Some sort of sub folder is an interesting idea, but the separate montage is a potential solution, though I would agree that 20 takes of any particular passage is a lot to deal with at once. However, with the ability to minimize tracks and scroll up and down, it is certainly not out of the question to use the program as is.
I came up in the days of analogue tape, and have vivid memories of folks at NPR taping individual pieces of tape on the walls of editing booths as their “folders” of alternate takes or outtakes. I am not suggesting we all go back there, but that there is another part of the process that should be looked at.
It is certainly a good thing to build in as many conveniences into any program that one can get out of the programmers, but it is also very smart to find ways to do your work that organize it around what exists…and what the actual components are of your editing process…particularly how many takes one can compare directly at once.
In other words, even with the best set of hidden folders, etc., one can only keep 2 or 3 takes in your forebrain for DIRECT comparison, requiring lots of listening, notation and organization around these direct comparisons…no matter what the program allows on the screen.
I can conceive of many ways to arrange 20 takes in a Montage with fairly good access considering these requirements of how I would personally have to approach editing a multi-take classical performance, so this makes me curious as to how others would do this, and what they find easy or what they find hard about doing this within Wavelab…so, perhaps, this is a good area for general discussion here.
For many years, I used MTU’s Microsound system, which allowed unlimited clips one above the other in the same place on the time line, and total fluid movement of these clips around the project…but did not show waveforms except when needed, and only on the whole project or single clips…sort of like working with pieces of tape. Within that environment, the primary organizational tool needed to keep a handle on hudreds or thousands of clips inside a project, aside from grouping, was the ability to give each clip a unique name…or at least that is my memory of how it worked. I have not used the program much for 8 or 10 years now, so memories are getting a little fuzzy.
Once I realized that tracks were simply an organizational tool most of the time in Wavelab’s Montage, I jumped in with both feet and never looked back…and quickly realized that my editing was not only more nuanced, but faster in Wavelab than it had been in Microsound…However, I had not thought in a long time about the unlimited clip stacking without tracks, and how there might be occasionally be advantages to that kind of setup.
At any rate, I have never found any new limitations imposed by the GUI in Wavelab, but am extremely curious about anyone else’s needs, frustrations and/or working methods. I know that my own methods are still heavily informed by my time cutting analogue tape with a razor blade.
