How do I align tracks?? HELP!!

welcome to the board CAFan

can you insert a click track/metronome on the VS890. In studios when they are moving tracks between equipment, the click track always becomes the key. It seems that you could record that click track alone, import it into GTP3, align it so it falls exactly on each measure marker according to the bpm of the song, and use it to align. easier said than done though, huh? Sounds like that is basically the approach you've been taking with the bass note, just a little different method.

newer equipment allows a universal "word clock" to be run between all components in a studio therefore you're always working off of one universal clock; makes aligning things much easier. i have no idea if GTP3 or the Roland have this feature.

otherwise,

I can clearly see them but I don't know how to get them aligned with eachother. I was thinking I could maybe just delete everything before the audio marker on each track so the rest of the tracks would be in sync but I don't even know how to do that. HELP!!

it seems like you'll have to get rid of everything before the tracks "start" and be left with just the moment the performence or each instrument begins on each track.

Thankfully, you can do this, but it takes a little work

1st and foremost you'll want to modify the "snap to" properties (right-click in the meter in the edit view) so you can break any given measure into 32nd notes. This way you'll get almost exactly to the point where the music of each track begins.

2nd- zoom WAY in on the beggining of where the music starts on each track, so that particular measure takes up the whole screen (it'll be easier to edit)

-"slip editing" will allow you to now delete everything up until the actual music of each track starts. Upon completion of editing each track in this manner you'll now have tracks that start at the exact moment the music does. You could, at this point, insert a blank measure to make things more managable.

Now, it seems like you could align them in this manner. This seems possible in theory, but the fact that each beginnning beat may be off a little or, more importantly, you'll be using the actual "wave" image to dicipher where each track begins, means you'll have to tweak (or move the tracks left or right in the edit view) within the measure to actually get them to be in sync with one another throughout the entire song.

It seems more possible if you were to do the above beginning with the drum track. The point at which the sound starts will be more discernable and therefore you could more comfortable rely on it as your major guide for the other tracks. get the beginning of the drum track to fall exactly on a measure (and the subsequent beats to fall on a measure as well). Need to adjust bpm in GTP3 to make this work. (obviosly)

there may be a MUCH easier way to go about what you are doing (i hope there is) but I can't think of it right now. But I do imagine it would be some variation of the above method.

BASICALLY YOU ARE LOOKING TO HAVE THE ACTUAL MUSIC OF EACH TRACK FALL EXACTLY ON A MEASURE MARKER AND THE SUBSEQUENT BEATS OF THE MUSIC TO FALL INTO LINE WITH THE REST OF THE MEASURE MARKERS.

if you're completely new at GTP3 you'll DEFINITELY want to familarize yourself with it a bit more, because what you are doing is a bit complex. Sadly, that probably means a bit of GTP3 manual reading (slip editing, inserting measures, snap to properties, etc.)

In theory recording on one set-up and editing on another sounds so simple and efficient (and is such common practice in pro studios), but I guess the particulars are a **** (as your situation points out).

let us know if this helps out at all or if I just complicated things much more for you

Can you please explain how to "slip edit"? I can't find anything in the manual about this at all.

right in the index brother "slip editing", pg 122 goes into great detail

move to front of clip recorded, the cursor will change. You can now delete front of clip to where you desire

or

can highlight meter in edit view to delete part of track you want gone. Once it shades the part of the clip you want gone, right-click, hit delete.

Make sure you're working on the correct track, don't want to delete parts of other tracks

g'luck

Not to sound really stupid but..... Can you tell me which icons I click on at the top of the edit meter? When I click on the scissors it seems like it will allow me to delete part of a track. Do I click on the scissors or the scrub icon?? Or something else??

Thanks for tolerating my ignorance.

CA Fan, i have GTPro 2. Havent used it in a while, so I will load it up and see what all it can do, then we can try to get the tracks lined up.

At any rate, i did some input recording one time from an outboard mixer. First, would help to know: what kind of USB device are you using? how many inputs can you record at once?

Let me know.

i started a new job yesterday and got swamped with work, sorry about the wait.

here's what I do: Say you have 10 tracks. Import track 1 and track 2 into separate tracks into GT Pro 2. Make sure track 1 has some distinct separation (snare or kick tracks work great). Now, import track 1 and 3 into GTP. At this point, you have two copies of track 1, track 2, and track 3. Now, take the track 1 and track 3 (just imported) and slide them until the waveforms line up on the two track 1's. It is important to slide track 3 AND track 1 at the same time. Track 1, 2, and 3 should be synced now. Do this w/ each track, always importing track 1 and a new track, then lining up the track 1 copy w/ the original track 1 and sliding the new track w/ it to sync it up.

The idea is that if you record two tracks at once, they will be in sync w/ each other, so if you can use one of these tracks as a reference, you can get tracks synced. You can even zoom in on the waveforms and make sample-accurate movements to make sure the tracks sync as closely as possible.

let me know if anything is unclear.

yea i had two inputs and pulled in 8 drum tracks from an old yamaha MD recorder, synced up great.