Question Re: Hit Points, Audio Quantize

Cubase
#1

I don’t wanna sound like a grouser but I just have never been able to use the whole audio quantize thing. Perhaps someone can tell me what I’m doing wrong.

My understanding is that (more or less) you

  1. Open the Sample Editor
  2. Hit the Hit Point ‘flying arrow’
  3. It ‘detects’ the hit points
  4. You tell it to slice into ‘Events’

and then… you hit ‘Q’ and presto… proper alignment.

My issues/challenges are:

  1. The ‘detection’ isn’t always reliable… and I can’t figure out -why-. Sometimes, it gets the transients spot on (mostly). But often? It doesn’t. Some transients are properly detected and some… not. Or, they are there but not ‘activated’. Or, they are there but the detected hitpoint misses the transient. And when it misses the mark, I can’t see why… it will get one transient fine, but the next one… which is the same amplitude… isn’t caught. And again, when it gets the position wrong, I can’t figure out -why-?
    SO: How does one make the detection
    a) so that all detected hitpoints are ‘activated’?
    b) minimize the incorrectly placed hits

  2. After it detects the hits, I thought it would auto-magically apply some sort of x-fading but it doesn’t. Is that correct? Are you supposed to just grab all the events and then x-fade them en masse?

Any help would be most appreciated. I don’t use this too often, but when I need it (a whole track that is poorly played… I NEED IT! :smiley: )

TIA,

—JC

#2

The algorithm isn’t perfect, so sometimes you’re going to have to go in and correct the hitpoints manually. Use the hitpoint slider to get as close as possible to what you want, and then edit manually. Click on the small triangle marker of a de-activated hitpoint to activate it, or move, lock, de-activate active hitpoints as required.

That is correct, it is not automatic. If you have sliced the event, you may need to apply crossfades to all the resulting events, depending on the nature of the material. Alternatively, you can activate auto-fades for the track with a very short fade in / out. Sometimes, you might use close gaps instead.

If I have understood correctly that you are using hitpoint creation followed by create events or create slices here, you might like to consider audio warping as an alternative. That is a whole different subject.

#3

Thanks for your reply.

I haven’t messed much with AudioWarp simply because hit points seems to try to do automatically what I’ve always quite happily done ‘manually’. IOW: if the -detection- were more reliable (ie. ‘intelligent’) it would save me oodles of time. But I cannot for the life of me figure out why some transients -are- detected and some aren’t. If I knew the ‘algorithm’ I might like it better but as it is I have no way to predict. And when it -doesn’t- ‘guess’ properly, it’s far more trouble than it’s worth.

—JC