Comping issues after upgrade to 10 Pro

Cubase
#1

I just upgraded from Cubase 6 to 10 Pro. My work flow for comping vocals in Cubase 6 was as follows:

  1. With lanes showing, use split tool on any track in any lane to slice up all tracks into phrases.
  2. While cycle is activated in transport, use object selection tool to pick best take.
  3. After best take is chosen, click on next sequential phrase, press P to move the cycle to next phrase, and continue comping.

This was very simple, and allowed for a constant flow of the song without the need to press the stop button.

Now in Cubase 10 Pro, I have to make sure that I hover the split tool over the main track, because if I hover over individual lanes, it will only slice the track on that lane. This is no big deal and I can easily adjust.

However, the biggest problem is that the comp tool doesn’t actually select a part, so if I press P to change where the transport will cycle, it will still be on the previous part.

I tried using the arrow keys to select the next part, but if there are gaps in the lanes, it will skip over some parts. This has been a real hindrance on my workflow, so I was wondering if there’s a way the comp tool can also select the chosen part, or possibly just continue using the object selection tool for comping.

Any help would be appreciated.

#2

Not sure I follow. Maybe you meant to say comp tool in step 2? And, I’m not sure what the workflow problem is. Is your question: “how can I do steps 2 and 3 without switching tools?” If so, I think the answer is to use the object selection tool in step 2 to press the lane solo buttons, then select the next phrase in step 3.

I don’t know if it helps, but I use opt-Comp to do my splits.

#3

Thanks for the reply. In step 2, I was referring to Cubase 6, in which there isn’t a comp tool…just the object selection tool. So, in Cubase 6, while I was comping with the object selection tool, every time I would click on a part, that part would not only go to the top, but it would also be highlighted. The highlighting is what I’m missing from the comp tool in Cubase 10.

In Cubase 6, after a part was highlighted, I could use key command P in order to set the locators to that section. So basically I was able to do this in only 2 actions: 1-click next part, 2-press P on the keyboard. Now in Cubase 10, that same process takes me 4 actions: 1-left click to switch from comp to object selection tool, 2-click next part, 3-press P on the keyboard, 4-left click to switch back to comp tool.

I know that might not seem like much, but it more than doubles the time for each edit, and when you are doing hundreds of those in a session, it really adds up.

#4

The comp tool in Cubase 10 does both selecting and highlighting…

#5

I see. In that case, use the object selection tool as I described above to make it a 2 action process.

#6

There are 2 ‘flavors’ of the split tool that behave a bit differently. See the 2nd part of this response.

https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=283&t=161613#p865780

#7

No need to worry about using the locators, I just draw over the phrase I want to split with the comp tool, then use the “N” and “B” keys to jump backwards or forwards to the next event. I can quickly audition takes just by activating an event from the stack with the comp tool and then hitting “B” to jump back to the start of the events, then using the comp tool to listen to the next event in the stack.

Not sure if the N and B keys are set to their default key commands in my Cubase or whether I set it up like that years ago :wink: It’s “Locate next event” and “Locate previous event” in the key commands window. Oh, and the track you’re comping needs to be selected otherwise the playback cursor will be jumping to the next event on a different track - messes me up on occasion.