Questions & Answers

'Paste as Shared' Command for MIDI Events

+14 votes
1,292 views
asked Mar 3, 2018 in Editing by neiljordan1 (18,370 points)
retagged May 22, 2018 by neiljordan1
In short: Allow users to copy a MIDI event, then paste it somewhere else in the song as a shared version.

Shared events are a great way to avoid making the same change multiple times; however, in reality, not every shared instance will always occur right after the previous one - for example, if there's a shared loop for each verse, another for each chorus, etc.

Currently, the only way to achieve this is to duplicate an event as shared (which will always place it immediately after), then manually drag & drop that shared event to where it's needed. Cut & paste isn't even an option, because the event stops being shared! This can be a slow & tedious process.

All of this could be avoided if users could copy a MIDI event, then choose to 'Paste as Shared', when required, rather than regular paste. Obviously, this command would work just like regular paste, but make the resulting event shared with the one it was copied from.

Even if there were no shortcut for this, just having it in the right-click menu would be a huge help.

7 Answers

0 votes
answered May 21, 2018 by AlexTinsley (925,070 points)
 
Best answer

Thank you for the feature request. 

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+2 votes
answered Mar 3, 2018 by -Luis- (23,090 points)

Currently, the only way to achieve this is to duplicate an event as shared (which will always place it immediately after), then manually drag & drop that shared event to where it's needed. Cut & paste isn't even an option, because the event stops being shared! This can be a slow & tedious process.

 Drag the event wherever you need it to go and then hold down Ctrl (or command) before dropping it, the result is a shared copy.

+1 vote
answered Mar 3, 2018 by neiljordan1 (18,370 points)
Hi @-Luis-. Thanks for the input.

I know that's an option; however. the point of my FR is that the slow part is having to manually drag & drop the event in the first place! Whether you make the event shared before or after you drop it doesn't really change things. What you're proposing is just the alternate way to achieve the same result using the current options, but it's no faster.

The purpose of the FR is to allow someone to copy an event, then navigate to multiple parts of a track and paste in shared copies as they go, which would be notably quicker.
commented Mar 3, 2018 by -Luis- (23,090 points)

Cool, my answer was in response to your comment that the only way of making shared copies was Shift+D.

Good luck with your request.

0 votes
answered Mar 3, 2018 by neiljordan1 (18,370 points)
Thanks @-Luis-, the input is definitely appreciated. And you're right that the approach you mention could be a faster option in many circumstances. To me, the main thing is that, for some people in some workflows, a paste alternative would be an even faster option still, and it's always good to give people different options based on what suits their workflow.

PS: How do I comment on existing items, rather than just adding new answers? I don't see an option for it anywhere!
commented Mar 4, 2018 by -Luis- (23,090 points)

PS: How do I comment on existing items, rather than just adding new answers? I don't see an option for it anywhere!

That's an option for administrators and moderators. 

+2 votes
answered Apr 24, 2018 by justinmeyer (2,990 points)
edited Apr 24, 2018 by justinmeyer
Hi,

I agree completely.
Dragging with the mouse and holding Ctrl is not MIDI device friendly.
Not everybody works all the time with mouse and keyboard.
With MIDI keyboards (e.g. Launchkey MK2) you have plenty of knobs, faders and buttons.
You can do a lot of work without keyboard and mouse.

However, there are still options like "Paste shared" missing.
It's annoying when you have to switch back to keyboard and mouse just for 1 thing.

Don't get me wrong:
I DO use keyboard and mouse too, but I try to split my workflow in different parts.
In one of the parts, I almost only use my MIDI device.

Another option would be to implement the possibility to mark all events in a track
and set them as shared.
This means you'll just have to create empty events (without dragging with mouse) and then set them as shared.

EDIT:
I've found a very easy solution!
Create an S1 macro which simply does:
- Duplicate shared
- Move to cursor

Now you simply mark the event, move your cursor to whatever position you want and activate the macro.
It's absolutely the same as copy/paste shared

Best regards
0 votes
answered May 4, 2018 by neiljordan1 (18,370 points)

Thanks for the tip @justinmeyer. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the macro to work - even though I used those exact commands and mapped it to a keyboard shortcut, I could only ever get it to duplicate the item right after the event; it never moved to the cursor position. Hopefully PreSonus will eventually implement a full alternative.

+1 vote
answered Jun 3, 2018 by justinmeyer (2,990 points)
@neiljordan1 :
Hmm, that sounds strange.
For me it works perfectly.
This is how I did it:


In practice you just mark your event, move your cursor to any place in the time line
and activate the macro.

Let me know if you got it to work.
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