Take lane and comping enhancements

Comping and Take lanes have been drastically enhanced in SONAR X3. It is easier and faster than ever to create a final composite take from multiple takes.

Record multiple takes with the new Comping record mode.

Quickly isolate the takes you want to keep.

Use the enhanced Smart tool or new dedicated Comping tool.

Automatically apply editable crossfades between takes.

Easily audition individual takes or entire Take lanes.

Quickly get rid of unused takes and empty Take lanes.

Flatten isolated takes to a new Take lane. Create unlimited alternate comps per track.

Flexible comping methods

There are three primary methods you can use to comp in SONAR:

Comping record mode. The default recording mode in SONAR is called Comping. When recording, previously recorded material on the track is not heard. When a recording is done, the newly recorded material is unmuted and all other takes are muted for the duration of the new material. Each take appears on its own Take lane, with the newest take on top. For details, see Comping record mode and Recording modes.

Manual comping. When Take lanes are visible on a track, you can use the Smart tool or Comping tool to isolate overlapping takes. Simply click or drag across a take, and all other overlapping takes in the same track are muted. The updated Smart tool and new Comping tool greatly enhance the comping workflow. For details, see Comping with the Smart tool and Comping tool.

Speed comping. After recording multiple takes, you can audition any individual take, use keyboard shortcut keys to audition other takes and then select which take you want to use. For details, see Speed comping.

You can use one or more of the different methods to create a perfect comp. SONAR will even apply configurable crossfades between takes automatically, and you can quickly “flatten” the final comp to a new Take lane and mute the original takes.

New default Comping record mode

SONAR X3 introduces a new record mode called Comping, which is the default mode.

In this mode, existing data on the track is not heard during recording. When a recording is done, the newly recorded material is heard and all other takes are time-muted for the duration of the new material.

The Record button in the Control Bar’s Transport module looks like when Comping mode is enabled. To change record modes, right-click the Record button.

For details, see Recording modes.

 

See also:

Recording modes

Newest take is shown on top

The newest (chronologically youngest) take is shown on top when displayed in lanes.

Take lanes are named automatically. The first lane is named T1, the next lane is named T2, etc. The lane number always stays with a lane, even if you reorder, insert or delete lanes.

Comp clip

When showing multiple Take lanes, the parent track shows a Comp clip that is a visual representation of all overlapping unmuted takes in the track, but no audio or MIDI data actually exists in a Comp clip. A track can contain multiple Comp clips if there are time gaps between takes.

Each Comp clip has a unifying header bar, which allows you to select and move the takes as a group.

Figure 393. The Comp clip is a visual representation of the track’s unmuted takes

A. Comp clip B. Takes

When you hide Take lanes, Comp clips are also hidden and the takes are shown as regular clips.

For details, see Comp clips.

Improved Take lane management

SONAR has several new commands that make it easier and faster to manage Take lanes. Right-click a Comp clip to access the following commands:

Delete Muted Takes. Delete all muted takes in the current track.

Flatten Comp. Bounce all isolated takes to a new Take lane named Comp. The new Take lane is soloed and the clip is locked to prevent further editing.

Remove Empty Take Lanes. Remove all empty Take lanes in the current track.

New global Comping tool

The new global Comping tool lets you quickly isolate takes in Take lanes. Simply click a take to isolate the take, or drag to make a time selection, and SONAR automatically mutes all other overlapping takes in the same track. Clips are split, if necessary, in order to be isolated or muted.

The mouse pointer looks like when comping operations are possible. You can comp with either the Smart tool or Comping tool .

Figure 394. Click the take you want to isolate.

For details, see Using the Comping tool in Take lanes.

New isolate and heal behavior

SONAR’s Smart tool or Comping tool have an isolate function that allows you to select a region on one Take lane and automatically mute the same region in all other Take lanes on the same track. This lets you quickly combine the best parts from each Take lane and create a perfect composite take.

In previous versions of SONAR, the isolate function would mute by time (partial clip mute) when isolating a clip in a Take lane. To improve workflow and to accommodate crossfades, SONAR X3 instead splits clips and mutes/unmutes the clips, as necessary, in order to define the isolate/mute regions.

When a clip is split, the two resulting clips contain identical data, but are cropped differently. SONAR will intelligently create as few clips as possible when comping. If a clip has been split, it can later be “healed” by removing the split. SONAR can heal split clips if two clips are abutting, and contain the identical audio data, as long as the clips have not been moved relative to each other.

When you use the Smart tool or Comping tool to isolate and mute/unmute, SONAR will automatically “heal” any split clips if possible in order to reduce the number of clips. You can simply focus on identifying the regions you want to hear (isolate), and SONAR will automatically split, mute/unmute, and heal clips.

