Audiowarp. Can it be used to quantize?

Cubase
#1

hi,
i have not used Audiowarp to much before and was wondering if i could use it to quantize a monophonic track to the grid. Here is the senario…

i have an 11 track drum part i just finished editing via the new multitrack editing capabilities (which is a huge time saver for me and works pretty well). i now have a bass part i would also like to align to the grid using hitpoints or warp tabs i suppose? i want to basically do the same thing i did to the drums but without cutting and crossfading. i want to stretch and shrink the individual notes to have better time alignment. i know how to do this maually (moving individual tabs) but would like to create tabs, hit a button and have the bass guitar realign automatically to the grid at which point i could manually fix the few spots that will inevitably be a bit off. if it is possible, how would one go about this?

cheers,
dean

#2

Yep… See Audio Warp Quantize on page 110 of the ops manual.

However there are a few things to consider:

  1. a bass guitar may sound better not playing dead on the beat so you may mess up the feel by quantizing…manual freewarping by ear may be better. (Make sure you select elastic pro algo first)

  2. The timestretching quality for basstended towards awful in C5…much better in C6 with elastic pro but if anything will show artifacts, it’s the bass guitar so listen out for warbling or unwanted tonal changes & if problematic avoid using warping & slice & move notes/sections instead.

#3

hey Grim, thanks for the response.
ya, i really had not used any sort of timestretch in the past (except for maybe a very small stretch to align two vocal tracks) because it really didn’t sound good (i.e. the warbling you mentioned). the new elastique sounds much better and i want to investigate further. i currently made a copy of a clients project to really mess around with the new audio features (multitrack quantizing) to see how they work. the drums and bass were recorded simultaneously by two extremely good players so the editing is really not necessary in this case but was looking ahead to future projects. i might need to fix a note here or there on my current project so this feature i mention is not really necessary at the moment. i do however have a younger band recording a full record in about a month who is actually pretty good for their age and style of music but might want to do a bit more ‘tightening up’ of things. i think the bass parts will be pretty straight forward and played decently so a small, overall quantizing of his part may be in order. i find that if the drums and bass gtr are extremely tight on rock productions then the other elements can do just about anything and it will still sound pretty good (obviously they can’t be played horribly).
so back to my original question. is there a way to set hitpoints on a bass track and snap to grid without cutting and crossfading which would basically be using Audiowarp (correct me if i am wrong if Audiowarp is not the proper way of doing this). also, with elastique, what are the ‘formant’ options all about?

cheers,
dean

#4

so back to my original question. is there a way to set hitpoints on a bass track and snap to grid without cutting and crossfading which would basically be using Audiowarp (correct me if i am wrong if Audiowarp is not the proper way of doing this).

My original answer to your original question stands with the proviso that hitpoint detection will not work as well on bass as on drums.

Yep… See Audio Warp Quantize on page 110 of the ops manual

But I urge you to also search Freewarp in the manual & have a play with manually pulling the bassline around.

also, with elastique, what are the ‘formant’ options all about

Not exactly sure how it affects timestretching or warping…with pitch shifting, formant correction will attempt to keep the same timbre to the voice. Try them out but I’d guess for bass & minimal stretching elastic pro with no formant is best option.

#5

hey grim,
thanks again for the reply. i am not really asking about getting proper hitpoints. i got that covered. i realize a bass is not as accurate as a drum but i can get the hitpoints to work with a little love. i have been doing freewarp and that is at the core of my question. i don’t want to freewarp everything. i am glad its there and will be using it a lot for aligning things, in particular vocal phrases.
i want a overall warping quantize. lets say the bass part is playing straight eighth notes. easy to align to a grid once i have the hitpoints set properly. a bright bass tone, played with a pick and recorded direct produces good enough transients to get accurate hitpoints with just a few corrections. instead of freewarping everything, i want to set hitpoints, set a grid value (1/8th), and hit a quantize button. that is what i am looking for.
hope that makes sense. i appreciate your response and as i said, i know of and use freewarp, its just not what i am looking for in this situation. if you know more of what i am asking for, i would really appreciate any info.

thanks a bunch!
dean

#6

I do know exactly what you are asking for & my very first post told you what it is called & where in the manual it is explained (as did my last post)…so here for the third (& final) time all in caps & bold so you surely can’t miss it:

:open_mouth: