thanks for this, dave. interesting. unfortunately, the items in question were brought into the project via omf, which, while it does keep the main name intact, also appends a number to the end of each, effectively making each name unique and rendering it unidentifiable to this process. i was a little concerned about the somewhat global application of these processes, too. i wasn't able to test how they work relative to a time selection because of the unique naming of my items. i wouldn't necessarily want all of the items or takes affected, just those i've selected, either by item selection or time selection. good to know about for other projects, though. thanks again, BabaG