Parent/child idea

[Auckland]

It might be nice to be able to click a box in a riff that designates it as a "Parent". When it is subsequently duplicated, the copied "children" take on all the future edits of the parent. The child riffs could have a color code or alphanumeric code in them that shows they are children of a certain parent riff.

That way, with many songs building on lots of copied "core riffs", small changes in effects or volume or pan in the parent riff would translate to the children and save time. The children will certainly have new takes and instruments on them, but the root parts are slaved to all changes done in the parent riff.

Just a toggle or checkbox in each riff that activates "parent" status and links all copies made later to it.

Sound useful? It sure would be for me.

Auckland

[atalwar]

Maybe i am not getting/understanding your point here, but the basic principle behind duplicating a riff is to make it independent of the parent. aint'it?

You can have an instance of a riff as many times on the song arrangement bar and when you change anything in the riff, that is evident in all the instances.

[JouniL]

Atalwar, I think I get Aucklands idea.

Imagine creating a collab. First I usually record some bass and basic guitar together with ID's offline and save the song/riffs. I also tend to do a decent mix at this point. Then I start a collab and import the riffs. You would typically find some kind of basic verse and chorus riffs here.

When fellow collabers start working on the song they usually duplicate the verse and chorus riffs, it is not unusual to have 6-8 copies of a original riff.

Now (and here is what Auckland is aiming at) if I would like to change the level of the bass, the variation of the ID or paning of the guitars I would need to do that on ALL 6-8 riffs for the mix to remain consistent.

Creating a link between a father/child riff would make it easier to mix it, I think it is a cool idea. I would like to add to it by having a "protect"-option, that is, you cannot change the mix of a layer in a riff unless you unlink it from its father.

[pooterpatty]

That is an interesting idea that I've not heard before but I think would be really helpful when it comes to mixing.

[bluesydude]

Splendid idea. Talk about expediency, that would do it.

[Auckland]

Altalwar, it may be the we build songs in different ways. Most of my stuff to date has the kind of buildup that JouniL is talking about. My riffs deep in a song typically have at their root the basic initial riffs that the song started with or the section started with at their core. If the core riff was keys, drums, bass and rhythm guitar, I'd love to only have to modify one "parent" riff to change those core parts through the whole song or section. And I mean level, pan, effects -- the whole deal.

I thought of this last night tweaking a song I've made in which I decided the bass throughout a section (a section that was made from six copies of the same riff with things added on in each copy) needed to be louder. That gave me six riffs to go tweak. Parent/child functionality would have made that much easier.

I can think of lots of ways it would be neat, efficiency-wise.

Maybe the colors of the related riffs could be used to give the ties visual clarity. Stuff like that. Maybe other folks have other ways that this idea would help them.

[atalwar]

Now I get it!

it's a GREAT idea. and i admit that have been victim of the same thing hell lotta times, changing levels/fx of a copied layer all across and swearing at myself all along.

but i think this would be required at layer level and not the riff (as that confused me a bit). as each layer would need to remember its parenting/grouping and a button to inherit or not.

Perhaps we could have a simple master mixer thing where would could create a control channel/bus with vol,solo,mute,fx pan ...
Then layers can then be assigned to/removed from the channel and controlled irrespective of the riffs they lie in.

or even simpler a predefined 16 channel group, and on the layer you click one of its 16 numbered buttons to select it's control group. as soon as you click a button, it inherits all settings from layers sharing the same group and any change to the layer goes all across the group. and surely a button or right click to make the layer loner again.

[fooks]

what i do is save the settings on a song, is that what you guys do? or do you do every riff.

what would be nice is that rw could tell you what setting is being used.

[Auckland]

Hey Fooks,

I feel stupid here, but I'm not sure what you mean.

The main benefit that I am thinking is that a tweak to a parent riff automatically does the same tweak to child-designated copies of that parent, saving one from a degree of riff-by-riff repeated tweaking on a take in that riff or the riff as a whole.

