[Ardour-Dev] Some editing hints wanted

[fons at kokkinizita.net]

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 04:56:11PM +0200, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:

> On 09/13/2010 10:34 PM, fons at kokkinizita.net wrote:
>
> >The basic operation consists of
> >
> >1. extracting those pieces,
> >2. moving them somewhere (the end of the session) in the right order,
> >3. splicing then together so the transitions won't be noticed.
> 
> i'm assuming it's classical music and hence no sync between multiple takes?

Verdi opera arias, singers + piano. Tetramic, dummy head, and
one or two spot mics. 
 
> >- split the regions at the required begin and end points,
> >- move the selected part to the end,
> >- move back to the original place,
> >- delete the 'right' part,
> >- extend the 'left' part to the original end of region.
> 
> moving to the end for this is tedious . create a second set of
> tracks for your edited version (unless you don't want to have two
> sets of eqs and other plugins whose settings could go out of
> sync...)

Could be done in this case. It would be tedious if you have more
tracks and not help much if the total length of the recorded takes
is much more than the wanted result. The real solution to this
would be the ability to switch between at different timelines/sets
of playlists, all of them using the same track layout an feeding
the same mixer strips. Just two would be fine, one to copy fragments
from and the second to assemble them.

> >This is quite tedious, in particular as each step also
> >requires selecting all tracks, making sure they dont move
> >relative to each other, etc. The last three steps are
> >required only to undo the unwanted side effect of the first.
> 
> as paul said, i find edit groups to be the bee's knees.

Except that here they don't work correctly. The B-format track
refuses to behave as part of a group, in all six sessions I
created. Adding it manually to a selection produces the problem
explained below.

A lot of the tedium is really related to selection, there seems
to be no way that really works well. Suppose you have two sets
of regions, A and B, and you edit the transition from A to B.

- Edit groups: see above.
- Selecting a rectangle: this works, provided you can see all
  tracks and there is some empty space for the first click.
- 'U' (select at edit point): once A and B overlap (and they
  have to, it always selects both. I don't understand the 
  logic behind this.
- Select first track of A or B by just clicking on it, the others
  with shift to add to the selection: the first works, all the
  others select both A and B if they overlap. The method is
  useless anyway if you have more tracks than fit vertically
  on the screen - having to scroll just makes thing worse.

This also means that it's often impossible to separate A and
B again without selecting and moving individual tracks of B
and then re-aligning them.

Assuming you can get the required selection, it's all to easy
to modify it accidentally. The operation you want to do are:

- trim the end of A,
- trim the start of B,
- move B.

All three of them can modify the selection if you are not
*extremely* careful where you click, and that usually
means something has been moved and should be undone.
Also you don't want to move A in any case (this would
destroy a previous edit), but it's all to easy to do this.

Another problem is that the only way to do any of these
is by 'visual' operations. There is no way to say e.g. 
'add 10ms to A' or 'move B by 5ms'. To do this visually
with the required accuracy you have to zoom in a lot,
then listening to the result gets you completely lost,
you have to zoom out again to find the edit point, etc.

Aother fundamental thing that's missing is the ability
to listen to either the end of A or the start of B 
separately without having to move them apart again.

Ardour has its qualities but it isn't really the tool
to do this sort of work. Yesterday I worked 4 hours on
some edits that would have taken me 15 minutes in the
tape splicing days. Such is progress.

Ciao,

-- 
FA

There are three of them, and Alleline.