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LMMS / lmms

Cross-platform music production software
https://lmms.io
GNU General Public License v2.0
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Setting NEW automation-tracks next to specified instrument #1193

Open musikBear opened 10 years ago

musikBear commented 10 years ago

This is one of the worst tasks to do in lmms, and perhaps also one of the most frustating. Have you had a project with som 30 or 40 tracks, and then realized that you need an automation for like track 5. If you add that new one, its now in the bottom of your project, and you cant see the track its related to. Also, its logical and intuitive, to have a tracks automations ajecent to that track, but then you now need to move the new automation track up to track-row 5.. That is serious difficult, and the track is 'dropped' several times. I sugest that one of the cogwheel-menu-options on a track is 'Add automation', and that a new automation-track is then inserted either abowe or just under the 'calling' track. I would actually call this enhancement important

Spekular commented 10 years ago

Track hierarchies would be super useful for this. You could add a sub track for automation that you could collapse/expand, making projects more maneagable. Or you could have many variations on a beat/bassline pattern all under your main beat, etc.

diizy commented 10 years ago

On 10/05/2014 03:18 PM, musikBear wrote:

This is one of the worst tasks to do in lmms, and perhaps also one of the most frustating. Have you had a project with som 30 or 40 tracks, and then realized that you need an automation for like track 5. If you add that new one, its now in the bottom of your project, and you cant see the track its related to. Also, its logical and intuitive, to have a tracks automations ajecent to that track, but then you now need to /move/ the new automation track up to track-row 5.. That is /serious/ difficult, and the track is 'dropped' several times. I sugest that one of the cogwheel-menu-options on a track is 'Add automation', and that a new automation-track is then inserted either abowe or just under the 'calling' track. I would actually call this enhancement /important/

This is a problem I've been trying to solve.

The same problem exists with "clone track" functionality: most often it happens when you have a percussion/sfx/etc. bb-track and you want a copy of it to create a fill or variation, and most often you want it below the original. I already implemented the "clear track" option so you won't have to manually erase all the blocks from a track you cloned, which already helps tremendously, but there's still room for improvement.

The problem is, that the tracks do not properly keep track of their index in the song editor. So there's currently no easy way to move a track to a specific position...

musikBear commented 10 years ago

The problem is, that the tracks do not properly keep track of their index in the song editor

ahh.. no then its definately not possible -sort there was an array or list or so, but :/ too bad..

diizy commented 10 years ago

On 10/05/2014 04:18 PM, musikBear wrote:

ahh.. no then its definately not possible

Nothing is impossible. It's just a matter of effort.

diizy commented 10 years ago

If we do implement the "per-track" automation connections, then we could do it so that you could right-click on a knob, select "add automation", and then an automation track would be added automatically under the correct instrument track (if the knob is in a mixer fx chain, it would be added at the end of the song editor) which would automatically be connected to the knob you selected. I think this would be a nice way to do automations, much better than the ctrl-drag ordeal.

Umcaruje commented 10 years ago

+1 for that. But the button text could perhaps be 'Automate'.

tresf commented 10 years ago

If we do implement the "per-track" automation connections, then we could do it so that you could right-click on a knob, select "add automation", and then an automation track would be added automatically under the correct instrument track

I like this.

I'd argue that the track-bumping issues need a more encompassing fix, such as adding a "focusable" or "selectable" type attribute so that newly added tracks can bump under the actively selected one, but this is a very nice interim solution. :+1: