Questions & Answers

Nested arrangements

+7 votes
344 views
asked May 12, 2018 in Mixing by masterJoe (2,560 points)
edited May 12, 2018 by masterJoe
I am a big fan of the "composite pattern" or in other words: build large things from small ones.

Nesting is a great technique and you use it every day:
A folder on your computer's drive has subfolders and these have subfolders, too and so on.

Nesting arrangements would allow us to:

- combine multiple songs in a remix
- build a song with intro - verse 1 - brigde - refrain - ... structure where each part is an independent arrangement
- reuse snipptes from one song in another
- create a template library of arrangements which can be used as sub-arrangements for a new song

You might say: I can already bounce a track and include this into my arrangement! Isn't that the same thing?
It's not because nesting arrangements keeps them intact, live and editable. All tracks are still there for your tweaking. Every single parameter! Bounced tracks are just a simple audio file.

Nestings helps to build a logical structure of your song and to compose using these building blocks.
Btw logical... Logic had this kind of feature way back then... ;)

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In order to get nested arrangements into the sequencer I would suggest the following:

(1) Add a new type of event named "arrangement" which can be part of yet another arrangement.
An arrangement contains all tracks, instruments, busses and output channels as you already know them now.
But they become NESTABLE.

(2) Allow to configure how many OUTPUTS an arrangement shall have. This defines how many audio channels come out of each arrangement. Currently Studio One V3 only allows stereo arrangements but this might change with future versions!

(3) As an arrangement has 1..n outputs is acts as if it were an audio file having 1..n channels. And it should be placeable on audio tracks as if it were an actual audio file! Double-clicking the arrangement event however opens up another arrangement editor instead of an audio editor! An (sub)arrangement has its own timeline and can be inserted at any point in time into another arrangement.

(4) As nested arrangements reside on audio tracks they are affected by the effects and routing settings of these tracks!

Nesting means much more structuring will be possible in a song.
The reuse of snippets or even whole songs within a new context becomes possbile.

Please vote if you like this idea :)

1 Answer

0 votes
answered May 18, 2018 by AlexTinsley (925,070 points)
 
Best answer

Thank you for the feature request. 

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