Am I wrong, when a possibility could be, that, when moving parts, all trigger times would be removed (with warning before moving)? I assume, that trigger times need to be adapted anyway after reordering.
That’s what happens now, all Part triggers after the one being moved are discarded. Sure, a warning should and will come once we implemented what was proposed.
Then it does, what I woul expect
Thank you for your response.
I greatly appreciate your invitation for feedback.
My expectations of song part behavior are something like the Cubase Arranger track. Where you define each part on the timeline and then the song parts panel is more like a listing of available parts to choose from, and reordering the parts in the left panel does nothing to the actual song timeline, it only changes the order of timeline playback.
Thus I would expect the window which is now being used to determine part triggers to be simply be an indicator of where that part started and where it ended.
For me that is the usefulness of being able to duplicate and reorder song parts.
Currently, if I duplicate a song part it shares the same name with an added “(D)”, but it does not play back the same space in the timeline. In fact, it has no part trigger until I assign it one. And it cannot share the same space in the timeline as the part it was duplicated from.
So for my use case, why would I want to duplicate a song part when I could just create a new one?
For me the usefulness of duplicating song parts is that I can repeat the exact same song part at a different point in the song.
And why would I want to drag to re-order song parts, when they will lose their triggers and need to be assigned new ones?
If I have already defined part triggers to particular moments in the song like intro, verse, chorus, turn-around…
For me the usefulness of dragging to re-order is that I can change the order of playback without having to slice up the audio and change it around on the timeline.
So for a real life scenario:
Yes, if I want to repeat song parts while performing I can have flex-loop on and just select that “Chorus” that I want to do again. And that is great!
But maybe I need to change the songs up depending on how long of a set I have been asked to do on a given night, and I want to pre-arrange those changes. That’s where the ability to duplicate, drag, and re-order song parts becomes so awesome!
I realize that my perspective is coming from someone only concerned with audio tracks playback, and that this program is designed for sending lighting info, sound changes for keyboards, chord charts, Video playback, etc…
So, please forgive me if my suggestions are totally off the wall from a lighting/video perspective, but I honestly do not see how these suggestions would hurt those other areas of application.
Thank you for taking my thoughts into consideration!
To me a part without a trigger time doesn’t make sense.
Perhaps the software could be programed so that when creating new parts you must select a trigger time in order for the new part to be created?
Or you could restrict part creation to the timeline tools in such a way that song part triggers are defined on the timeline as the part is created.
My issue in this discussion is that I am not aware of the value in being able to create songs parts before assigning their triggers. Or the value in being able to duplicate song parts and assign them new triggers. Maybe this makes sense from a lighting perspective? or a virtual instrument perspective?
But from a tracks playback perspective I see no value.
I think my response to the first question would solve this issue.
But I must admit I am not understanding the question about if it’s FlexLoop duration is different. Sorry, You may be over my head on that one.
So, I think my earlier suggestion in my first response to this post about the left panel being more like the arrangement playback order window in Cubase may remove this issue altogether. Then if you truly “move a part” on the timeline you are defining it’s trigger time as you move it. But moving a part in the left window is simply changing the order of part playback and has no effect on that part’s trigger time on the timeline. I hope I am making sense here.
Thanks again!
In most of my songs I do not use any timeline. So I don’t need a trigger. I have parts for “intro”, “verse”, “chorus” and other, but only switch between them with action “next part” or “previous part” with a controller.
So parts are for me mostly a specific instrument, effects and mixer setting, which take place when the part becomes active.
See above when you have no timeline. Duplicate makes sense, cause often the parts differs only in a few settings. So I do not have to make all from scratch again.
VST Live is designed to be used on stage. I think that many of the users have no need in a predefined timeline, as they switch parts on the fly. Length of the use of parts often changes between several concerts. So if I have loops, they are all within a part, but never across parts.
Thank you for helping me to see what I figured I had to be missing! I definitely see value in that now!
