mouse. Mouse to get to the Item Properties UI, click in Fade in Length field. Move my hand from the mouse to the keyboard to type in a numeric value, back to the mouse. Do that on about 50 different events, and I'm ready to throw my keyboard thru my monitor.

<Edit>
My bad...when I zoomed in closer to the event I see it works the Vegas way. You just need to be very precise as to where you have your mouse located to start the initial fade in envelope. Zooming in seemed to help this. I'm probably just too use to Vegas at this point. Vegas has a tiny little triangle in the top of each events corner so you have some visual cue, where to place your mouse cursor.

Last edited by Rednroll; 01-25-2006 at 12:55 AM.
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Old 01-25-2006, 01:21 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rednroll
"Grab the edges, you can grab the fades there."

The problem is that you can't grab the fade, until a fade is created and you have to create the fade by manually entering in a numerical value first.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but here's the steps I went thru to create a fade in.
1. Right click on event, select Item properties
2. Enter in some value of length of the fade
3. Click Apply or OK.
4. Goto Track view and alter the length by grabbing the edge.

So, in the Vegas fashion. I elliminate steps 1-3, and jump right to step #4. I grab the top corner edge, and drag my fade curve. If I want to change the fade curve type, I right click on the curve. Steps 1-3 require me to use a combination of the keyboard and the mouse. Mouse to get to the Item Properties UI, click in Fade in Length field. Move my hand from the mouse to the keyboard to type in a numeric value, back to the mouse. Do that on about 50 different events, and I'm ready to throw my keyboard thru my monitor.

<Edit>
My bad...when I zoomed in closer to the event I see it works the Vegas way. You just need to be very precise as to where you have your mouse located to start the initial fade in envelope. Zooming in seemed to help this. I'm probably just too use to Vegas at this point. Vegas has a tiny little triangle in the top of each events corner so you have some visual cue, where to place your mouse cursor.
Yeah it's actually a pretty big range where the cursor turns to a fade shape and you can see that you're going to be creating the fade.. perhaps it needs to be bigger... personally I don't like having to go to the top to do the fade...

-Justin
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Old 01-25-2006, 01:41 AM   #13
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would drawing fade handles cost performance?

The "quick fade audio edits" option is a must I seriously believe. And with that, once you moved anything it would be VERY apparent just where to grab having that 10mSec fade in fade out there

Got a loosey goosey no click track mix I am running down real quick. I am using a LOT more hardware than I normally do!!! The direct out routing is really letting me feel justified about the cost of some of our outboard

WAY down the road Im going to have to beg for some sort of Hardware delay compensation thingy for doing these hardware inserts, but for now...no big huge biggie. I measured out to in to out time and slide the tracks forward by that amounty
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Old 01-25-2006, 04:51 AM   #14
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I have also found it very hard to drag fades onto an event. Takes a lot of mousing trial and error, and can get a little frustrating.
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Old 01-25-2006, 11:59 AM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rednroll
Also, very useful in the editing department are the Vegas Numeric keys 4/6, 1/3, and 2/8.

You have to put the NUM/LOCK on the numeric keypad in Vegas. 4 and 6 nudge events an amount depending on the current Zoom level that you're at, which I actually don't care for in Vegas, since I'm always zooming in and out and never have an indication of what that "nudge" value is. I wish it was a user definable nudge amount that is independant of the zoom level.
I usually use numeric keys 1 and 3 because of that, 1 and 3 will ALWAYS nudge the event 1 frame at a time independant of the zoom level, which is pretty good for most editing. This is particularly useful when setting a loop section and then nudging the event until the edit sounds right.

Numeric 2 & 8 allow you to move an event onto another track without moving it's position on the timeline. I prefer this method rather than dragging with the mouse, because I always have a tendancy to move the event right or left when trying to drag it to the track above or below it.
I like this.
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