I've recorded an acoustic part that is straight 1/16 note finger picking.  I let the notes ring out...no muting.  A few of the notes are off time throughout.  I tried moving the transients to fix the issue.  The result is great timing, however, now the track sounds strange.  There are a few low level pops here and there and the whole track seems to have a lo-fi quality to it along with a slightly hollow sound and artifacts...processed.
 
So, how would you guys handle this short of re-recording the part?

I would re-record the part, unless I was selling my stuff as data instead of music.

 Not a guru here.  I stretch only as a last resort. If you move the transients instead you may find a much more transparent result.  I first do an auto quantize to see if a pattern of all right or left pointing arrows are there and a good bit of the time a nudge left or right of the entire track is all that's needed. In that case I undo the quantize and nudge. After I find the spot that most of the transients are falling where they should I go to work auditioning and placing the others. By moving as much as possible. You will not get the dead accurate results with moving unless it's real close though.

 As far as the track you have now. if you have a back-up of the original performance you can start over. If not and you have artifacts and clicks you can get them out of the way to be cropped with AS but if you mangled and you are looking to un-mangle it would be far easier and less tedious building a ship in a bottle.
 I tried to un mangle an acoustic fingerpick track. Didn't take me long to figure out it was much easier to just do it over. Good luck

 I made a copy of the original first so that I could experiment.

A few things can cause this:

1 - Using automatic quantise - it can make mistakes and shift things in the wrong direction
2 - Not rendering to the offline version - the real-time playback quality is much less than when you bounce the track. This is because the cpu use is VERY intensive. It's very complex algorithm which can't be run real-time, so a simple version is used for online rendering.
3 - Not disabling all markers that aren't on a transient - sometimes audiosnap gets it wrong and picks something up that isn't a transient, or isn't exactly right. This can sometimes screw with rendering, but more in conjunction with quantising. If it's not on a transient, it SHOULD BE DISABLED. Audiosnap is actually a very manually intensive tool. The auto function gets you 80-90% of the way, but you almost always need a decent amount of manual tweaking to get a great end result. It does take time to learn and understand it to get effective results. It's not a magic tool.

I have successfully used AudioSnap on acoustic guitar. However, it takes some finesse and doesn't always come off with the desired transparency, especially if the guitar is the featured instrument. 

In one case, I AudioSnapped the whole rest of the band to the acoustic guitar instead of editing the guitar. The timing was still off, but because everybody was hitting it together it sounded like some advanced syncopation. Like we used to say, "if you make a mistake, do it again; if you repeat it the audience will think it's jazz."

mattplaysguitar


A few things can cause this:

1 - Using automatic quantise - it can make mistakes and shift things in the wrong direction
2 - Not rendering to the offline version - the real-time playback quality is much less than when you bounce the track. This is because the cpu use is VERY intensive. It's very complex algorithm which can't be run real-time, so a simple version is used for online rendering.
3 - Not disabling all markers that aren't on a transient - sometimes audiosnap gets it wrong and picks something up that isn't a transient, or isn't exactly right. This can sometimes screw with rendering, but more in conjunction with quantising. If it's not on a transient, it SHOULD BE DISABLED. Audiosnap is actually a very manually intensive tool. The auto function gets you 80-90% of the way, but you almost always need a decent amount of manual tweaking to get a great end result. It does take time to learn and understand it to get effective results. It's not a magic tool.

Thanks...those items seem reasonable.  Can you provide a step by step process?  Do I turn on transients and adjust them first or do I turn on audiosnap first.  Exactly what are the steps that you would use and in what order?  Also, when you say "render" do you mean bounce to clip?

bitflipper


I have successfully used AudioSnap on acoustic guitar. However, it takes some finesse and doesn't always come off with the desired transparency, especially if the guitar is the featured instrument. 

In one case, I AudioSnapped the whole rest of the band to the acoustic guitar instead of editing the guitar. The timing was still off, but because everybody was hitting it together it sounded like some advanced syncopation. Like we used to say, "if you make a mistake, do it again; if you repeat it the audience will think it's jazz."

Yeah, not really an option is this case.  This finger picking is 1/16 notes played evenly.  There are random notes that are off time at random intervals by random amounts.  My finger picking timing absolutely sucks.  I'm hoping audiosnap will fix the issue.  If not I'll have to go back and re-record and try, try, try again to get each 1/16 note to hit on time for 16 measures...for me that's a big task.

Smart move to save the original first. So make another copy of this track to do what I am advising you in the discourse below..... just in case..... 

So, on the new copy....... listen carefully and mark down the places that need fixing. 

Enable punch in punch out...... zoom in to the track to split the track into a clip that will be replaced. highlight the clip and place your split points precisely between notes and same thing on the back side of the clip.... where it ends.  highlight the clip and delete the audio in the clip (this is how I do it) 

Now... play through the part a few times until you get it right. Now turn on the punch in punch out and set the punch point exactly to the clip.  hit record and play the part. 

Listen to the playback. If it's correct.... move to the next bad timing part and repeat the process. If it is still not right...delete the clip and repeat the recording as many times as is needed to get a good take that satisfies you. 

This is my preferred method for "fixing" a bad guitar take. I don't like to try to fix timing issues with melodyne or anything else. nothing works as good as a good take. And using auto punch will let you get that good take... even if it takes multiple attempts to do so..... it's not like a billable hour clock is running on the session.  I always delete the bad re-takes since I don't want them anyhow. I know I can play the part perfectly....so I keep going until I do. 

The end result is that the part is perfect and you hear no weird artifacts or pops. 

Another option on this is to record the audio to fix the bad timing places in a new track..... you can still punch in and out if you like and then use audio envelopes to silence the old parts and bring in the new.  Again.... the end result is the listener will not know it is on multiple tracks. I have also used this method.


auto punch is a life saver, and is the best way to fix a few minor mistakes in a track. 

amiller


I've recorded an acoustic part that is straight 1/16 note finger picking.  I let the notes ring out...no muting.  A few of the notes are off time throughout.  I tried moving the transients to fix the issue.  The result is great timing, however, now the track sounds strange.  There are a few low level pops here and there and the whole track seems to have a lo-fi quality to it along with a slightly hollow sound and artifacts...processed.
 
So, how would you guys handle this short of re-recording the part?

 
 
If you are having no success at this, and would like some help,  I would be willing to do it for you.....the audio snap thing.....just PM me and we can go from there
 
Clifford