While Folder Tracks are a great way to visually organize, edit and route multiple tracks – especially in large sessions, Groups can be useful to group multiple tracks together so that any edits done to an Event on one track in the group are automatically done to all Events for each track in that group – without adding another track in the Tracks List. The question may arise “Ok, but I can edit all events in a Folder Track as well, right?” My answer would be “Yes, thats true. Grouping is just a different workflow and might suit some users better than Folder Tracks.”
Ok, lets dive in and have a look, shall we?
Edit Groups
For example, you may wish to group all of your percussion or drum tracks together so that when the events are cut and moved, the relative timing between the tracks remains intact.
Here is how:
- Select multiple Tracks/Console Channels you want to group.
- [Secondary]/[Control]-click on any of the previously selected Tracks/Console Channels.
- Choose Group Selected Tracks from the pop-up menu (context menu).
When quantizing or slicing multitrack audio, it is important that all edits are performed across every track in a way that preserves the phase relationships. This is referred to as phase-coherent editing. In Studio One, all that is required to ensure this happens is for the tracks to be grouped. Once the tracks are grouped, Studio One takes care of phase coherence for you.
All the tracks will now be part of a new Edit Group. While Edit Groups are automatically named based on the order they are created and shown as Group 1, Group 2 and so on, you can easily rename them via the Edit Group selector box below the track name (adjust your track height if you can’t see that!). Have a look at the “Rename Group” .gif animation.
To rename a Group
- Navigate to the Edit Group selector box (adjust your track height if you can’t see that!) or the Track inspector.
- Choose Rename Group.
- Enter a name for the Group and hit [Enter] or click OK.
You can always add tracks to existing Groups
Add Tracks to Group – Arrange View
- Navigate to the Edit Group selector box (adjust your track height if you can’t see that!) and click it.
- Choose the Group name of choice like “perc”.
Certain actions like muting, soloing, and splitting events can be performed on a track within an Edit Group, without affecting the group as a whole, by temporarily suspending the group. If you want to temporarily suspend an existing Group just hold [alt]/[option] on your computer keyboard while performing an action on the track.
To dissolve or un-group an existing Group
- select the grouped Tracks/Console Channels.
- [Secondary]/[control] – click on any of the selected Tracks/Console Channels.
- Choose Dissolve Group from the pop-up menu (context menu) or use the corresponding Keyboard Shortcut.
Keep in mind: If you dissolve a Group the name of the Group will vanish!
Here a last quick reference from the Studio One manual
When a channel is placed in a Group, its fader will be linked to the faders for all other Tracks in the Group, so that all of the faders will move when any of them is moved. The movement of faders in the Group will be relative to one another, maintaining the correct dB value relationships among the faders. Note that Channel Pan is not affected by grouping, as channels within a group are very often panned separately.
Solo, Mute, Record Enable, and Monitor Enable controls will also be linked for all channels in a Group. No other aspect of the channel in the Console is affected by grouping.
Instrument Tracks in the Arrange view have no direct representation in the Console. The audio outputs of the virtual instruments to which they are routed will have channels in the Console. It should be noted, however, that grouping Instrument Tracks in the Arrange view only affects editing those Tracks and has no effect on the Instrument Channels for the virtual-instrument audio outputs.
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