Interesting flaw / conundrum - quick controls & comping

Cubase
1

Could someone have a look at this conundrum for me. :slight_smile:

Let’s say you want to record a guitar solo with a few takes.

Let’s say you have;

  1. A project that needs a guitar solo
  2. A solo track set up with Amp Rack as an insert and the guitar via DI in. (Brilliant by the way. Thank you Steiny)
  3. Amp Rack has a wah-wah set up.
    For real time control you now,
  4. Create a midi track & route your control pedal to it.
  5. Route the midi track to the Amp Rack to control the wah-wah with the midi pedal. Super Cool !! (Again, Big Respect). Next;
  6. Arm the Audio track and hit ‘write’ on its quick control track to also simultaneously ‘record’ the control data for the wah-wah.

ALL GOOD !! … BUT …

You now loop the solo section and hit record.

Without any wise-cracks about playing the solo identically twice, you are now able to record numerous takes of the solo BUT because the control data for the QuickControls track is a feature of the track (and not of the continuous audio stream which is what cubase is actually recording to the pool), every consecutive take over-writes the wah-wah effect. :astonished:

When you come to comp it, the solo has the wrong control data ? (ie, the data from the last take only).

Potential get arounds and their flaws

  1. You record the control data simultaneously to midi - Flaw: Comping forces you to chop up the midi track in the same places as the audio takes and then mute / unmute sections simultaneously… headache ensues.

  2. You record every take on a seperate Track - Flaw: You fill up memory with Amp Racks at 400 Meg or so a shot AND you don’t get to use the new comping feature… headache ensues.

  3. Do you know what?.. there a many, but they’re all complicated.

Am I missing something? In their defence this is possibly only a brief and maybe natural oversight on behalf of Steinberg. The concepts of easy comping & quick controls are awesome. The reality is that this won’t work together unless cubase either embeds the control data for the quickcontrols into the audiostream or the concept of looped recordings is changed to generate one stream of audio in the pool per loop (bit messy?)

Penny for your thoughts …

2

Yes, comping while recording automation could really do with improvement.
Suggestion…
Create a spare audio track, and after each take, use the Range Tool to drag your most recent automation to a new automation lane on this new audio track (doesn’t matter what parameter the automation lane is actually set to).
So, when you come to actually comp, just drag (with the Range Tool) the relevant automation back to the original lane.

3

Very Much appreciate your reply. That’s a reasonable plan. Still more fiddly than I fancy longer term, but workable. I wonder if there’s a plan longer term for how this might get handled… or any another suggestions for work arounds ? Steiny ?

4

Create an audio and a midi track, place them in a new folder, enable group editing, do the comping on one track and watch the magic!

/A

5

Yes, but … No…

Now that’s some awesome magic !!! :smiley:
This version ROCKS !!!

I can now get a midi and a wav comp’d simultaneously with cubase automatically cutting in the same place and switching between the correct, matching midi-wav combinations. All good…

BUT Sorry, It’s late, my brain’s gone to mush and I now just can’t do the obvious… how do I get the midi track to control the QuickControl (in this example a wah) ? Can’t get it to automate the pedal from the midi track.

Doh ! Must be something obvious… ? :blush:

Anyone?