Move/copy audio events without becoming active?

Cubase
#1

Howdy.

Synopsis:
I want to move and/or copy inactive events to a different position on the same track, without them become the active take. How can I do this? I know that shift+select (or lasso) will select them without immediately becoming active, but when the event is actually moved/copied, it becomes active, replacing the comp at the destination position on the track.

Here are 2 examples from my workflow:

  1. I have recorded several lanes of vocal adlibs. After “comping” these to find the adlibs that work best in one section, I then decide that some of the unused adlibs would be better if used in a later section. So I drag them to the other section - but when I release the mouse button the new parts become the active take. Any comp at that new location is now lost. What I really wanted to do was to gather some new lanes of “potential candidate” adlibs for the second section, and store them up in that new location, and then comp them at a later time. With the present system, every time I move some new candidate material to the new location, it becomes active.

  2. I like to keep my lanes visually tidy… After many sessions of working on a song, they can get a bit messy.
    I’d like to be able to re-organise my events within the lanes whilst preserving the comp that I have. For example I have here a track that has some FX samples on it, some bits of chopped up vocals, some bounces from a delay plugin, some wooshes and rises, all fed thru a filter plugin. After a lot of experimentation with different combinations of these events, it’s looking like a right old mess. Lanes 1+2 are now empty (because the audio originally there has been moved to a different track or deleted). So I want to organise the lanes on this track, which means putting what is left in a sensible order, which in turn means moving events within the lanes. Unfortunately, if these are inactive, they become active when I move them. I want the inactive bits to stay inactive - I may not want them active right now, but they will probably come in useful later and so I want to keep my options open (for now).

I think that copying and moving events should not be coupled to muting/unmuting them. IMHO they are two discrete operations and would be better if kept separate… (or at least provide us with an override… maybe the shift+click feature could be extended so that when shift is held during the dragging, then the events won’t unmute when you drop them at the new location (?))

Thanks for listening :slight_smile:

#2

Thanks for the outlining the usecase.
I will let the respective departements know of this but I guess some of them have already seen this. :slight_smile:

Gr;
JHP

#3

Many thanks JHP!

#4

FunkyDrummer,

I also regularly need to copy/move audio events around on a track without disturbing existing comp choices I’ve made. So I can relate to this post!

After working with C6 for several weeks, I’ve come up with some workarounds that may be of interest to you, and perhaps others.

For starters, if you mute an audio event FIRST, you can move/copy it to a new location (such as a new lane at the bottom) and it doesn’t become active in its new location.

Here’s a demo:

Second, I’ve come up with a technique that allows copying of multiple lanes of “comped” audio events to a new location WITHOUT disturbing any of the events/lanes in the new location - and the copy stays inactive. This technique definitely falls into the category of “creative workaround” - but it works!

A demo explains it best:

Again, this is obviously a kludge, but it will get you there. I’d agree a much easier solution would involve both of the following:

a) Inactive events stay inactive when drag-copied and/or moved.
b) Drag-copying/moving multiple lanes of audio events to the empty bottom lane automatically creates enough new lanes to fit what you’ve dragged (thus, existing events in the lanes above aren’t moved around).

Hope this helps!
Aj

#5

Hey AJ thanks for the tips and for taking the time to put the animations together… very helpful :slight_smile:

#6