I’m working on a dialog project with thousands of files that need to be chopped up and have 1 sec paddings added to them on both sides (front and back). So far I’ve had success with the Detect Silence function in Cubase, but I still haven’t found a quick way to add a 1 sec pad (front and back) to each file. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that I have found ways to do it, but they either take WAY too long (i.e. using cycle markers is just not very efficient with the sheer amount of files I’m dealing with) or they output files in stereo when they are mono (i.e. using the export selected events function outputs stereo files even if I select “Dry”. All the files are mono and the channels are set to “mono”).
So far the only fast way to add a 1 sec pad to the front of multiple files that I can think of is to re-import the chopped up files to the project (once I’ve done the delete silence process) as separate tracks, select them and move them in the timeline by 1 second, BUT I believe that would screw up the ends since they are all different lengths. Or does Cubase automatically detect the endings of each clip on separate tracks if a cycle is not defined? I have to test that tomorrow (unless someone knows the answer to that, please).
However, I haven’t found a way to add 1 sec of time to the tails. The only way I know how is to use export selected events, which does give the option to add a pad of any length to the ends, but like I said, it bounces them in stereo even when the track is set to “mono” and the files themselves are mono.
Anyway, if anyone knows a way to achieve this more efficiently, I would REALLY appreciate it. I have been trying to figure this out for a couple of days and I’m just not coming up with an elegant solution that’s FAST (that’s paramount). Any help would be greatly appreciated .
Actually, I’m drowning myself in a glass of water. I’ll just process the files in stereo and then split them into mono. Done! I wish Cubase had a simple way to pad both ends of an audio file in one step, but alas.
BTW, I took a quick Look at FFMPEG, but it seems that the scripts need to include the name of each file in order to work. Like I said, I have thousands of files to process, so I was hoping it would be a simple drag and drop. Or am I missing something? I know about this program, but I’ve never really used it.
Sorry, but since I don’t do massive batch processing on a regular basis, I don’t have remembered all of the myriads of FFMPEG commands and parameters, but if I was in your situation I’d find it worthwhile using Google or your favourite chat AI assistant to find out how to process all files in folder/directory.
Using Cubase for massive simple batch processing strikes me as using a screwdriver to deal with thousands of nails.
Unless I have stumbled upon a bug, this way of exporting should respect the channel settings, especially when selecting the first two options (which don’t include busses).
I know Cubase is not ideal for this job, but I needed something quick. The method I’ll be using is clunky, for sure, but it’s quick. That’s what’s most important to me right now. I don’t have time to keep searching for a solution (unless is cheap and stupid easy), or to learn another software. I need to start working on it ASAP!!
In any case, again, thanks for the suggestion. I did look into it, but the scripts I found didn’t seem easy to set up for the amount of files I need to process, since I had to include the names of each file in the script. By the time I finish doing that I’m already done in Cubase.
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