Beat Detective After Guitars are tracked

[Grave Desire]

I was given a project after guitars have been tracked and have been asked to track the vocals and extra stuff..then mix. I was kind of bummed when I got the project with alot of the timing issues..and I'd like to use beat detective to fix it up.

I'd consider myself OK at beat detective..but i've never had to use it when the guitars have already been tracked..there are no DI's so All I have is the Distorted tracks..which don't have much transient material.

So what I did was use the close mics to generate Beat Markers..then Shift click the regions for the overhead's..then the guitars also. Then I conformed, fill and faded. The timing is way better now, but with the guitars.. especially when they are solo'd..I hear few weird noises(not clicks that come from bad fades). I'm pretty sure this came from using the Fill and fade on the guitars.

I mean the final results are OK and it's not too noticeable in the mix, but I'd hope to not have to settle for what I got now.

Just curious to see if you guys have any tricks or better ideas to help me out.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I have personally never tried it (with the mentality that it can't be done ) but maybe someone else can help.

 

[deLuther]

I tried myself fixing recorded distorted track in that way, but with nuendo`s warp sample feature - in that case there is no need to cut tracks - just aligning to grid, so no fades. Maybe protools have something similar - I believe M-Powered version 7.4 has it (from specifications)?

 

[Grave Desire]

Thats right..they do have the elastic audio feature now in 7.4 I'll have to check that out...thanks!

 

[C_F_H_13]

If EA doesn't work for you, here's some tips for BD'ing guitars and other stuff. These are only my opinions so YMMV.

Don't BD drums and guitars together...it'll take way longer, but do them separately. Guitars need WAY DIFFERENT fades then drums, and the way to fix there timing is a little different.

The best way I've found to BD guitars with no DIs, is to use the scrubber tool and find the spot prior to the note where the pick first hits the string. The waveform will look a little distorted so eventually you should be able to eyeball them. Then manually put in the markers, so I'm not using the sensitivity slider at all. Once they're cut, quantize, then go to consolidate and JUST FILL...no fades yet.

Listen to the guitar tracks in solo and listen for cut off notes, or repeated notes, fix these errors first....then re consolidate with fades after all these little flubs are fixed. I like longer fades for guitar (7-10ms) cause I don't want abrubt changes in the modulation....this is probably the wierd sounds you're hearing.

If there is some fade/section that just sounds brutal no matter what you do, try to put the fade on a note value. I can't explain why, but errors are far less noticable if they happen in time with the music...seriously I know it sounds ridiculous but try it. Even better if you can hide it under something....

hope this helps