I’m building a set of macros to make editing dialogue more efficient, and one of the common tasks is splitting an event and scooting the one on the right forward or backward to adjust the timing of a phrase.
I’d like to be able to do something along these lines:
Split at cursor
Select previous event to determine the end time
Move to the next event, and set the start time to previous end time plus 1 second
It’s easy enough to navigate between events, but I’m stumped at the point of trying to get event start / end times, or a way to move the second event relative to the first. I might be thinking about this with the wrong set of steps in mind, so I’d be grateful for any suggestions on how to accomplish this.
I was actually talking about creating macros rather than using the logical editor, but now that you mention it I wonder if there’s some kind of voodoo I could perform with the LE to move me in that direction.
Is there any kind of “space events every x seconds” or something like that? If so I might be able to select two events and do it in that manner.
One of the things I’m struggling with is how to programmatically (macro / le) select a given event. If I could do that I think your approach might have legs.
I assume you have to manually select the cut point. If you manually select the Event prior to the cut, after the cut the 2nd section (the one you want to move) will be selected. There are Key Commands to move the selection (i.e. what is selected) forward and backwards.
Try this
Select the Audio Event
Put Cursor at cut point
Use Split at Cursor (Alt+X)
Run the PLE below
Notice that the moved Event remains Selected so you can start at step 2 for the next cut. Steps 3 & 4 could be combined into a Macro.
Works as advertised, but the thing I can’t seem to find is how to bind an LE preset to a keystroke. If I have to manually open the LE, select the preset and apply it, it’s faster to just drag the event with the mouse.
Is there a way to bind a logical editor preset to a key command?
Yes, that was what I tried to do last night. Most macros are pretty straightforward, but in searching through the commands I couldn’t find an entry to execute a PLE preset. Could you tell me what section it’s in and how to accomplish it?
There’s no need to use a Macro to assign a Key Command to a PLE Preset. You can assign the Key Command directly.
Also, to clarify the terms being used (and misused). This discussion is about using the Project Logical Editor (PLE) and not the Logical Editor (LE) which is for manipulating MIDI Data. The PLE is used to manipulate various elements within a Project (e.g. Tracks, Colors, Parts, etc.).
And yeah, I was tripping over myself a bit last night trying to figure out why the LE was greyed out before realizing that the PLE was a completely different thing.
Just wanted to follow up after putting this into practice. It made a huge difference in my workflow.
My method of tracking on a 2500 word podcast is to record one sentence at a time, redoing it when necessary. In the editing phase, I start with raw dialogue and then do a detect and remove silence operation. From there I snip out the bad takes and extraneous noises, which leaves me with a large collection of events typically one sentence in length.
Next comes a pass to get the timing right between the sentences, which was exceedingly tedious and why I was looking for macro help. However, Set Spacer works a treat. I talk in a consistent meter, so once I found the right space (.4 seconds in this case), the overwhelming majority of events didn’t need any additional tweaking.
Thanks very much for this tip, man. Every day is a school day.
