I grew up with punch in/out from the left and right locator and it served me perfectly for over 26 years up until Cubase 8.5. I personally never felt the need to specify a recording area in/outside those locators!
Now I really have a hard time getting used to setting those up separately. To me it absolutely makes no sense! It’s extra clicks, another hidden menu and two more extra locators on the transport bar. Imo very confusing to deal with two sets of locators. And more over, I really fail to see any benefit?
Maybe I’m missing something? If so please elaborate?
First, you can have punch in/out behave exactly like you are used to if you lock the punch points to the locators. Just click the gear icon to the right of the punch indicators so it looks like a lock. Now punch in/out will be no different than it was before.
While it might not be useful to you the new behavior is beneficial to many of us and a very welcome addition. For example I do a lot of recording vocals in sections using loop mode. The new behavior lets me listen to a bar or two before what I’m going to record (e.g. the end of the previous verse) which makes it much easier to find the first note of the new part and otherwise prep to start singing. I also often put the end of the loop a couple of bars after the punch out point. This allows me to create some time between takes without having to actually stop recording. This time is useful for taking a sip of tea or water, coughing, cursing etc. The only way to do any of this before the new behavior was to alternate between two tracks for each section. This was cumbersome at best. This new behavior is a huge improvement for me.
If the section you want to record is exactly the same as what you want to listen to then the old behavior is adequate. But if the section you want to listen to is different than what you want to record then the old behavior is inadequate.
Thanks, but no it doesn’t! To me it makes no sense to have two separate locators for punch in recording next to the existing left/right. I only see more clutter? If I could disable it somewhere I would not have posted this, but I can only use punch in if it’s visible on my transport bar. Even if locked to the left/right locators.
Is there anybody that benefits from this option? And if so please let me know how it enhances your workflow, having two locators positions on your transport bar?
For me, I can’t think of anything that would incline me to use this?
Again, If I could just disable it like ‘pre 8.5’ I wouldn’t have even bothered with posting this. But I can only use punch in/out if this ‘punch points’ option is enabled. I can lock it to the locaters but I still can’t hide the extra locators view without totally disabling punch in/out all together?
And what’s the use of an extra locator screen on the transport bar if it uses the left/right locator position anyway?
So please Steinberg, make this an option. Not a mandatory?
First, you can have punch in/out behave exactly like you are used to if you lock the punch points to the locators. Just click the gear icon to the right of the punch indicators so it looks like a lock. Now punch in/out will be no different than it was before.
That’s the issue! Steinberg now offers ‘punch in recording’ as an option. While we all know it should be integrated?!
I don’t know about you, but I don’t need separate locators for this other than the left/right locators?
And if I do choose ‘lock punch points to locators’ I want the extra locators display to disappear. Now it’s just sitting there, taking up space on the transport bar and just following the left/right locator.
Can you elaborate why locking the punch points to the locators is a problem for you? From my experience when you do that punch in/out behaves the same as it has in previous versions of Cubase - how is that not good enough for you?
If you don’t want to see the punch indicators on the transport config your transport to not show them. True if you do that you’d need to use the menus or key commands to turn punch on & off. Personally I re-purposed the “i” key to run a macro that toggles the enable for both the punch in & out points.
I’m a bit baffled that you are incapable of even imagining any situation where it would be useful to loop around a different section than you want to record - especially since I just provided above a description of the most common (but not only) application for that capability that I use.
I loop around sections I want to record. I don’t loop around ‘within’ those sections. If I want to record within I simply adjust the left/right locator? Maybe I’m old fashioned but that’s the way I get things done. Up until now I’ve always managed? But maybe it’s time for a refresh course?
But I certainly know about software and I still hate the fact that even when I disable an option it’s still visible. If I choose ‘Lock punch points to locators’ it should not display an inactive locator screen. This is not my bad, this should be fixed by Steinberg!
Well it’s not entirely inactive as it does have the buttons to enable punch in/out and display their current state. But if you prefer not to see punch info just right click on the left or right edges of transport and un-check the box to display it. It might surprise you that some folks use punch points that sometimes are locked to the loop points and sometimes independent (fyi locking to loop points isn’t disabling an option). When doing that the display is pretty useful as it tells you where the punch points are, if they are or are not locked to the loop, and shows if punch is enabled/disabled - I tend to find all of that useful info. If you don’t, then 2 clicks makes it disappear for as long as you want.
Using ctrl and alt+click makes it easy to set loop points, but there is no equivalent for punch points. So I often set the loop where I want the punch to be and the toggle the lock on and off to set the punch points. After that I can change the loop to where I want it to be. If Cubase behaved like you suggest then the display would disappear whenever I engaged the lock, which in turn would make it impossible to turn off the locking since the button is now gone with the display.
Thanks Raino, I personally didn’t see any benefit in separate loop points for recording other than the left/right locators. But after some contemplation I could think of a thing or two where it might come in handy. Strange how your mind can sometimes work one way without being able to see another side? Maybe this recording session also perhaps was too long and caused temporary insanity on my side?
Does anyone know if it’s possible to lock punch in/out to locators permanently, at least for an individual project? Or even globally?
This is a new function that I can’t get used to, so I try to remember to lock the punch in points by clicking the “wheel” into a “padlock” every time I open a project, but it usually (always?) changes back to the “wheel” (not locked) the next time I open the project. Even if I save the project. And it’s mildly irritating, because I usually forget to check it, and it usually causes me to miss the first take because Cubase does not record when I thought I had set it to.
Using ctrl and alt+click makes it easy to set loop points, but there is no equivalent for punch points.
If you Ctrl/Alt click in the lower half of the ruler, you can set punch points instead of locators.
But the punch points need to be activated for this to work.
Yes you can switch visibility of this option on/off in the configuration of the transport panel. Here you can decide how the punch in/out locators will behave. You can choose to complete ignore them and only use the left/right locators for this.
Steinberg is a master in hiding configuration items and put them under other hidden items or buttons that first need to be activated in a separate menu.
I am used to hovering over the ruler so the selector arrow turns into a pencil, then click there and set my locator, drag arrows to set range, then enable punch in and/or out. Now when I hover over the ruler and get the pencil, I click and nothing happens. To me it seems to take way longer to set the punch points the way it works in 9- unless I’m missing something… am I? I would greatly appreciate input on this.
