Do you auto-punch ?

[Plendakor]

When you auto-punch, do you select the region of the riff only, or do you go over a little ?
(like 1 bar before and 1 bar after the bars to punch-record).

My concern is the moment the auto-punch "punches": if you select only the the bars you need, is it always 100% reliable ?
Won't you have glitches/lags or anything in the 1st milliseconds where the recording starts?

Damn, I dunno if what I'm saying is clear lol but I was thinking about recording everything with auto-punch in Reaper (riff by riff) to manage time better when tracking.
I'm pretty sure some people will just use auto-punch all the time, right ?

 

[Torsis]

Go with a bar or so before the actual punch point ...get a running start.
Run through the end for a bit.

Edit later.

 

[Plendakor]

Yes, but why ?

 

[Deathmetal616]

For timing purposes. Most people need about 2 bars to really get into the timing of the metronome.
And also it is more natural for editing when you have to connect two different sections.

But I think your initial question was a little bit different. When you select the part you want to punch in and you have a pre-roll enabled almost any DAW will already record everything that happens in the pre-roll. So you can just pull up the clip of your recorded track and get anything from the audio if the musician played early.

So you can actually approach punch-ins just the way you or your client are/is most comfortable with.

 

[Terminus]

For crossfading, at least for me. I play a bit more than the riff needed, then I crossfade it with the preceding/succeeding riffs, it flows just like you played the whole thing. If you just recorded exactly from the start of each riff right on the grid you'd get awkward transitions.

 

[~BURNY~]

Do you mean like punching myself in the kisser?

 

[MD II]

I just set the playhead one bar before the part starts then turn on a one bar count in. I get 2 bars of silence before I start playing but no start artifacts since it records before the start. Remember it's always easier to take stuff out than add it in.

 

[JeffTD]

I set the auto-punch for just before where I think the punch should be. Pre-roll recording (2sec in my case) lets me pull back enough to catch good parts if I need to or if I fuck up and forget to enable quick-punch markers and hit 'record' late.

 

[Plendakor]

Ok but what about no pre-roll ?
When you just play, say from the begining, and the auto-punch records certain sections as you play with the playback. like this video:

 

[TRUIE]

 

[Trevoire520]

I use quickpunch in Pro Tools, so PT actually starts recording in the background as soon as you hit play, then you hit record to punch in and out but can still trim your region out of the punch point if you were early/late.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Use it all the time but I really, really, really wish Reaper would do something about auto-crossfades when snapped to grid.

I always have snap enabled so I can quickly select my punch area, but Reaper decides it wants to make a fade-out/fade-in on the grid line instead of an actual x-fade. Very annoying to have to manually go back through and slip each one.

 

[abt]

I use quickpunch in Pro Tools, so PT actually starts recording in the background as soon as you hit play, then you hit record to punch in and out but can still trim your region out of the punch point if you were early/late.

This. It's really cool actually. I have it on permanently.

 

[B36arin]

Another quickpunch user here, I love it.

 

[Plendakor]

I take it that you "quick punch" when someone else is playing right ?

Maybe I should stick to loop a region and record stacking the takes but it takes a lot more HDD space, you have to render as new item/delete the old. End up not saving that much time compared to punching.

There's probably a way to get Reaper to auto crossfade when draging clips ?

 

[B36arin]

I always use quick punch out of habit, also when I'm playing myself. I'll just punch in a bar early if I'm playing myself.

 

[bryan_kilco]

There's probably a way to get Reaper to auto crossfade when draging clips ?

As far as I know, you can Select All and sort of pull the edge of the tracks over over a bit which would leave you with all crossfades. It'd be nice if the auto-punch-time-selection feature just simply made all the fade-out/fade-in's into x-fades automatically though.

I have a problem where I will track everything and not fix all the fades as I'm tracking, then have to go through and check every single split point to make sure I'm not chopping out transients etc. Having to do that for an entire album sucks just a little.

 

[Trevoire520]

I take it that you "quick punch" when someone else is playing right ?

You can let PT automatically punch in/out of your selection too, using the pre and post roll to give you some lead time before the punch and a bit of run after it for your edits. Handy if you're recording yourself.