Several people seem to be dissatisfied with the new lane behaviour but I don’t think this question has been addressed directly elsewhere.
I’ve just moved from C5 to C6 and am incredibly confused by the new lane functionality which for me appears to be inferior.
When comping in C5 I would do the following:
show lanes
audition takes
cut segments as desired
delete the segments that I didn’t want
resize remaining segments (of my comped “perfect take”) so that the segments overlapped
apply crossfades
resize segments / customise the crossfades to give the best sound
In C6 I can’t arrange the segments so that they overlap and hence apply crossfades as I want them.
The new lanes behaviour appears to make comping more straightforward but so far I’m getting inferior results. Am I missing something (i.e. a way to apply crossfades)? Is there another method I should be using for comping? Or is this a loss of functionality?
Are we oblivious to this Steinberg? I have not seen any response on this subject yet from them.
It seems like a no brainer that this is a great ADDITION to comping styles, but ABSOLUTELY WITHOUT QUESTION unworkable as the ONLY option. To take features away arbitrarily seems a little odd.
There is no need to delete segments that you don’t want - just use the “Delete Overlaps” feature (which works much better with the new lanes behavior). Also, you should not have to re-size the segments so that they are overlapped as the crossfades will appear where the cut is according to how your crossfade preset is configured. The key is to place the cut where you want the crossfade - and this cut can be easily moved after the fact. Next, you can then fine-tune/customize your crossfades as you did in C5. From your description it would appear that you could eliminate two steps and achieve the same results in C6 as you did in C5. Maybe I’m missing something?
I have found the new lanes/comping to be far superior than the old way. I’m sure that there could be some minor improvements, but it does work very well. You do have to change the way you previously worked a bit, which may be causing people some grief and frustration. Since I often comp groups of tracks (multi-track drums and E Gtrs with a DI and 2 mics etc.) the new method in C6 for lanes and folder group editing is a godsend. Before, I had to always remember to group the tracks after each take - and if I missed one set things could get ugly later on. No more muting and deleting the unused takes and dealing with odd grouping after the delete overlaps and no more muting each take underneath to audition earlier takes. This is much better in C6 for me - in fact I even had a client who does some of his own tracking and editing in C5, order the C6 upgrade immediately when he first witnessed the new lanes/comping behavior.
So one person among hundreds (?) is satisfied with the new lane behavior. He must have been the one Steinberg asked about the change before implementation…
OR, maybe the (few) half a hundreds unwilling to adapt to the new features flock to the forums and whine while the open minded and smart are busy being productive…
Well, on a serious level, I’m not altogether happy with everything the new comping feature brings, especially the idiocy of it being active even though your not showing lanes, try to cut, resize and glue some events, it’s just hit and miss…
But for comping, it’s amazing once you get your head around it.
resize remaining segments (of my comped “perfect take”) so that the segments overlapped
apply crossfades
resize segments / customise the crossfades to give the best sound
This is all covered with the new comping system. You are saying that you got not the result you want. What do you mean with that exactly ? The crossfades are beeing done automaticly when you cut your segments, and the crossfades are 6 ms i believe. That should be long enough to avoid clicks and pops, but also short enough to hear gaps.
Thanks for your response Chris. I’ve been tracking and writing recently so have only just returned to doing some comping.
The new system works brilliantly for simple things like vocal takes where there are distinct gaps between words and syllables which naturally form the segments for comping. All that Cubase has to do then is apply a crossfade to two signals which are at virtually zero - not particularly challenging.
Where I am having difficulty is with comping more complex tracks where the signal is pretty much constant. For example making the perfect distorted guitar solo or dealing with the decay of cymbals in a room mic. The new system just doesn’t cope with this in that (i) I can’t get as natural a sound as I could in C5 (or it just doesn’t achieve the result I want) and (ii) I get a lot of pops and clicks. In C5 I could overlap a much larger section and apply and customise the crossfade to get the sound I wanted.
I don’t care if this is not good practice. I don’t care if this is not the way that Steinberg believe that one should comp. I used to be able to do this. I can no longer do this. I am dissatisfied.
Errr… no I can’t.
In C5 I would resize my segments so that they overlapped. Select two segments. Hit x to apply crossfade. Every crossfade was a different size; the size I wanted it to be (hallelujah!) I could then double click on the crossfade to edit it.
Can someone please explain how I’m supposed to do this now.
in C6 you can select two audio parts by shift-clicking (even if they are on different lanes), hit x to create a crossfade (Cubase will make the segments overlap automatically) and double click on it to open the crossfade editor, just like in C5. You can then resize the part boundaries and the crossfade area with the black arrow tool and create custom fade lengths (or alternatively you change the fade length from within the crossfade editor). If you want, you can also resize the part boundaries before creating the crossfades by dragging with the black arrow. But in my opinion it’s easier to just hit x and change the length of the crossfade area afterwards.
By the way, shift-clicking is also the way to select muted audio parts in a comp without activating, e.g. unmuting them.
If you want to cut the various lanes independently from each other you need to change to the range tool, place it on an audio part where you want to cut and apply your key command for “cut range” (usually Shift+X).
(But I hope Steinberg will allow for individual cuts in a more simple manner in the future, but for the moment this is the best workaround)
there is a berg of stones actross to see the vilage and sometimes i have the feeling they don´t see anything else themself 