Digital Performer: Comping

The dot after the take name (highlighted) tells you that the track contains more than one take.

DP’s comp and take management features help you assemble the perfect performance.

Ideally, every recording would be flawlessly executed in a single take. But the reality is that we often get the most favourable results by piecing together the best parts of multiple takes into one composite track, especially with vocals. DP users are fortunate to have a comprehensive suite of comping features that are powerful and straightforward.

What’s Your Take?

Rename Take is one of many useful commands in the Takes menu.Before getting into the specifics of comping, it’s crucial to understand how DP handles takes, because they are the building blocks of a comp. To make a comp, you need a track that contains at least two takes.

When you add a new track, whether audio, instrument or MIDI, you’ll see in the Takes menu (which you’ll find in the Track Settings Panel of any track in the Sequence Editor) that it’s labeled ‘take 1’ by default. Each time a new take is recorded, the number gets automatically incremented. You can tell if a track contains more than one take because the name in the Takes menu has a dot after it.

During the recording process, you typically create additional takes with the New Take command from the Takes menu before recording each pass. You can change a take’s name with the Rename Take command from that same menu.

If you want your vocalist to record one verse at a time and do multiple versions of each, you could Cycle Record with the Cycle range set for the verse you’re working on.

Getting Cyclical

Another common way to create multiple takes is to record them continuously using Cycle Recording, so that the singer or instrumentalist records a new version each time the Cycle loops. Recording this way works well when focusing on a finite section of a track. For example, if you want your vocalist to record one verse at a time and do multiple versions of each, you could Cycle Record with the Cycle range set for the verse you’re working on.

The Memory Cycle and Overdub buttons are turned on to enable Cycle Recording.

Turn on Cycle Recording by clicking on the Memory Cycle button, which is under the transport controls. Set a time range by dragging in the Memory Cycle Strip, which shows a green line representing the range. You also need to turn on the Overdub button to make Cycle Recording work.

If you’re Cycle Recording over a specific section of a track, such as one phrase of a vocal,...