Adding scenes or changing scene length with existing clips

daveclay · 2022-05-30T16:57:53+00:00

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I've been using Maschine to write music for years, and I recently started using external synths. But, I'm having a problem using clips for that external audio. Clips themselves work fine - the problem is if I have an existing clip with some audio, and want to add a scene or change the scene length for other groups underneath an existing clip.

Here's the setup, starting from a new project:

YouTube of me describing this problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhOCYnGKy-s

1) Have a clip in one group with some long-playing audio. Note that it would probably span multiple scenes, though I haven't created any scenes yet.

2) Now add a scene (because we're gonna add some drum loops in Group B)

Note that when adding a new Scene, Maschine moves the existing clip over to make room for that Scene. Not really what I wanted, but not a big deal...

3) I move the Clip back to the start of the song to cover the newly add Scene

4) Now, add a second new Scene after the first Scene

Here's the problem. When adding the new Scene, Maschine split my Clip in two to make room for the new Scene. My audio now has a gap where the new Scene is. The audio in the clip stops when this new Scene is reached, then the audio starts playing back at the point where it stopped after the new Scene is finished.

It gets weirder, though.

5) Delete the new, second Clip 1 (1), and pull that first Clip to cover all the Scenes again. That "fixes" things: the Clip is now one long audio track again. I can add a drum loop in a new Pattern for Scene 2. But now, make Scene 2 twice as long.

The Clip gets split again, but only half of the Clip (the amount that fit into Scene 2's original size) stays in Scene 2. The second half of Scene 2 has a gap in the Clip audio track again.

To fix this, I might extend Clip 1 to cover the new length of Scene 2. "Clip 1" would then line up next to the new "Clip 1 (1)" Maschine created. But, a Clip is necessarily associated to a specific point in the audio file's playback. So while it looks like I've "fixed" that audio track, what happens on playback is that "Clip 1" plays the audio file all the way through those first two Scenes, but when the new "Clip 1 (1)" is reached, it starts playback in the audio file from the point where it was originally created, meaning it repeats the second half of the audio from Scene 2.

That's one variation of this problem. I've learned that when Maschine splits a Clip, I generally have to delete the newly created second Clip that and pull the original Clip back to its original length.

This also happens when the Scenes all exist with Clips, but then you add a new Scene or change an existing Scene's length, not just with a new project with no Scenes in my example.

Is there any way to "lock" a Clip's length? So adding Scenes or changing Scene length would leave the Clip in place, at that length? Effectively, I want my Clip to start at 1:30 in the song, regardless of where the Scenes are laid out "under" that Clip.

In my head, and I presume in others', Clips represent a long-running, one-off "audio track" (regardless whether the content is an audio file or midi notes) that spans multiple Scenes. I rarely, if ever, want to split up that long-running audio with a gap.

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Accepted answers

D-One

Personally, I would lay down the same Section with the drums across the timeline, over and over with just temporary/placeholder drums, (or even without anything) and only after thaat record the long synth. This way you can then change sections after the synth is recorded and as long as you keep their length it won't split the Clip... Even if you do need to change the length of a Section here and there it's easier to deal with the issue on occasion than all the time.

Basically, start with something like this:

Then you can tweak it without messing up the clip, like so:

There are other ways to do it, like starting in Ideias View for example since different Groups can have different pattern lengths. You can have one Group with the long Audio-Plug Pattern playing the synth and another Drum Group with a short Drum Pattern, as long as retrigger is off you can change Scenes without the synth Pattern restarting... Converting it to Song mode will require some manual tweaking tho.

All comments

Matt_NI

Bringing the experts to check this out @Jeremy_NI @Alfredo_NI @D-One

Jeremy_NI

@daveclay I can reproduce this myself, unfortunately, clips and patterns don't really mix well together. We only recommend to use clips for transitions or any kind of cherry on top, when finishing a project. Starting with a clip is not ideal. It was not intended to be a full audio track like in a DAW. I'll try to find out if that feature will be improved in the future. In the meantime, maybe some users have a better way to deal with what you are trying to achieve.

daveclay

@Jeremy_NI Thanks for looking into it! I'd love to see more Clip-Pattern integration, rather than having them fight each other.

The only solution I've found is to just re-draw the Clip as I change the Patterns and Scenes. Unfortunately, I'm in the process of writing the song when I go to the external synths, and thus the Scenes aren't in a finished state (I'm not done arranging), and each change requires me to re-adjust the Clip, or I have to remember how long that original Clip was so I can re-draw it later.

That's sort of becoming untenable, so another solution is to use a DAW for those audio tracks and run Maschine as a VST (which Maschine does fine, I've found a separate midi routing issue with Ableton Live that's getting in my way)

Thanks again.

D-One

Basically, start with something like this:

Then you can tweak it without messing up the clip, like so:

ManoVarunKumar

I know this is an older post, but I would really like to see if there could be a better integration between patterns and clips. I run into this issue all the time in my workflow. The only thing I keep thinking of "only if I can lock the clips in place", if there is an ability to time-lock the clips in place which doesn't get effected by scenes would solve this issue and make it more DAW like. Just wanted to provide my thoughts for the NI development team. Just a simple toggle time-lock on/off on the selected clip would solve this issue (this might unlock other automation capabilities taking advantage of clips). Hope @Matt_NI and @Jeremy_NI @Alfredo_NI would be able to enable this feature request working with the dev team.

@daveclay thank you for detailing out the experience. @D-One Thank you for a the workaround, I primarily use Maschine Plus in standalone and it gets pretty annoying to readjust the clips and align them every a new pattern or length chops the clip.

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