I’m just familiarizing myself with the additional possibilities of the Songview. Here’s the problem I’ve come across:
I have a basic organ sound in a rackspace variation. I adjust this sound in the song part of the chorus and press “Capture variation into this part”. This works very well. But now the chorus comes again, and I want to copy the first song part “chorus” including the sound changes of the first “chorus” song part variation. But how?
Is there a solution for that at all, or do I have to create a new rackspace variation for it again? I would find that very complicated.
If there is no solution yet, I would like to have one:
There is only “Add new song part”. This creates a song part with the rackspace/variation original settings of the last song part of the song so far. Wouldn’t it be better to create a new song part with exactly the same settings (rackspace/variation with the song part variation) as the currently active song part?
I suppose the answer would be to do your chorus tweak as a normal variation - that way it’s very easy to add as many ‘chorus’ song parts as you want.
The song part ‘tweak and save’ is very useful, but is only really meant to be for just that; tweaks to a single song part for a specific song. If it’s a song part you’ll be using often then doing the changes as a ‘proper’ variation gets the exact same result but you can use it multiple times.
However, having said all that, a useful feature would be to be able to save any tweaks made in a song part as a brand new variation so that it can be used again in other songs. At the moment you can save the changes back to the variation you started with, but that overwrites it. Be nice to be able to have a ‘save song part as new variation’ option.
The “overrides” of the variation is basically a variation on top of a variation and is meant for a ONE time use only.
If you plan on reusing a variation - you should create it as a normal rackspace variation and point your song parts there. This has many benefits like adjusting it slightly will adjust it in all your songs.
So - variation overrides within a song part are really one time things for just that song part.
For me there are the following cases or reasons after changing the widgets of a song part:
It was only for performing or for trying out Perfect! After selecting the song part again, the original values are back.
The result is good and I only need the setting in this part of the song Perfect! I just need to click on “Capture variation into this part”. And I can even go back to the original rackspace/variation settings (“Revert to original variation”)
The result is so good that I would like to use this variation instead of the original version in all song parts of all songs in which I use the sound (=Rackspace/Variation). Perfect! I press “Capture variation into this part” and then select “Push song part changes to Rackspace”.
I would like to use the result only in the one song. But there in several song parts, because e.g. the chorus is repeated. Unfortunately this is not possible. I would have to create a new rackspace/variation and rebuild all the changes I made. Reconstructing all the changes may be difficult and time consuming.
A solution would be my suggestion to always copy the marked song part with the song part variation, when creating a new song part with “Add new song part”.
With the changes a new sound has been created, which I would also like to use in other songs in the future. But the original sound should be kept where I used it before. Unfortunately this is not possible. As in point 4, I would have to reconstruct all changes again in a new rackspace/variation in a complex way.
A solution for this would be the suggestion of speed12. “Save song part as new variation” or “Push song part to new Rackspace/Variation”. With this you could also solve point 4, even if you have an additional rackspace/variation, although you might only need it in a few song parts of only one song.
Another suggestion to solve point 4 and 5 would be: “Copy Variation” and “Paste Variation”. It should not matter whether it is a rackspace/variation or rackspace/variation-song part variation. The only condition, of course, would have to be that it is the same Rackspace. This way you could copy variation settings from one song part to another song part of the same, or even another song. You could also copy a song part variation and apply it to a newly created Rackspace/Variation.
About scripting and song part variations:
If two or more song parts follow each other, which access the same Rackspace/Variation, but where other song part variations are set, the widget values will actually change. The resulting calculations of other variables, which are carried out in the scripting in the callback “On Variation”, are not carried out when changing the song part. Wouldn’t it be helpful and logical to execute the callback “On Variation” of the scripting, when changing song parts that reference the same Rackspace/Variation? At least if the selected song part variation does not match the original rackspace/variation?
Thank you very much for taking the time to understand what I mean and think about it again!
@LeeHarvey - all valid points. I suppose the ‘worlflow’ that song parts was designed around is that all the decisions on sounds - i.e. widget positions - is done in the rackspace as variations. Once you are happy you have all the sounds you need, you then assign those to song parts. So for your Chorus example, you would define your chorus sound in rackspace view in a variation called ‘chorus sound’ (or whatever). Then when you are happy with it you assign that variation to all the chorus song parts in your song.
However, the addition of a ‘save to variation’ would help as well and is good for other uses - for example you tweak a variation in song view using the ‘capture variation’ mechanism during a show (which is what this feature is aimed at I believe) and realise that you actually really like that as a sound. At the moment you can only overwrite the variation it came from rather than create a new one.
I suppose the workaround for all this is:
make edits to the song part and use ‘capture variation into this part’
go back to rackspace view and make a copy of the variation that is the base of that song part
now use ‘push song parts to variation’ to overwrite the original copy of that variation
you now have 2 variations: the ‘original’ which has the changes from the song part in it, and the ‘copy’ which is now actually the ‘original’…
Perfect! After selecting the song part again, the original values are back.
Unfortunately this is not possible. I would have to create a new rackspace/variation and rebuild all the changes I made. Reconstructing all the changes may be difficult and time consuming.
Thank you very much for taking the time to understand what I mean and think about it again!