Workflow on mixing tracks

[steve]

"Mixdown Tracks" acts like the current "Mix and Render" except that Mute and Solo buttons are respected.
"Mixdown to New Track" acts like the current "Mix and Render to New Track" except that Mute and Solo buttons are respected.

Personally I'd be happy with those two as the only mixing options.

I can see that additional options could be useful on occasion, but not indispensable. if i want a muted track to be included in the mix, I can simply unmute it. The major benefit of these two options is that I know exactly what the mix will sound like, because I can hear it.

[cyrano]

"Mixdown Tracks" acts like the current "Mix and Render" except that Mute and Solo buttons are respected.
"Mixdown to New Track" acts like the current "Mix and Render to New Track" except that Mute and Solo buttons are respected.

Personally I'd be happy with those two as the only mixing options.

I can see that additional options could be useful on occasion, but not indispensable. if i want a muted track to be included in the mix, I can simply unmute it. The major benefit of these two options is that I know exactly what the mix will sound like, because I can hear it.

+1

Keep it simple. Audacity's forte is being accessible for newbies. Don't ruin that by getting infected with featuritis, please.

[Gale Andrews]

By the way I would sometimes find a what U hear Mix useful - the point is to not throw out the behaviour we have now.

Like Peter I prefer not to have a Preference, for ease of change on the fly. If there were only two options, I suggested an on/off control so we don't have a cascading menu. The shortcuts for mixing to an existing or new track behave as per the on/off control's settings.

I am not sure we need mix options for "ignore every control we can think of", but I don't object if some actual case is made for them and they are easily accessed. Is there some case?

Instead of telling the user to go and change the preferences, and not show them what the preference is now, we could have an arrangement like the warning for uncompressed audio files.

In the Tracks menu we have a sub-menu called "Mixing / Rendering"
This sub menu has 4 menu items:

Mixdown Tracks
Mixdown to New Track
Custom Mix / Render
Custom Mix / Render with Options...

"Mixdown Tracks" acts like the current "Mix and Render" except that Mute and Solo buttons are respected.

"Mixdown to New Track" acts like the current "Mix and Render to New Track" except that Mute and Solo buttons are respected.

[...]

I am still -1 to "Mixdown" as a name that means something different to "Mixing down" in Warnings Preferences. Please use a label that tells the user what will happen, or change the wording in Warnings Preferences.

It seems a confusing label to me to have "Custom Mix / Render Options" where Custom Mix / Render defaults to the current Audacity behaviour but has options for doing what you call Mixdown. Perhaps we should just drop the "Render" and call it a Custom Mix.

How do you do a "Custom mix" to a new track, notably current Audacity mix ignoring Mute / Solo to a new track? We must still be able to do that.

What is the point of Mix tracks: None?

In view of the drastic change proposed to default mix behaviour I suggest we vote on the default. I am +1 on current mix behaviour being default, assuming export mix does not change.


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

"Mixdown Tracks" acts like the current "Mix and Render" except that Mute and Solo buttons are respected.
"Mixdown to New Track" acts like the current "Mix and Render to New Track" except that Mute and Solo buttons are respected.

Personally I'd be happy with those two as the only mixing options.

+1 to keeping it simple (which I think Cyrano means).

-1 (yet again) to removing the existing mix which ignores Mute and Solo. Please, consider all the use cases and the wide user ability range we have.


Gale

[steve]

I am still -1 to "Mixdown" as a name that means something different to "Mixing down" in Warnings Preferences.

As i have written several times. It is my opinion that "mixing", unless we provide some sort of "modifier" that the user explicitly selects, should always work the same way, so that whether you are listening to playback (the tracks are mixed and sent to the sound card), or using "Mix and Render" (the tracks are mixed and written to a new track), or Exporting (the tracks are mixed and written to an audio file), the result is the same.

In other words:

Mixing on playback respects Mute and Solo.
Mixing on Export respects Mute and Solo.
Mixing to a new track respects Mute and Solo.

[waxcylinder]

+1 to keeping it simple

+1 to making what-you-hear-is-what-you-get to being the default (so newbies and the inexperienced aren't bear-trapped)

The sophisticated users who like the current behaviour should be readily available to work out how to reset it to their particular needs.

Peter

[Gale Andrews]

Mixing on playback respects Mute and Solo.
Mixing on Export respects Mute but not Solo.
Mixing to a new track respects neither Mute or Solo.

Sorry but I don't see that to be consistent, expected or intuitive.

So please add the new Tracks option to respect Mute and Solo.

The ever so simple solution is for mixing to come after mute and solo in the effect stack, then the behaviour will be:

Mixing on playback respects Mute and Solo.
Mixing on Export respects Mute and Solo.
Mixing to a new track respects Mute and Solo.

In each case you "get what you hear". Is that too simple?

For tracks mixing, too simple.

Obviously playback respects Mute and Solo, whatever tracks mix and export mix do.

We actually had a huge debate about export and tracks mix being different a few years ago. Nothing changed since then and probably won't. But I would be happy to see a preference for Mute respected on Export. I find that behaviour useful. The only problem is that the behaviour is not warned about when some tracks are muted.


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

+1 to keeping it simple

+1 to making what-you-hear-is-what-you-get to being the default (so newbies and the inexperienced aren't bear-trapped)

I believe people like me who split stereo tracks and those who mix to clear space will get bear-trapped.

If the default is changed it needs an understandable label.


Gale

[steve]

What is the point of Mix tracks: None?

Say you have a multi-track project in which tracks 2 and 7 of 30 have complex envelopes and you want to "render" those envelopes so that you may more easily add new envelope points. You don't want any other changes to the project at this stage.

Currently you would:
1) Select track 2.
2) Mix and Render
3) Scroll down to the bottom of the project and either drag the track back up to its original position, or use the track menu a few times to move the track to the top the down below the first track.
4) Rename the track back to its original name.
5) Select track 7.
6) Mix and Render
7) Scroll down to the bottom of the project and either drag the track back up to its original position, or use the track menu a few times to move the track to the top the down below the 6th track.
8) Rename the track back to its original name.

If we had the suggested feature, then you could simply select tracks 2 and 7, ensure that Envelopes are not ignored and set "Mix tracks: None", then apply.
Tracks 2 and 7 will then be "rendered" in place but not "mixed". One step instead of 8.

[Gale Andrews]

I am still -1 to "Mixdown" as a name that means something different to "Mixing down" in Warnings Preferences.

As i have written several times. It is my opinion that "mixing", unless we provide some sort of "modifier" that the user explicitly selects, should always work the same way

Then provide an option for what U Hear export as I suggested. I am happy to support that. I might even be persuaded for what U hear export to be default.

Otherwise, please do not use the same term in different places for different things.


Gale