Figure 395. Drag to select the region you want to isolate.

Figure 396. SONAR splits and mutes takes in order to define the isolate/mute regions.

Figure 397. Drag to isolate another region, and SONAR automatically heals previous splits, if necessary.

You can also manually heal abutting healable clips. To do so, select the clips, then hold down the CTRL key and clip one of the selected clips.

For details, see Clip muting and isolating (clip soloing) and Isolating (clip soloing).

No overlapping clips can exist on the same Take lane

Two clips cannot overlap on the same Take lane. If you wish to overlap two clips, place each clip in a separate Take lane.

When a clip is moved, pasted or recorded to a Take lane, any clip data already in that area will be cropped or removed to accommodate the new data.

Adding audio or MIDI data to a project creates a new Take lane

When adding new audio or MIDI data to a project, the new data is placed in a new Take lane (unless the current track is empty, in which case the take is placed in the first Take lane).

A “take” is any new data brought into a track. It can be recorded audio or MIDI, dragged-in loops, or imported files. If a track has data on it, it has at least one Take lane. A new Take lane is created for each new take.

Note: In Overwrite mode, a new Take lane is only created if there is no existing lane. Otherwise, the new data overwrites existing data on the existing lane.

Speed comping

You can quickly audition each take by itself and select only the takes you want to keep.

To do so:

1.	Select a take you want to audition.

 

 

2.	Press SHIFT+SPACEBAR to start audition playback. Audition will loop continuously. You will see temporary Loop markers in the time ruler.

3.	Press the UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW key to audition the next or previous take. Take lanes are numbered sequentially, with the most recent take on top.

4.	When you identify your favorite take, press the ENTER key to isolate the take and mute all other overlapping takes. SONAR will automatically split and mute other takes as necessary.

 

5.	Press the LEFT ARROW or RIGHT ARROW key to move to other takes along the timeline.

6.	Repeat steps 3-4 until you have completed the comping.

 

Tip: If you want to audition takes in context with other tracks, enable Dim Solo mode in the Control Bar’s Mix module. For details, see Dim Solo mode.

Tip: Before speed comping, you may first want to use the Smart tool or Comping tool to drag across each musical phrase in order to split the takes into smaller phrases. This makes it easier to quickly mute/unmute shorter phrases while comping. For details, see Comping with the Smart tool and Comping tool. Also see Splitting clips, Split tool and Splitting and combining clips.

 

See also:

Audition (selection playback)

Streamlined crossfades between takes

When splitting clips as a result of comping, SONAR automatically adds a short crossfade between abutting takes. You can manually adjust the duration of each crossfade by dragging the crossfade up/down in a Take lane.

To adjust a crossfade duration, position the mouse pointer near the bottom where two clips abut. When the mouse pointer looks like , drag up or down to increase or decrease the crossfade duration.

To specify the default auto crossfade duration, go to Edit > Preferences > Customization - Editing and change the Auto Crossfade Comps (0-25ms) value.

Multi-track grouping

You can specify how clips should be grouped when recording multiple tracks simultaneously. The following options are available in Edit > Preferences > Project - Record:

Group all clips. All clips that are recorded at the same time are placed in a clip group.

Group only clips in folders (default). All clips in folders are grouped. Different folders have different groups. Tracks not in folders are not grouped.

Do not group tracks. Each new take will belong to a different clip group if loop recording is enabled.

For more information, see Clip groups and Multi-track grouping.

Dragging clips between tracks and lanes

The following rules apply when dragging clips to other tracks:

When dragging multiple clips from separate source tracks or Take lanes:

All dragged data remains in position relative to each other.

Overwrites happen when dropped.

If there are not enough Take lanes to accommodate the data, the drop preview is clamped until a valid track/lane that accommodates all the lanes is hovered over.

If it's dropped on a parent track, add a new Take lane for each source Take lane.

When dragging clips to a track that has Take lanes closed, a new Take lane is created.

When dragging clips to a track that has Take lanes open, the clips are placed in an existing Take lane.

When dropping data on top of locked clips, the drop is aborted and no change takes place (source data remains selected and unmoved).

When dragging data below the last track, a new track is created.

When dragging audio clips to a MIDI track, the audio data is analyzed for a brief moment and converted to MIDI data.

 

See:

Comping.

New features in SONAR X3

 

See also:

Take lanes

Using Take lanes

To loop record multiple takes into separate Take lanes

Clip muting and isolating (clip soloing)

Audition (selection playback)

Isolating (clip soloing)

Using the Smart tool in Take lanes

Using the Comping tool in Take lanes