improvement suggestions: songlayers, layer-mixes, layer volu

[rhynoclemmis]

Knowing that improvement suggestions would border on the impertinent when it comes to such obvious proposals as I will suggest below, they still feel like a breath of fresh air when uttered by someone as ridiculously handsome as me. (You have any idea how long it took me to build that sentence?)

I had a recording session with RW yesterday and apart from stuff we all already know and want changed (improved songlayers that don't mess up, f.e.) I came up with new stuff that would be a boon to us users and shouldn't be too hard to program. That's what I think, I'm having trouble programming my microwave. Just kidding. Perhaps a little bit. No, not really.

(After rereading this: it's mostly songlayer-related stuff)

First suggestion: visible song layer start and end points
When recording vocals you don't necessarily start at the begin of the song if you want the last chorus. So you start a little before the last chorus begins. That means you have some quite silent background noise already before that, simply because the singer breathes or whatever - but that's noise you can't see on the "info" screen. Perhaps the mix will swallow it in the end, but anyway it's not that bad an idea to simply mark beginning and ending times of songlayers if they don't run through the whole song. Just so you know where to "draw" the silence in the info screen. It's only valid for anything recorded with a mic, because a e-guitar is silent if you don't play it and touch the strings. or is it? Dam dam dam dam daaaa....

Second suggestion: mix to layer funtion - possibility to select layers
It'd be nice if you could pick layer 3, 4 and 6 and merge them into one. Not every single layer in a riff. That's also about songlayers: recording with e-drums I ended up with up to 6 layers that are silenced and "activated" at their times. For example, layer 2 of the drums covers start to second chorus, but then there's some serious misshap in it, so I switch to layer 3. All those layers were recorded within the same hour or two and have the same e-drum setting, so they could be merged. But they can't because it's either all, or nothing at all.

Third suggestion: Fade ins and outs with RW
I don't know how it should look, but RW should come with a standard fade in and out functionality, both for the song and riffs/layers. "Drawing" it in the info screen makes the program feel much, much less professional. (I know it's not supposed to be 100% professional, still...)

Fourth suggestion: volume control of layer visible on info screen
This is a little more complicated and would be useful with songlayers (although it could be used generally, too). Imagine you have a full song sung into a layer. You want the last chorus a little louder, but it is stuck in the songlayer. Basically you have to duplicate the layer and erase everything but the last refrain from the copy, so you can turn it up a little.
My suggestion would be that the volume knob of a layer influences the info screen, so the lower you go the lower the "volume line" on the info screen would go, but as a perfectly horizontal line, not drawn with a shaky hand. THEN you could go to the last refrain and increase the volume there manually by drawing the info volume-line up to 100% again.

Thanks for reading.

flo / rhynoclemmis

[Charvelguy]

You mean quiet, not quite? (I'm the typo king somedays)

Most if not all these functions you seek to incorporate into RW are found in a free program called Audacity.

Most RW users who require more advanced editing and mixing use Audacity in conjuction with RW.

With respect to your first and third suggestions. (and maybe into the 2nd & 4th as well)

You can shade out the riff in RW to silence

....OR you can bounce the track and export the ogg to Audacity. (exports can be in other formats as well)

Audacity has the ability to mark the timeline, quiet or mute sections, edit sections with respect to time edit or sound edit with or w/o effects and EQ.
Audacity also has fade functions.

Hope that helps.

[rhynoclemmis]

Hmm... no, I meant "quite", as in "quite silent" - so you don't see it in the info diagram. But I'm not a native typer, so I can't be sure. Anyway:

Sorry for not explaining this: I don't have a problem doing any of those things in RW and I have and use Audacity. It was more a suggestion for the development team. I don't know in which direction they want RW to go, but I guess (see, I learnt the use of BBCode) for a "full" package that lets you record good songs without need for extra programs if you're not going semi-professional.
As you are building songs, for me personally the fade in/out functionality would be a convenient add-on. Sure you can do it in other programs, but why should you if it can be incorporated into RW.

[cwight]

Ok, Rhyno.....I think you might be missing some basic stuff that you can do with RW that seems to deal with most of your points.

The fadeouts, yes this would be neat, so I'll leave that one.

Re suggestion 1. The stuff about mic noise on songlayers and markers. You can do this anyway. Drag the song cursor to just before the noise and hit play. make sure you have song layers selected and hit infor button. You might also want to solo the problematic layer. If noise has been recorded you should see it on the info wave, and then you just pull the info wav down until it hits the bottom . The info wave is basically a gain control, so you should be able to silence everything in a layer apart from what you want to hear. And yes you do get this problem with guitars with Hum etc, particularly if you are using lots of effects. I do it all the time.

This also helps you solve the issue of the volume control on layer. Let's say you want chorus 2 to come in just that little bit stronger than the others. Well you can set the level with the gain control to where you want the highest level. then pulll down the gain for the rest of the chorus's with the info bar to where you want them.

Mix to layer function. We've all wanted more flexible control over layers for some time now, ability to copy, cut and paste into other riffs for ex. However, you can do what you want by getting your drums all sorted before you add other layers and mix them to riff before you add anything else.

Glad to hear your handsome, I would have said cute from the photo...And read the manual for the microwave.....

[rhynoclemmis]

Re suggestion 1. The stuff about mic noise on songlayers and markers. You can do this anyway. Drag the song cursor to just before the noise and hit play. make sure you have song layers selected and hit infor button. You might also want to solo the problematic layer. If noise has been recorded you should see it on the info wave, and then you just pull the info wav down until it hits the bottom . The info wave is basically a gain control, so you should be able to silence everything in a layer apart from what you want to hear. And yes you do get this problem with guitars with Hum etc, particularly if you are using lots of effects. I do it all the time.

Yes, I do it like this, i.e. putting the marker where I want it and then pushing 'record'. Still you don't sing or play the fraction of a second you push the button. Especially when singing I tend to give my singer the last few lines of a verse so he can hit the right note. Then I have to silence the part before he began to sing, because perhaps he breathed audibly or I put the glass down on the table. It's such minimal noises that you can't even see on the info diagramm but when you listen to it you always go "What was that? I heard something there..." Of course this is not a necessary item, but it would be a simple graphical improvement, just to show: "Here you started to record the songlayer and from here you should silence it. The end is over there, by the way."

This also helps you solve the issue of the volume control on layer. Let's say you want chorus 2 to come in just that little bit stronger than the others. Well you can set the level with the gain control to where you want the highest level. then pulll down the gain for the rest of the chorus's with the info bar to where you want them.

Agreed, but highly impractical on a full songlayer.

Mix to layer function. We've all wanted more flexible control over layers for some time now, ability to copy, cut and paste into other riffs for ex. However, you can do what you want by getting your drums all sorted before you add other layers and mix them to riff before you add anything else.

You are completely correct, of course. It just happened that I had no time to clean up the drums before we started the vocals. I'll keep that in mind for the next time.

And read the manual for the microwave.....

After my hamster "disappeared" in it, I'm somewhat afraid to use it.

[cwight]

On your first one though, you need to give your singer a good kicking and tell him to put the glass down before you start recording... But seriously, you should, by visuals and using your ear be able to really fine tune the info line wave so it it comes in exactly when you want it. But if you are hearing something, that's not showing up on the info line, then I suspect something else is going on....are you using pop shields for the mic?