Melodyne is great for that purpose (moving the blobs around the grid to correct timing). But that’s not typically how I do it. I use the Cubase Editor and scissors tool, and make certain my cuts are at a zero-crossing point. Then slide the segments into place manually on the project grid/timeline. Yes, it’s tedious. Yes, if you do it enough you’ll realize the cost of doing bad takes. I delete bad takes on the second sour note (one bad one is correctible, more than that means I haven’t got the part down and must practice it before recording it). Best and ultimately quicker to learn the part and try again … rather than dealing with the necessary editing (or at least mitigating it as much as possible).
On the other hand, sometimes I fire up the rig and start recording with no plan in mind … just winging it … improvising. Lots and lots of editing later I have a piece I never would have created any other way.
Absolutely. That’s one way of capturing the happy accidents and unintended magic. Great for soloing and
improvised vocal parts. I’ll often let the whole song, or whole sections of a song loop around and I’ll improvise parts
several times in a row, then comp one great take.
As a guitarist who is also not really a bass player, here is how I usually do it. First, I practice it until my fingers bleed. Thank goodness I’m not working with tape because I would just wear it out. One more reason I love Cubase.
Then, when I think I’m ready to record, I loop it by logical section (usually a long section where there are gaps in the part) and record it over and over, say 10 times or so. If I don’t basically get it in the first couple of tries, I’ll undo the recording and start over. It can take some time depending on how complicated the part is. Or it can go fast if the part is easy.
Then I’ll go into lane mode to select the best parts (using the scissors tool) of the takes (comping). I’ll find that I’m sometimes a little off in timing in one take but better in another, so I’ll use the better timing. Often when you’re a little off, you’re a little off for a couple of measures (at least I am).
I used to do a lot of cutting and sliding, but found that I got better results faster this way. It avoids some of the crossfade artifacts. Also, I never liked stretching the bass in particular because it often didn’t sound right afterwards. And if it’s wrong notes, well, you should play it again.
For me, the trade-off is the performance vs. the timing, i.e. if I get a good performance without screwing it up too badly I’ll take it and correct the timing later.
Buzzed notes are usually fixed in Melodyne via copy-n-paste. If an entire phrase is screwed up then the performance better be effin phenomenal or I will stop it mid-recording and redo. But if it is then I’ll punch in and out.
I used to use the scissor + zero crossing method but that was extremely tedious. Then I stopped worrying about zero crossing and started using very slight overlap + crossfade and that was better. Still, you can’t beat Melodyne for convenience.
hold down a mod key and the wave “slips” inside the event. You have to turn snap off for it to work in your case. But, it has some drawbacks as well if you have connected notes.
This only works for me on basic rock stuff. Doesn’t work for poopies on jazz with deeply connected notes and chordings. Which is how I finally came up with the cut + apply timestretch approach.
I edit. Cubase has made this easy to do; it can become an art form unto itself. The midi guys and all of you that create drum tracks do it all the time in midi editor/drum editor. I record 98% audio tracks and that is where I edit.
I record live drums which give me 6 to 8 tracks/open mics to deal with and because of bleed between tracks; I edit all the drum tracks at once in the project window. Zoom to a good depth, start at the beginning of the track, cut both sides of the note or phrase, ctrl/Alt and slide into place, repeat to end of track, glue, cross-fade and when pleased with the result, bounce the track to get a fresh looking track. Other percussion instruments work well like this; tambo, shakers, etc.
Bass, guitar, keyboard, sometimes vocals I use the Sample Editor. I have found that looking at the Project Window and the Sample Editor at the same time helps to see where I am at in the song and track. My preference for setting this up is to have both open and sized to fit left to right of the screen with the Project Window in the top half and the Sample Editor in the bottom half. (Really cool on two 24”monitors) This stops them from hiding behind each other. cbase-pic.doc (376 KB)
In the Sample Editor, open AudioWarp with Free Warp on. Click on the note/wave form where you want it to be on beat and drag it there. I am not fond of Hitpoints (probably I do something wrong with it) and prefer to do this manually. Start at beginning of track and work through to end. In the beginning it was slow, but as I improved reading the wave forms and mastered the key strokes, the faster it got.
After all the tracks have been time synced, you can go back to the Project Window, set to a good zoom level, click sissor, the two axis lines will show, then run it down all the tracks looking at alignment of notes/wave forms across all tracks. You will spot the notes/waveforms out of time and be able to bring them in.
While this may not be your thing, it truly tightens up the overall sound and is very musical and don’t worry, you will not be able to do it so perfect that it sound mechanical.
