Hi everyone,
I’m a drummer / software dev who’s played around with Steinberg products for a decade. At best, I know only the basics of WaveLab and Cubase, enough to manipulate a waveform a bit, and create basic Cubase loops, etc. For years, I’ve been recording live performances, and exporting songs/clips from long .WAV files. I recently purchased WaveLab Elements 9.5, and I need a little help from people who understand the application better than I do.
SCENARIO: I have a live recording of me playing the drums, and I’d like to create a 4 or 8 bar loop from a portion of it. I want the loop to be seamless when repeated.
PROBLEM: I’m having difficulty creating a loop that doesn’t “pop” when repeated; I know WHY it’s happening, but I don’t know how to fix it. Also, I’m having trouble manipulating the clip to keep the tempo rock-steady. I always seem to create regions which either rush or drag the beat a bit when the loop repeats, and probably should just stretch things to even this out - but I don’t know how.
QUESTION: I’m not asking people here to tell me how to do all this. Instead, I’m looking for a good Youtube tutorial, or something like it - maybe even a web article. I found a great mastering tutorial on WL Elements 9, and it’s been super helpful for other things, but it’s obviously useless for creating clean loops from live performances.
I hope someone here can point me to a good resource on the subject, even if it’s for Cubase. Heck, if it’s for some OTHER application but goes through the concepts I need to understand, that would be great too. Thanks in advance…
One thing is to know if you’re making a WAV or mp3 of the loop. mp3 encoding can/will pad the start of the file with a few milliseconds of silence and therefor make a pop or tick.
And also, what you’re using to play the loop.
Right now there isn’t enough info about your workflow to help and I don’t know of any videos that explain this.
Right now, the raw file ( a few hours long in play-time) is .WAV. I’m intending to not encode anything - but yes, I knew about MP3/encoding artifacts.
Well, for the moment, nothing but WaveLab 
Eventually, the sliced .wav loops are going to be used on a Roland SPD-SX, though I may end up assembling them into something longer via Cubase, etc…
I appreciate your feedback.
FYI only: I record audio digitally with a Zoom H6, bring the .WAV files into Wavelab, and parse them into smaller .WAVs. Very basic. My difficulty is in getting the loops to sound seamless when repeated - even in WaveLab. The issue is typically either clipping or timing. Yes, I know to trim the waveform close to / at 0db, and I also recognize that a change in pitch from the beginning of the “loop” to the end will create an audible change upon repeat.
Sorry if this is too much info. I was really just looking for an external resource where I could learn a bit more about loop creation from a waveform. In any case, thanks Justin…
EDIT: should I be trying to do this in Cubase instead?
Seeing as you already have Cubase (although you haven’t stated what version) I’d imagine the tempo-detection tools in Cubase would make this task easier. They work well with percussive material and that should help iron out the timing issues. In general, to avoid “pops” or glitching, you should configure “snap to zero-crossing” in the sample/wave editors.
+1 it would probably be easier in Cubase. I’d advise you do a search for creating drum loops in Cubase.
Thanks to you and MrSoundman. After a bit of investigation, this is the tentative conclusion I’d come to.
I’m stick looking for a good tutorial, but I’ve found a few Youtube clips which have hinted in the right direction. So far, all I’ve found are people looping solo guitar licks, which are pretty loose with the timing - whereas percussion requires a bit more precision and fine-tuning.
Regardless, I appreciate the feedback here. Thanks again everyone.
There’s one of Steinberg’s own videos here, the online help is all here, and you might also ask over in the Cubase forums where you are likely to get more responses. If you add the details of which version of Cubase you’re using to your signature, it would help people to offer more targetted advice. You might also title your post something like “How do I create a 4 or 8 bar loop from a live drum recording?”