Combine vertical groups of regions

Getting Stuff Done Hints and Tricks
#1

Quite newbie in Ardour…
I have a tipical multitrack drum recording situation.
Some corrections needs to be done to align with the click,
I have created vertical groups with a region from every track.
Now I have a lot of this groups and I want to combine one with another, as is possible with two regions in the same track,
Any suggestion?
Thanks

ps: please don’t suggest to just ctrl/click every region. :wink:

#2

Tons of ways, here’s two of the quickest:

COMBINING REGIONS

  1. Select all the regions you want(rubber band select)
  2. Region → Gain → un-select “Opaqe”
  3. Region → Edit → Combine

Deselecting “opaque” will ensure that muted regions will not be added, but all other regions in the stack will. Note that all those regions will now become one. If you have made an error / wish to edit:

  1. Select the newly combined region
  2. Region → Edit → Uncombine

If you find that some regions have moved when using “combine”, or if you want to keep the layers and have a separate combination region you could also try the more conventional:

BOUNCING

  1. Select all the regions you want(rubber band select)
  2. Region → Gain → un-select “Opaqe”
  3. Region → Edit → Bounce Without Processing

And you will find the result in the regions list (shift-L) in the editor.

Hope that’s what you’re looking for!

2 Likes
#3

Yes thekoala, I never would have thought the gain/opaque trick.
I would add that after combine, the ctrl/G must be done to regroup the newly crated stack.

Just one little question more, just to speed the process:
I can select one entire group just ctrl/clicking one region in the stack, but while holding ctrl, if I click on another group, only the region I click on is selected, not her entire group.
Thanks

ps: partially solved via ctrl/a and deselect all that I don’t desire, but needs accurate check. :sweat_smile:

#4

There’s an option in preferences to add some empty space below each track. I find it quite useful because you can click in the space and drag the cursor vertically to select.

Also if you lock the regions they won’t move about.

I set personal hotkeys for all these things, as I do a lot of editing work. Really speeds things up.

2 Likes
#5

The same is inserting a blank new track, where needed, just to start a new click 'n drag… :wink: