How to patch Audio tracks if them more then Timeline has?

I have a timeline with 1 Video and 4 audio tracks.
The source has 1 video and 8 audio channels.
I want to edit it to timeline with V1 and A3, A4 tracks only.
I switch off A1 and A2 on the timeline then edit but I get V1, A3, A4 and extra A5, A6, A7, A8 clips.
How to manage tracks to avoid edit unnecessary tracks?
When edit I want to choose what tracks I need to use next cut, because different peoples were recorded on different tracks.
What if I would have timeline with A1 only and need to edit only one track? How will I need to choose it from 8 available in the source media?

This is poor design on Resolve's part and the topic of many posts. The only way I know of to eliminate A5-A8 in your example is to modify the clip properties in the media pool to remove those channels from the clip before editing it into the timeline.

I suppose the lesser evil and more useful way will be to have additional audio tracks on timeline to have possibility viewing and switching off all source audio tracks. It's not an elegant way of course but I could flexible select all audio tracks I need

Honestly, I've just played with track patching in Resolve 19b1 with a source clip that has two stereo channels and patching is totally useless.

Imagine you start with V1/A1 tracks in timeline with the above clip selected in the media pool. Patching seems to force the A1 from the clip to the A1 of the timeline - there''s no way to force A2 of the clip to the timeline. If you add an additional audio track to the timeline you can patch either A1 or A2 from the clip to the A2 of the timeline but if you patch A2 of the clip, it sticks and there is no way to undo that and patch A1 of the clip to A2 of the timeline.

I seldom work with Resolve in this way because the patching is poor. I'm assuming 18.6.6 worked the same way.

Totally bonkers.

With clip with 2 audio channel I can patch any of them to any of the two audio tracks of the timeline.
Enable in orange A1 only - edit A1 to Audio1
Enable A2 - edit A2 to Audio2
Enable A1 and drag the orange button to the Audio2, disable A2 - edit A1 only to second track
Disable A1 and enable A2 (it was on the first track) - edit A2 to Audio1 track
Enable both A1 and A2 - edit A2 to Audio1 and A1 to Audio2
Drag A2 to A1 and you return to original - Edit A1 to Audio1 and A2 to Audio2

But there is no way to manage all the tracks if you have audio track less than tracks has source clip (((

With clip with 2 audio channel I can patch any of them to any of the two audio tracks of the timeline.
Enable in orange A1 only - edit A1 to Audio1
Enable A2 - edit A2 to Audio2
Enable A1 and drag the orange button to the Audio2, disable A2 - edit A1 only to second track
Disable A1 and enable A2 (it was on the first track) - edit A2 to Audio1 track
Enable both A1 and A2 - edit A2 to Audio1 and A1 to Audio2
Drag A2 to A1 and you return to original - Edit A1 to Audio1 and A2 to Audio2

But there is no way to manage all the tracks if you have audio track less than tracks has source clip (((

You know, I had no idea that you could drag those destinations - I always use keyboard to enable/disable destinations and then I use mouse to click on destination and select source track - but once those are assigned, I didn't realize that you could drag them around. This is brilliant! Thanks for posting this tip!

Yes - it's a total pain that you can't prevent Resolve from adding additional tracks during patching.

I didn't know too. It just worked my Avid habit. Additionally I found If click on header of audio track without orange or grey pathching button, you can choose what track of source select to this track. I think if Blackmagic could add pop-up menu with all audio track sources (like I show on the printscreen) it can solve the problem with patching hide audio tracks.

Снимок экрана 2024-05-01 в 17.27.14.png (17.22 KiB) Viewed 113 times

From manual:
"To assign the destination tracks of incoming source clips, do one of the following:
— Click the destination control of any unassigned track to enable that track as the destination.
— Drag the destination control to any unassigned track in the Timeline.
— Press Command-Shift Up Arrow and Down Arrow to move the Video destination control up and down among different video tracks, or press Command-Option Up Arrow and Down Arrow to move the Audio destination control up and down among different audio tracks.
— Press Option-1 through 8 to set a video destination, or press Option-Command-1 through 8 to set an audio destination on tracks 1 through 8.
— Press Option-Command-9 to set the audio destinations to all tracks."

Right - so this second way with the pop-up is what I use typically and that didn't work when I only had two timeline audio tracks that match my source pair of audio tracks. Your tip of dragging was the solution to the present Resolve implementation but it seems to me that pop-up should be available for all tracks.

Cheers and thanks again.