Yes, and that is exactly what I am wanting it for. I think what we are coming to here is the different needs each user brings to the stage, and therefore asks of the program.
My needs are track playback, which seems to require some sort of time-line. Your needs seem to be much broader than mine:
Perhaps the software can work better for both of us with some changes?
My understanding is you can create and assign different layers, stacks, mixer settings, and modules to different song parts, and those layers, stacks, mixer settings, and modules all get duplicated when a song part is duplicated. They all get moved when the song part is moved. Because those things are all attached to that song part.
Is that correct?
If so, that all makes sense to me (I do not claim to understand it all in depth, but if that’s the way it works, I think it is brilliant!)
But the tracks are the exception, and I don’t think they should be. I think track assignments should also be duplicatable and moveable with the song parts.
What if you could assign specific ranges of your timeline (tracks) to each song part, and when the song part is moved the timeline/track assignment goes with it? When the song part is duplicated the timeline/track assignment would be duplicated with it. And just like all of the other layers, stacks, etc… You can choose to either keep the track assignment or change it.
So instead of “triggers” you would have “start and end points” assigned to each song part in reference to the timeline/tracks page.
That would make the song parts independent of the timeline/tracks page.
In the tracks page:
You could then have something like a range selection/creation tool that would create ranges in your tracks page timeline that you could assign to specific song parts via a drop down menu.
And if you wanted to change which song part the range was assigned to, you could do so.
You could either have it set up so that multiple song parts could be assigned to the same timeline range or you could allow overlapping ranges on the timeline so that two ranges could share the same space and be assigned to different song parts.
I hope I am explaining this well. It is a lot to put into words.
Let’s see, what the opinon of the developers is.
That’s a great idea and we have it on our list for a long time already. But it’s not exactly easy to implement, so give us some more time.
Great to hear! Thanks for the reply!
We’ll have a preference “Sort Part Triggers”, when enabled, Part triggers are sorted when a Part is added, removed, or moved.
Moving global track contents along with moving Parts is on the list, as said, it may take a while.
Interesting.
I wonder why that is a better option than this idea?..
I’m new to this software so please forgive me, and correct me if I have overlooked the obvious.
That’s what it is: a start time, and the duration is the distance to the next Part.
You want to move data around, that’s not what Parts are for, but we may add that function. Even then, you cannot assign arbitrary data of the timeline to a Part, only a range - which is what it already does.
Parts define a range in the timeline and activate/change all sorts of stuff like Layers, Stacks etc, so they are not just time ranges - if no trigger time is set, they aren’t even that.
That’s “reverse” to the implementation. As a Part changes settings, it makes sense to set the Part’s time instead of the other way round. Assigning a range to a Part can be done by just setting that Parts’ trigger time; the duration is given by the distance to the next (trigger) Part, there can be no gaps.
Please forgive me, but I don’t understand what you think I am wanting to do. Based on the above quoted statement, it seems you think I want the data on the timeline to move when a part is moved (re-ordered).
I actually do not want that.
Based on what I am learning, I would rather be able to re-order song parts without any changes to data in the timeline (tracks page). Re-ordering parts would only change what order the segments of the timeline were played back in, but it would not effect their placement on the tracks page (timeline).
When you say there can be no gaps, are you speaking of a limitation in programming the software? Or simply a design limitation that was programmed in?
Because, if possible, I think it would be good to be able to have gaps. I think the song parts panel should operate independently of the timeline.
So no part even has to have a trigger time if the user doesn’t want it to.
Or two parts can share the same designated start and end points in the timeline if the user wants to.
I think multiple parts should be able to share Timeline (tracks page) assignments if that’s what the user wishes.
Then duplicating parts would not only make sense for Layers, Stacks, etc; but it would also make sense for the timeline (tracks page). So when a song part was duplicated it would share the same timeline assignments on the tracks page that was assigned to the part it was duplicated from, and if the user wanted to modify that tracks page assignment they could.
