Re: [Traverso-user] groups?

[plutek-infinity]

>From: Remon <address@hidden>

>> one general concept which is missing is the idea of operating on groups of
>> items.
>
>Yes.
>
>> for example, say i have a number of regions placed on various tracks, and i
>> want to move them all to another spot on the timeline while retaining their
>> position relative to each other -- this would be very difficult currently,
>> because each region would have to be moved separately, and we would have to
>> calculate all the regions' new positions and place them manually. it would
>> be easy if we could select multiple regions and move them all at once, as a
>> group.
>
>We call it AudioClips, although Regions seems to be used everywhere else hehe. 
>The idea is that one can select a 'Region' (not functional yet of course) 
>which then would collide with the 'audioclip Region'.

this sounds interesting.

>
>Anyways, selecting clips was and is possible, but it contained some bugs, and 
>operating on the group was not implemented, so we decided to turn the feature 
>of, until group operations are implemented.
>Fortunately, due recent changes this has become much easier to implement, 
>specifically moving groups of clips, which is what I'm working on right now!

cool.... i'll await further developments!

>> another example of groups would be track groups: one could select some
>> tracks and make them all part of an active group, and then gain/mute/solo
>> operations would apply to all tracks in the group.
>
>And similar for AudioClip groups I suppose? This is certainly something I have 
>in mind, but I'm not yet sure how this would work with the 'soft selection' 
>concept. It'll most likely require some additional action to toggle the 
>group 'active' or 'inactive'. Once the group is active, gain, mute etc will 
>apply to the group.
>Of course, ideas and suggestions are welcome!

well, the number keys (across the top of the keyboard) are not yet used 
(although you may have future plans for them?), so they could be reserved for 
groups. i.e. <1> with the mouse over a track area would toggle that track as a 
member of track-group-1. then, perhaps you could use <` 1> to toggle the group 
active or not (and <` 2> for track-group-2, etc). group status could show 
either in the track info area at the left of each track, where there's still 
lots of room, or in the track properties window. unfortunately, this limits us 
to 10 groups.

i suppose you could extend the same idea to audioclips, to provide a way of 
having defined groups of clips, although i'm not sure persistent grouping of 
clips is really useful.

>> two other things that occur to me right now:
>>
>> 1. the ability to make arbitrary busses -- i.e. for subgroups in a mix
>> (there seems to be no way to do anything other than send each track to a
>> master stereo bus), or at least the ability to assign tracks directly to
>> abitrary mono output busses so we could mix in an external application or
>> send to multiple outputs for surround monitoring.
>
>Yes, a much wanted feature. More developers would be great :D

of course.... unfortunately, i'm not a programmer, but i can test stuff.

>> 2. access to precise panning settings -- currently there isn't even a
>> visual indicator for panning. it would be useful to be able to input a
>> specific value.
>
>Tracks show panning right? The value is in the range -1.0, 1.0 which perhaps 
>is a bit strange? Dunno what's the 'default' for this, but using dB values 
>seems not to make much sense....

oops.... i missed the panning display, because i was working on a large number 
of tracks, and had the vertical zoom quite small. yes, -1 to 1 is just fine, 
and is a common solution.

>What has been long on the todo list, and which I gave a shot yesterday is 
>numerical input during hold actions.
>Currently only works for Gain (cvs only of course). Hold G and start typing on 
>the numerical pad.

this would be great.

>> i would say these are the only things which are preventing me from using
>> Traverso more than Ardour!
>
>Thanks a lot for the feedback, most of your wishes as you see are being worked 
>on, or high on the TODO list, it's basically a lack of man power to implement 
>it.

how many developers do you have now?

>Besides that, a lot of time is spend in figuring out how to 'design' the 
>functionality in such a way that Traverso is fast, stable and a pleasure to 
>use, while keeping the interface as clean as it is now, etc etc.

very good design principles -- yes, it's important not to lose sight of that!

>
>Regards,
>
>Remon

take care...

-- 
.pltk.