Cut function in Arranger
Problem:
Users are encouraged to record live from song view to the arranger. This gives great results, but also easily results in tracks that can be too "jammy" and not as concise as they could be. So it is necessary to edit the result to have a solid song structure with no excess fat.
However, this is very hard at the moment. One of the most impactful ways of tightening a track is through the "cut" function found in all DAWs or video editing software. This feature is unfortunately missing from the Deluge.
To clarify, by "cut", I mean the ability to select a range of the track and delete it.
You can imagine in the screenshot below, pressing delete and moving the 2nd half left. Maybe the track was 5 minutes long, now it's 4m30 and the boring part in the middle has been removed.
Right now, trying to simulate this function on the Deluge is very tedious and error prone. There's just no way to do this "cleanly" manually. Especially not when unique clip instances are present. Note that this limitation affects all clips, not just audio clips.
Proposed implementation:
1. In the arranger, press shift-delete. The button blinks.
2. A green start column and red end column appear, like in the waveform editor
3. The user places them whenever appropriate, then press delete.
4. That area is now gone. The user can now use the existing "delete time" function. Done.
This video shows what would happen under the hood:
I know everyone likes to think that what is top of mind for them should be top of mind for others, but I would argue that features that can help improve the structure of a track should be prioritized. It's the same in say, illustration. You can draw a character, put no colors, shading or effects, but if the construction is right, it will look good. The reverse is not true. So yes, the Deluge can have more synth presets, more synthesis methods, more fx etc.. but making its sequencing better will actually improve the composition of tracks, which is arguably one of the most important aspects in songwriting.
Comments
I've done this in arranger a few times and I don't find it that cumbersome or tricky tbh. Easy to take out sections you don't want and shift the rest of the track left to re-join. Even if you have tracks which are a different length to each other you can stil cut them off at the required point with a single press.