Improvements to multitrack export?

[AVLinux]

Hi,

Recently I've had need of the multitrack export functionality of Hydrogen and although it works in a general way I find there are a lot of post-export modifications needed to make the exported files work in a DAW as you would expect and correlate to a workflow with real multitrack drums.

• All tracks are exported as stereo with no option for mono. Drum shells especially would be mic'd Mono in a studio, stereo tracks for every kit piece are overly complex and not well suited to panned mixing in a DAW. I have to run a SoX batch command on exports to make them mono. An export option for this would be very useful.

• The generated export filenames are far too long to appear in a DAW's track header, an option to export with only the actual Instrument/kit piece name without song title would be helpful.

• Tracks are exported alphabetically and not in order of Kit piece in the library, when importing into another program tracks are also imported alphabetically unless filenames are modified with numbers so this would also be handy to somehow control in the export phase so manual renumbering is not required.

• For kit pieces where there are more than one instrument representing a kit-piece (ie a Ride tip, Ride Bell or Snare Sidestick, Snare Center, Snare Edge) being able to select a group export and combine more than one instrument into an exported track would also make things less complicated for DAW work later.

These are some real-world hurdles I've encountered when using H2's multitrack export capabilities..

[theGreatWhiteShark]

Hey,

All tracks are exported as stereo with no option for mono. Drum shells especially would be mic'd Mono in a studio, stereo tracks for every kit piece are overly complex and not well suited to panned mixing in a DAW. I have to run a SoX batch command on exports to make them mono. An export option for this would be very useful.

Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Hydrogen does support stereo samples. But those can be mixed down. (And the widget rendering the underlying audio file should learn to properly render stereo files in two lane instead of one).

The generated export filenames are far too long to appear in a DAW's track header, an option to export with only the actual Instrument/kit piece name without song title would be helpful.

The instrument names are appended to the base name set in the export dialog. When using .flac instead of example.flac. The raw instrument names should be used. But I just tested it and Hydrogen uses a leading .- causing the created files to be hidden. 😬

Tracks are exported alphabetically and not in order of Kit piece in the library, when importing into another program tracks are also imported alphabetically unless filenames are modified with numbers so this would also be handy to somehow control in the export phase so manual renumbering is not required.

Why would you want to maintain the same ordering? You could prepend a number to the instrument's name.

For kit pieces where there are more than one instrument representing a kit-piece (ie a Ride tip, Ride Bell or Snare Sidestick, Snare Center, Snare Edge) being able to select a group export and combine more than one instrument into an exported track would also make things less complicated for DAW work later.

For having different parts of a physical instrument being bundled together we have so called instrument components (since version 0.9.7). Each instrument can consist of multiple components (per default one) and each component consists of multiple samples.

Back than this feature was merged at a very early development state and is nowhere near being properly integrated in the UI. Plus, its original designed was also entwined with an aux channel for each component displayed as "Drumkit Component" in the Mixer. I haven't seen any user actually using this feature.

But for the 1.2.X release line I did my best to properly integrate it in the core part of Hydrogen to allow using it without crashing the application. For 2.0 I removed the aux channel from the drumkit definition and plan to rework the instrument editor for 2.1 to properly show and support these instrument components. Till then, their usage is somewhat experimental.

[theGreatWhiteShark]

The instrument names are appended to the base name set in the export dialog. When using .flac instead of example.flac. The raw instrument names should be used. But I just tested it and Hydrogen uses a leading .- causing the created files to be hidden. 😬

This should be fixed in #2097

[AVLinux]

Thanks for the quick reply and considering some of the points..

As far as the track order mattering from Hydrogen to DAW if you've spent a few hours of time programming in Hydrogen you will probably be familiar with the Instrument position and usually Kicks, Hats and Shells are at the top section of the Instrument stack because they usually have the most programming events. To me it stands to reason you would want at least a similar order in the DAW because it is likely the Kick and Shells will get the most dynamics and effects applied so you don't want them alphabetically strewn across the DAW tracks. As an example I often export 18-22 kit pieces to the DAW and renaming 22 pieces with a numbering scheme is of course possible but very tedious. If Hydrogen could number and preserve the Instrument order on export it would be handier than you might think.

[theGreatWhiteShark]

Hmm. So, personally I always group tracks in a DAW by type, like all hi-hats in between all cymbals next to all toms. In Hydrogen itself a lot of kits I use are ordered based on General MIDI specs. Not ideal for me because I only program patterns within the pattern editor. But I still would not rearrange instruments in a kit.

One of the most annoying thing in Hydrogen - at least for me - is that when loading a kit or a pattern, note mapping is done based on the order of instruments in the kit. When adding some notes for the third instruments in kit A - e.g. a kick - and loading kit B, all those notes will be assigned to the third instrument in kit B. Regardless of whether this is a kick or not. Now, when rearranging instruments you can get in even more trouble. E.g. if you load your BlackPearl kit, move the kick to the top-most position, add some notes to it, and load the kit again, your pattern is screwed up. (In v2.0 all these hassles will be gone but this will still take some time).

But please don't take this reservation towards your suggested feature as negative feedback. I'm very glad you are bringing up UX issues. Just trying to get a feeling whether this is an issue affecting all users. Hydrogen did already suffered a considerable amount of feature creep and I do not want to make it worse :D.

Btw. is there a specific reason you are creating intermediate audio files in order to import them to your DAW? Hydrogen does also provide per instrument JACK ports. You can connect them with various input tracks and record the newest version of your song directly.