Please explain why (a) splitting a range of an audio track differs from (b) splitting+bouncing+replacing the same range of audio–for purposes of creating a smaller segment of audio for VariAudio to analyze.
I am new to using VariAudio while editing, and soon discovered I need to split audio tracks into smaller segments to speed up the analysis process. I tried to simply first split the range of audio, then double-click that reduced-size segment to open it in the Editor to start VariAudio analysis. But that does not speed up the process. I seems just splitting the audio and opening the newly-created small range is ignored by VariAudio, which analyzes the entire (unsplit) audio track–which is impossibly slow and invariably Cubase stops responding. In fact, I could not get VariAudio to work at all on larger audio tracks.
After much online research, I read that after splitting, you need to then bounce the split segment if you want VariAudio to analyze just the small segment you created.
I’d appreciate any explanation you folks could share for this. The Cubase 12 help documentation does not mention the need for the extra step of bouncing the split range. (Note to Steinberg: add this to the help documentation for VariAudio). For many tasks in Cubase, just splitting a range of audio without bouncing gets the job done. For example, creating smaller sections of audio to which to apply AudioWarp, volume changes, fades–those work without first bouncing. What is different about VariAudio?
Cubase works with Parts and Events.
When we talk about Audio, you can have a “raw” event on an Audio Track. The Event is mostly synonymous with the actual audio recording or .wav file, if you will.
If you perform an operation such as splitting the Event, Cubase encapsulates the Audio Event in Audio Parts. (You can tell by the border in the Part vs the Event.)
An Audio Part references an Audio Event, meaning there is still only one audio file being used with potentially multiple “references” to it in the form of Parts.
Bouncing an Audio Part creates a new Audio Event.
Mystery solved. You succinctly and clearly explained it–and helped me understand the meaning of “Parts” and “Events.” Your explanation will really help me get the most out of Cubase. Wow, thanks so much!
I am not sure this is actually the correct reply.
Cubase works with audio files, clips, events, regions and parts.
An audio event, that can be seen in the project view, is a reference to an audio clip. The clip itself refers to one or more audio files.
If you use VariAudio it seems to analyze the entire clip length, not just the bit that is the event. So, adjusting the event length doesn’t have any effect on the time it takes to analyze the audio as the clip has the same length as before.
If you then perform a split and bounce you will effectively create a new audio file and a new audio clip, which will have the length of the split event.
If you then open VariAudio it will not take as much time to analyze as it analyzes a rather short clip.
Maybe this helps in growing some understanding how Cubase works:
Hi Johnny, Thank you very much for entering the thread to clear this up! The background reading and chart you embedded were extremely helpful.
Steinberg’s terminology is a bit confusing–even more confusing than using Cubase! Still, I realize that, to get the most out of Cubase, it’s important to learn and understand the names of things.