Questions & Answers

Move audio events in Layers to anywhere

+93 votes
2,611 views
asked Jan 15, 2018 in Editing by brconflict (2,040 points)
edited Feb 19, 2018 by brconflict

In a track, you may have, let's say, 6 Layers (six takes). There are many times, due to various reasons, I'd like to move a selection or audio event to another Layer or another place on the timeline in the same or another layer quickly. There are also times I'd like to double up two audio events in two different Layers to play simultaneously (like a doubled lead vocal), without having to create a whole new track and copy audio over manually.

To compare with Sonar: In Sonar, you can select and drag an audio clip from any Take Lane (Layer) to literally anywhere else in the DAW project (song). You can also highlight a group of clips and move them all at once. Editing is really easy and fast with this ability. Sonar also offers the keystroke "K" to mute/unmute a clip in a Lane/Layer at your whim. This is also very handy for a vocalist who likes to overlap words in a comp.

To add: It would be nice to allow editing in Layers vs. just the track. I can drastically clean up the Layers' appearance, since I'm big on having a truly clean Song. 

9 Answers

+5 votes
answered Jan 17, 2018 by AlexTinsley (925,230 points)
 
Best answer

Thank you for the feature request. 

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+2 votes
answered Mar 3, 2018 by lutzvogelsang (1,660 points)
Yes, indeed, it would be great to be able to handle events on layers just like event on tracks! Including normalization / gain setting.

Audio recording normally happens with some significant headroom in order to avoid clipping, resulting in low peak levels (e.g. -16 dB or something like that), which makes it difficult to see waveforms while selecting the parts to move to the main track.
Zooming in vertically is not a truly satisfying solution... (and does not help much when having more than 3 layers...).
+4 votes
answered Aug 19, 2019 by danrussell (470 points)
This is sorely needed.

I can't believe this isn't already in the program. This one feature sets S1 back miles compared to other daws. If you were just comping vocals on a finished track, bit wouldn't be a big deal, but if you are creating a song, this is a must.

Please guys, make this happen.
+2 votes
answered Oct 27, 2019 by rogerhand (1,950 points)

Yes! Yes! Yes! This is needed badly ... for me it's the biggest example of StudioOne "getting in the way" of the creative process.

If I've done several takes of a vocal or solo, and want to piece together the perfect version, the StudioOne comping process works fine ... as long as everything is exactly in time!  If one of the takes has the 2nd phrase come in a bit late, and you want to drag it a big forward ... you're not allowed to!

Why? Why? Why? Back in Sonar I could do this with no problem. I've come up with a tedious and klunky workaround in StudioOne that involves duplicating tracks, then dragging things away from the original track, adjusting them, then dragging back again, but it's a colossal pain. And it really interrupts the creative flow.

Computer based DAWs became popular largely because you could easily manipulate the recording to fix things like timing mistakes.

So what's holding PreSonus back from implementing this?

+2 votes
answered Apr 2, 2020 by philippburgmer (560 points)
Same applies to Midi Parts. Currently I can not select and edit them once they are on a layer instead of a track.
+1 vote
answered Apr 2, 2020 by fschmidt (6,220 points)
edited Apr 3, 2020 by fschmidt

"If I've done several takes of a vocal or solo, and want to piece together the perfect version, the StudioOne comping process works fine ... as long as everything is exactly in time!  If one of the takes has the 2nd phrase come in a bit late, and you want to drag it a big forward ... you're not allowed to!"

That's infact a major problem! Actually you can move audio within a clip using "Alt Gr"
in order to do timing corrections.
However: It only works if the take has enough of recorded information before and after.
So you always have to start the recording earlier and end it later than actually needed  
- which leads to other space problems - in order to be still able to move the audio to the left and right using Alt Gr.

Using Alt Gr, it should be possible to move audio withing an event freely
by automatically adding silence before or after if necessary...  

asked May 9, 2020 in Editing by kenglasser (260 points) What's AltGr?
0 votes
answered Sep 9, 2021 by romaindescampe (3,790 points)
Amen to this!
0 votes
answered May 11, 2022 by romaindescampe (3,790 points)
That would be AWESOOOOOOME!!!!
0 votes
answered Mar 21, 2023 by krsgzwwk (700 points)
I'm waiting for them to add this feature, would really make me consider upgrading to 6
...