If I have a beer, I'll probably go "Oh, THAT's what Fooks means."

Auckland

[lostylost]

I wonder exactly how much more work it would be to have an "inherit" checkbox for each *layer* in the child riff as per Atalwar's idea.

Sounds like an elegant little hack as described by Auckland though. Might be at the sweet spot of granularity vs implementation cost and also in keeping with RW's `simplicity`

[fooks]

ok, i am the one that needs the beer, auckland. lol

i sort of strayed on you. sorry.

i hear what you're saying. that would make it quicker to mix.

but you can save the settings for each layer of a riff and then just go across the tune and apply.
pan and gain are the only things you do each time.

unless you tweek before duping, that works too but then might have to do it over again when new parts are added.

[lostylost]

Taking it to the other extreme, there is the possibility of merging layers/mixes between the two, the child inheriting only the difference between parent before / parent after.

Say you do some levels on a parent layer, with a child set to "inherit merge".

If you only change the first 4 bars of a 12 bar parent riff layer then the child would only be changed on those 4 bars. It inherits the change to the parent but the rest is unchanged.

Having *all* the inheritance `control` child side could pose an annoyance if you wanted to temporarily disable inheritance and tweak a parent with 4 children. You would have to go to each child and change settings.

Conversely, having all the control as a global riff based, all child riffs with inherited layers checkbox you wouldn't be able to do target just 3 of 4 children.

It would be good to be able to see from the parent side which children are inheriting at any given time.

Having fine grained control vs Something that does the job most of the time?

We already know where RW stands on that debate.


Yeah, the more I think about it the more I like Auckland's parent side inherit toggle.

[fooks]

now you're talking digital genetics and cyber evolution! we are NOT gods! :O

there are forces at play we have no idea about!
the very fabric of...never mind, time to make the donuts!

later guys!

[atalwar]

it can be as complex or as simple but in the end question would be what is implementable. in scope of RW the simple the better. and somewhere along the line it is going to cause annoyance in either of cases (usually happens with parents with many children spread all over

another simplistic approach could be to have more layer icons (like we currently have) but labeled different like VSM(virtual sub mix) and all the layers having same vsm icon share same settings and if icon is changed layer becomes independent. (it could be a bit limited though, but perhaps 4 icons for bass, 8 for gtr, 4-6 for keys, 4-6 drums and perc, and perhaps few more for others ).
of course when duplicated it will have the same icons so automatically will be part of the same group.

at the basic level, it can be any duplicated riff/layers shares same set of settings, unless explicitly made independent.


Or

you could have a submix view where you could assign a layer to one of the submix channels and let them control your layer and fx or your layer could go directly to master. but this would again be a bit complex.


btw, i am thinking more of a sibling kind of relation between layers than a parent/child. where change to one sibling reflects onto the others, in case of parent/child if a parent layer gets deleted/deceased then all children get no clue where to inherit from.

plus you always need to keep track of who's the parent, to go in and change the settings. if you decide later on to add something to the parent riff, and across some of the children later on, the direct inheritance might not work.

In case of sibling , you just need to tell one that you share same settings with that of like kind and it inherits from another. (it's similar to parent/child,but here the active layer becomes the parent for the group when you turn a knob/dial). offers a bit more flexibility as it can allow you to control not just a duplicated part but even a different lick/phrase/rhythm layer in another riff having the same settings (same guitar patch and fx) as it becomes a somewhat virtual track.


btw guys don't get me wrong, i ain't dissecting or blasting any of the ideas given (never ever has been my intent), they all are great and will be more than happy if any one of these could be implemented).

i am just thinking out loud and sharing/discussing ideas with you guys.

now i seriously need a beer at breakfast time.

[lostylost]

case of parent/child if a parent layer gets deleted/deceased then all children get no clue where to inherit from.

I want my mommy!!! weee ohh wee oh weee!!