• SONAR
  • Old vs New School way to edit tracks
2016/07/17 19:22:51
meh
I have a multi-track full band recording.
In the old days I would rock the tape across the head to find my edit point.  Finding the edit point has not been working out for me.  If I'm doing MIDI where the measure numbers are lined up with the music....no problem.  But, with live audio I can't find a good way to do this.  Seems this should be one of the "bread and butter" skills that need to be gained.
 
Is there a tutorial someplace for something like this.
 
Can I sink the timing with the staff view....the band is right on time wise?
 
thanks in advance
rafone
2016/07/17 19:48:23
John
When I need to split a clip I zoom in enough to get an idea of the zero crossing point and try to split there. Also I have a Mackie Control with a jog wheel and this lets me move forward and back in the way you describe.  Jogging can be fun.
2016/07/17 20:06:24
robert_e_bone
I use zoom and look for zero crossover points as well, and do not have any jog wheel at present.
 
Bob Bone
 
2016/07/17 20:16:13
John
robert_e_bone
I use zoom and look for zero crossover points as well, and do not have any jog wheel at present.
 
Bob Bone
 


I feel for you Bob.



2016/07/17 20:16:43
Anderton
To do tape-head style scrolling with audio, hold "J" (as in "Jog Wheel") while moving the now time in the timeline. This will get you close; then if you want to be really precise, you can inspect the waveform itself.
 
2016/07/18 00:17:31
Cactus Music
The biggest problem with a multi track split is that the zero crossing will not be the same on each track. So cutting and pasting a whole song can go sideways on you. 
My solution is to master the song and then cut and paste parts working with the stereo wave file. 
My wave editor seems to automaticly find zero crossing of stereo tracks as long as I'm close. 
2016/07/18 07:18:21
patm300e
meh
Can I sink the timing with the staff view....the band is right on time wise?
 

There is a feature called Sync Improvisation (At least I think that is what it is called).
Essentially it is linking project tempo to Audio. One of the videos at Groove3 covered this.
What he did was to play a MIDI instrument in time with the music.  Then using that he set the project tempo to the audio.
 
You can also link up an audio track to provide Project Tempo.  Details here:
http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=AudioSnap.06.html
 
Then you can use Quantize to fix issues.
 
2016/07/18 10:38:41
bitflipper
Whichever method you choose, you will probably want to start by designating one track as the master reference. Usually, that will be a drum track.
 
When I've done this in the past I've used the kick drum, which, even if it's not on its own track is usually the most reliable reference. If all you have is a single drum track, you can clone it and filter out all but the lowest frequencies. That will allow you to generate a corresponding MIDI track that follows the kick drum. There will be some spurious hits in there but they can be manually edited out.
 
If for some reason that method isn't possible (e.g. there is no drum track) then you can record a MIDI track by manually playing along with the recording. The idea is to end up with a track that SONAR can easily line up its tempo map to.
 
Once you have a timeline that matches your reference track, you can now easily jump to a particular beat and see which tracks are ahead of it, behind it, or close enough to it. Bear in mind that not every beat that's not exactly on the mark needs correction - remembering that will save you a lot of grief because every edit has the potential to make things worse, not better.
 
Once I have a guide, the next step is to determine where the most noticeable timing errors are and whether cut-and-nudge or AudioSnap is the best way to correct each of them. I'll usually cut the tracks up into sections, e.g. intro, verses, choruses and significant cues. It's important to cut each track individually. For sparse tracks, look for silences for a place to cut. Even dense tracks will have quieter moments where a cut can be made with minimal interruption that might be noticed. Be sure to use short fades on each side of the cut, which will eliminate the need to find a zero-crossing (still a good idea though).
 
Next, I classify clips into one of three categories: good-enough-don't-touch, slightly-off-minor-tweaks, and what-were-they-thinking. For the first category, I fight the urge to make everything perfect and leave them alone. For the second category, AudioSnap works well for anything with identifiable transients (drums, percussion, bass, vocals) and I prefer to try that method first. If AudioSnap can't isolate transients, or if the timing errors are so far off that A/S can't render edits transparently, then it's cut-and-nudge.
 
There have been cases where all the above just wasn't practical, e.g. the drummer was apparently playing a different song than the rest of the band. If that happens, ask yourself just how much effort you're willing to put into the project. No matter what, it's always do-able, but you'd better be being paid by the hour.
2016/07/18 16:15:23
meh
bitflipper
When I've done this in the past I've used the kick drum, which, even if it's not on its own track is usually the most reliable reference. If all you have is a single drum track, you can clone it and filter out all but the lowest frequencies. That will allow you to generate a corresponding MIDI track that follows the kick drum. There will be some spurious hits in there but they can be manually edited out.

Thanks bitflipper!
2016/07/18 16:46:35
THambrecht
We digitaze and restore thousends of vinyl and tapes for customers - We split and edit the whole day.
I go with the cursor (Nowtime marker) one half second before the edit point and play it.
During playback I remember with my eyes the exact edit point, stop playback and go to this point.
In the most cases I can "hear" what I see on the screen without playing it.
The drawing of the audio gives you the exact edit point - if you learn to hear what you see.
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