Not quite sure how the "Cleanup Lanes" in 6.5 comping helps

Hi -

I couldn’t make it do anything on my last comp, then I realized maybe I didn’t have any overlaps.

So question #1 is: How are people getting overlaps with the new Comp Tool? I had to use the arrow selection tool to drag a comp segment boundary across another to get an overlap. I never use the arrow selection tool when comping … should I?

Question #2: When there are overlaps formed during comping (by whatever method) as far as I can tell the “Cleanup Lanes” command is used to split one of the two segments involved in the overlap into a new lane. Here’s where I’m lacking in the vision thing - how does that help … what are people doing with it then?

Mr. Greg Ondo doesn’t discuss the tool in the Cubase vid I saw, and I couldn’t find mention of it either in the macprovideo or any others.

Thanks -

I only really use the function to get rid of empty lanes, is it supposed to do more than that?

Hello,

I’m afraid, it’s not possible to get overlaps. If you split lanes by Split tool, and then move the split point of any Lane by using Object selection tool (so it looks, there could be overlaps), it doesn’t work. At the moment, you choose Comp tool, and select two lanes ,it just select the lane with its overlap. Independent of Splitting. So, if you have overlaps, you can just select, which Lane do you want to use of these overlaps. No overlaps here.

I get overlaps due to recording certain segments after the sections were made. Say, I recorded three vocal takes of a song, split them up for comping and the comp was created. If then I decided that I need a fourth recording of one sentence or word in verse 1, the new recording can overlap with the section (sentence) before and after, and that overlap will exist in the final comp due to comp selection of that fourth (partial) take. Never used cleanup lanes though, so I don’t know what it does or should do…

Thanks for that, Arjan. Come to think of it that is exactly what I did yesterday (your “4th recording” that wound up overlapping the previous ones at the edges). When I did “Clean Up Lanes”, it split out each of the tiny little fragments of the overlaps into their own lanes .

There they sat, eyeing me with defiant malevolence, as they squatted on their own individual lanes, daring me to do something about them. I slunk away, and let them be.

Then, oddly enough, searching the Operations Manual for “clean…” yielded no mention of “Clean Up Lanes”, nor did I see it on my first pass through the chapter “Working with Tracks and Lanes”.

Can anybody shed any light on that function? Is it a leftover bit from on older version? How best to use it?

Thanks -

It was implemented very recently, I think with 6.5’s comp tool.

Cleanup Lanes is designed to put any overlap into a new lane. It also deletes any empty lanes, apart from the last one?

That’s right, and it is described in the Cubase 6.5 New Features pdf: “This command cleans up overlaps between events by distributing them on new lanes, where necessary. If a track contains empty lanes, these are removed.” Something learned for me too…

There’s a very good explanation of this in a recent Sound on Sound “Cubase Notes” article. I think articles can be generally accessed after about three months. I think it is specifically Cubase 6.5 related.

Thank you, all. And now my Question #2 of the OP - what exactly are we supposed to DO with those little snippets of overlaps, once C6.5 kindly gives each their own lane?

The only thing I can really think of is that if we were not aware that there was an overlap, we might inadvertently discard a portion of an earlier “underlapped” tape that we actually wanted to include in the final take. By using the “Cleanup Lanes” tool, the overlaps are identified, and we can choose whether or not we want to select them. Does anyone else have another idea what the purpose of “Cleanup Lanes” might be?

Hmm, I wonder whether the overlapped bits are from the original take or the “overlapping” one.

The overlapped bits are the bits that aren’t used in the comp, but are overlapped by a section from a different take that IS used, so original or later take is not relevant. Could be either. I think you’re right, that it’s just to clean up the track view, and it saves us having to cut up those bits by hand, if you want them out. I don’t care enough, and leave everything the way it is after comping.