soularus
10:59 PM - 11 October, 2010
The thing to remember is that you're not always going to want the edited version of the song to play. Imagine if you dropped a track, and just before the best bit, it suddenly skipped to the end because you'd forgotten to disengage the "splice" mode?
So, there is still going to be some kind of button pushing going on. In this case, you're going to be have to be aware of whether splice mode is engaged, and switch it on or off, depending if you want to play the edited version or not. And Evil_Banana is right, you DON'T want to have multiple versions of your tracks in your library. Otherwise, we haven't progressed far from doing actual edits in an audio editor.
So, my point is, if you are still going to have be aware of whether or not splice mode is engaged, why not just set Quantized cue points at key points in the song, and jump to them when needed? If a cuss word is coming up, why not just push Beatjump and skip 16 beats ahead on the fly? If you want to skip to the breakdown, why not just jump to the Quantized cue point at the start of the breakdown?
I feel that using Quantized cue points and Beatjumping actually gives more flexibility than an automatic "splice" mode, because you are going to be doing it all on-the-fly anyway.
HOWEVER, it's not like we have to choose one or the other.
As Evil_Banana points out, a simple Jump-In, Jump-Out Cue Point type (quantized of course), would make quick automatic edits a very simple process. You simply set the Jump-In Point, and the Jump-Out point, and SSL seamlessly jumps to that point when required. An option to switch it On/Off on the fly would be great. Quantizing this would obviously be a huge timesaver, because you could simply set the Cue points and know that SSL had automatically snapped them to the nearest grid marker (no need to zoom right in and ensure you have got it perfect).
We could also have Quantized cue points and quantized Beatjumping (in 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 beat amounts), which give maximum flexibility. We could easily expect ALL these different cue point types to co-exist without drama. Serato could simply colour-code the different cue point types so you know what type of cue point you're looking at, at a glance. This is how NI have implemented different cue point types in Traktor.
Another cool option would be to set a Jump-Out point before a Jump-In point, so that when SSL reaches the Jump-Out point in a track, it automatically jumps BACK to the Jump-In point, effectively creating an elaborate and flexible type of loop. The difference with a loop in this case, is that you can set the Jump-In point at any part of the song (it could be right back at the beginning, unlike a loop which is fixed to a 32 beat maximum).
You could also quantize the Jump-In cue point, so you could effectively engage it at any time, and not have to wait for SSL to pass the Jump-Out point before it jumps to the Jump-In point. Combine this with quantized cue points, and Beatjumping, and you have all the tools you could possibly need for on-the-fly edits and completely non-linear arrangement.
Hey Serato, looking for a way to completely surpass the competition? How about implementing some of the above features? Traktor S4 is just around the corner, and it has some pretty mindblowing flexibility when it comes to cue point types. How about getting a leg up on NI and giving SSL users all they could ever wish for in the cue point department? The beatgrid is in place, lets make it happen!
PS: After reading the above, it appears I may confuse some people regarding Jump-In, Jump-Out point terminology. In my examples, the Jump-In point STARTS the edit, the Jump-Out point ENDS the end. I guess for some people, they imagine it the other way around.
