Usually I work with midi and VSTs, but today I have to do an audio-description VO job from home and I’m just not sure of the best way to do it.
So I’ve plugged my mic in and that’s all working nicely. I then create an audio track - fine.
Now I need to record about 300 shortish wavs of voiceover, ranging from 2 seconds to around 15 seconds.
Is there any way I can first use the pencil tool to draw the 300 ‘blocks’ into the audio track, setting the desired duration of each, and then hit record and have Cubase only start to record when the cursor hits one of the blocks, and then stop at the end of the block?
I’m probably describing it badly. Do you get what I mean?
That sounds kind of tedious to me. For VO, I’d just set a level, hit record and create one long file. Take some notes and then go back and tweak/edit your individual parts and export each separately as you go.
Yeah, it’s going to be tedious! Normally I use specific audio-description software from Advantage at the studio. But the studios unavailable and I need to somehow record at home for a tightish deadline.
The reason I’d quite like to draw in blocks is because while recording it’s good to be able to see visually how much time is left for each bit. Of course I can just watch the timer count up to 7.4 seconds or whatever but I find it more intuitive to follow it visually on the timeline (like in Advantage).
So is there no way to have a sequence of blocks on the audio track, set it running, and have it only record as the cursor transits the blocks?
Couldn’t you create the blocks on a separate track and use locators to part command and punch in/out at locators. Not at Daw to check but sounds feasible!
You would still be stopping between blocks though. I would just record as one part using the other track as a visual guide.
Thanks folks - I’m sure I’ll figure something out!
Another connected thing - when I’ve recorded my little chunks of audio is there a way for it to display the duration of each chunk? Either within the chunk itself of when hovering the pointer over it. I can work out the duration by measuring against a Marker Track (set to seconds - as suggested above) but it would be much quicker if there was a way to display the exact duration of each recorded chunk.
Is it possible?
Yes, just select a part and the time will show up in the info line. Trim and you’ll see that time adjust. Using a little time-compression along with editing will allow you to get it exact.
Aha! The Info Line was deactivated for some reason. Easily remedied - thanks Grim!
Now, what’s the best way of exporting a series of individual audio chunks from the same single audio track into individual wavs?
Render In Place seems to ‘render’ out the wavs separately, but there’s no way to alter the specification of the output files. And it creates an additional audio track.
Is Render In Place the best way, or is there a better method?
I record in cubase, then export one long mixdown audio file and use Amadeus Pro (on mac) to insert named markers. It will then “split by markers”. ie. save separate audio files for each clip, named (and numbered if you wish) according to the markers.
I wish Cubase did this.
re. seeing clip time while recording
If you want to see how much time you have for each clip, I guess you could build a video that showed the cues.
I assume your script shows the desired timing, so it’s probably easier just to use a stopwatch during the recording, no?