I hope I don’t sound argumentative, I’m just trying to be certain I have communicated my ideas clearly. I really appreciate your willingness to consider my thoughts and respond.
You want to see VL PARTS behave as Arranger track under Cubase where u can rearrange arranger chain then it does the timeline playback in that “jumping order”. But as @musicullum said currently the concept and behaviour of parts are different as their name is also different (from arranger track/chain)
Again. You want to see a fully arranger-track behaviour, its clear. But again until that comes, why dont you edit your song so, or if you’re willing to reorder on the fly, why don’t you do it via FlexLoop? Just spotting you an another aspect: me as user want to have a rock solid sw for playing while preparing all edits before putting it to VSTLive. Because when playback or arranger track order goes wrong in studio, nothing happens, but in primetime…in live… it’s fatal. Does that makes sense?
Ok, but…
That’s a contradiction to the architecture, if I get this right? All items on the timeline need to be in sync.
There is no such thing as an “Arranger Track” in VST Live. FlexLoops allow you to do anything, but the visual representation will follow the timeline.
It’s not considered a “limitation”, but a design decision. This is for live use, so we “think” linear. FlexLoops allow you to jump around at will. The “Song Track” is merely a different visual representation of the Playlist to the left.
We tried that once and it turned out to be much more difficult than expected. So we decided to postpone it for the sake of stability.
It’s really not much of a big deal to copy and paste the “Verse” Part 4 times, and it’s easier to follow. There is not much difference to what you do with an Arranger Track in Cubase. Maybe a dedicated (and decoupled from timeline) “Arranger view”, where one could copy or repeat Parts in a list, which is then translated into copies or other movements in the Playlist. Similar to the Setlist editor. But that’s just complicating things and adding more to learn imho.
Moving/duplicating track data would have the same result, and in addition keep the linear approach in the timeline. Quite the same as the “Flatten” option in Arranger Track.
See, we get your approach, but the same can be done in the way it already is (plus “sync track data”), without introducing a new concept to learn.
But maybe still missing something…ideas are always welcome
BTW on our list is also a “FlexRecording” mode where FlexLoop selections are recorded in realtime, and then you can create a setlist from that.
Thank you for a detailed response!
Yes, I do think you are understanding what I was trying to communicate. Thank you!
I agree that it is not a really big deal. Especially if it keeps the software from becoming unnecessarily complicated.
So, as it currently is, if I wanted to drag and re-order song parts and have triggers go with the new order;
I would need to simply chop my track events up at the existing trigger points, select and move all of the events in the tracks page timeline to my new desired order, move the corresponding parts in the parts panel, and then reset the part triggers to go with the new timeline order.
I think maybe for people like me coming from Cubase and using VST Live for tracks playback it might be helpful for the manual to explain those necessary steps to re-order song parts and have tracks playback follow the new order.
Because Flex-Loop did not work as I expected when set to loop end, I couldn’t get the click count-in (nor pre-count) to work during playback, and I had part triggers disappearing when I dragged to re-order song parts, I thought the software was riddled with bugs.
Turns out all of those things (except maybe the flex-loop behavior?) are actually expected behavior, and I was simply unaware of how the software was supposed to function.
Thank you all for your patience in explaining things to me, and also for your willingness to hear my feedback and respond!
I look forward to seeing how this software develops further!
Thanks. Of course, currently it’s not a snitch to cut and move timeline clips if you want to change the order. So we’ll add a function to sync Part triggers and timeline - means it automatically re-arranges timeline data when moving Parts around or cut/insert.
Now, as FlexLoops allows you to jump around freely, and the mentioned recording FlexLoop actions function to come does that in a way already (plus implied “flatten” function), we might consider to “free” Parts from being tied to the timeline, and allow Part triggers in the Playlist to be non-linear with respect to the timeline. The beauty of this would be that nothing needs to be changed but an option to enable it; then, you could assign any timeline position to any Part (implies FlexLoop automatically activated). Give us some time to think about it, and thanks for your input.