Drums Multi Track Editing Workaround Nuendo/Cubase

[dcb]

hey there, just found a great way "emulate" elastic time from pro tools for multi track drums in nuendo / Cubase.

hope this helps, i know its not that new, but i havent found it around here, so i thought i should share this with you.

problem:
i was looking for ways to quantize and edit drums of course without any phase issues or having to deal with a billion cuts.so i recently discovered that there is actually a way to use the great sample editors "audio warp" of nuendo/cubase with 10 Channel Files (Surround File).
So you can apply audio warp to one file containing 10 tracks.

how to?

1. Press F4, go to outputs and make a new surroundoutput (10.2)
2. Route all your drumtracks to that output (Kick goes to 10.2 L, Snare Top goes to 10.2 R, Snare Bottom goes to 10.2 Center and so on...)
3. Export the part you want to edit/quantize etc. and choose
your 10.2 output and N-CHANNELS INTERLEAVED as wave (32 bit, 44 khz or whatever you use)
4. Import the newly created file again into nuendo
5. double klick that file et voila : there is the sample editor for all 10 tracks
6. i hope you know how to use the warp tool etc. its actually very easy
the great thing is, that all your files are equally warped/sliced. so once again: no phase issues!
7. after your done choose audio>realtime processing>flatten timestretch and transpose . this creates a new multichannel file in you projectfolder.
8. now reimport this new multichannel file, choose SPLIT anddd:

there you go.
you just made a tight drummer out of someone completely talentless

hope that helps. i'm just getting started with this. i will post some clips when i have some great results.

so how do you guys do multitrack editing ?

 

[felipe-x]

sweet ! going to try it on the proyect im working on!

 

[brandy]

Yea - this is possible since a couple of years (AFAIK since Nuendo V3 or even later V2.x versions) - but I never tried it out cause I usually dislike the artefacts of timestreching on cymbals. But please tell us about your results!!

Brandy

 

[The-Zeronaut]

if someone do a video of this
he will be my hero.

 

[brandy]

Its easy - just do it like dcb explained. Watching a vid should take longer then doing a surround-bounce/export to a n-channel split file with the option enabled "import to new track". Then just doubleclick to open the sample editor and then warp like crazy How to use the audiowarp, just check in the manual, it is easy.

 

[HeadCrusher]

there was also another article with some sort of diy beat detective for cubase but i can't seem to find it atm.

 

[deathtotaliban]

alright, so I just did all the timewarp, only 1 problem....there is no option under realtime processing called "flatten timestrech and trasnpose", what should I do instead? Thanks for any help!

 

[darthjujuu]

+1 on this, when i was in cubase-land (before switching to reaper) I had no methods of drum editing all besides editing by hand and time stretching and whatnot. curious to see what other methods people have come up with.

 

[musickey]

 

[HandsOfDespair]

+1 on this, when i was in cubase-land (before switching to reaper) I had no methods of drum editing all besides editing by hand and time stretching and whatnot. curious to see what other methods people have come up with.

I just manually cut to transient each kick + snare hits, on the drums group track, then quantize and crosse fade. This way it's not 100% perfect and robotic, but a lot tighter than. Takes me approximatively 3 hours by song. And I enjoy doing this

 

[Plec]

I also used to sit about 30-40 hours editing drums on an album in Cubase. Then I was showed how to work with PT and Beat Detective properly, now I do the same amount of work in 5-6 hours with better results and that is including the time it takes to export/import tracks between Cubase and PT. You can quantize parts how much you like between 1-100% so just because you quantize whole parts with BD doesn't make it sound robotic unless you want to do that. There is still no replacement for BD IMO, you save sooo much time with it it's close to invaluable. What used to take a week, now takes a day, max! Awesome tip though DCB!

 

[Ermz]

^ +11111

Just get PT and use BD. Time-stretching on drums sounds really bad unless you're quantizing the most basic of rock/pop beats. PTLE paid itself off for me within days given how much time I saved with editing.

 

[darthjujuu]

ermz, is that with the single track BD? or did you invest in MPTK?

 

[dcb]

i'm actually not using that method anymore.

i do it like most people now :

1. group drums
2. work my way through the song, cutting the whole group
at transients (mostly kick, snare, toms, sometimes hihat),
3. hit "q" to quantize the new "slice of drums"
4. if there is a gap, i cut the quantized "slice of drums" >> and cut again after the transient.
5. timestretch to close the gap.

also : i never use manual crossfades. i leave "auto crossfades" on, saves me a lot
of time, just make sure, audio overlaps, and cubase will do the rest for you.

if the drummer is great, and there is only pocketing to be done takes me :
2 h

if the drummer is really bad : 8 h

i dont think that beat detective would save me time, as there happen to be so many special cases (like slightly off kick/snares), that need to be fixed manually.

 

[denizdurdag]

And I enjoy doing this

 

[Ermz]

i dont think that beat detective would save me time, as there happen to be so many special cases (like slightly off kick/snares), that need to be fixed manually.

When I edit with BD, if the drummer is really bad usually 3-4 hours. Decent drummer every hit done to the grid is 1 to 2. Make of that what you will.

@darthjujuu: I do it both ways, but now I mostly use BD. Actually even without the MPTK you can still edit really fast just using tab to transient and quantize. There are some parts that BD just won't cut properly so I go into those by hand. You really don't lose all that much time because PT is so fluid.

 

[brianhood]

Actually even without the MPTK you can still edit really fast just using tab to transient and quantize.

+1 on this. I use a keyboard with programmable macros on it, and i can quantize a standard 3 1/2 minute in 1-2 hours tops.

 

[darthjujuu]

Actually even without the MPTK you can still edit really fast just using tab to transient and quantize. There are some parts that BD just won't cut properly so I go into those by hand. You really don't lose all that much time because PT is so fluid.

hrmm, doesn't sound tremendously better than the workflow in reaper/cubase, as reaper can do limitlessly flexible key macros as well. can anyone chime in regarding comparisons to multi-track BD with MPTK? audiogeekzine, where you at?? haha

 

[darthjujuu]

when i say tremendously better i mean better enough to justify switching to digi/m-audio gear. HOWEVER, multi-track BD could justify such a switch.

EDIT: sorry, didn't mean to hijack thread with "THE DEBATE."

=p

 

[Plec]

And also, the nice thing with BD is that it frees your mind up a lot. If you sit and do manual editing you need to be hyper concentrated for those 3-4-5-6-7-8 hours it takes. With BD it's more like "let's select that, quantize by this amount, aaaand work!". Then sit back, go work on your caffeine overdose or whatever... then when the system is done after a minute or two, just listen through and make sure everything's to your liking. So it's a much more laid back and effective work flow like that.