faster drum editing

[[UEAK]Clowd]

No, I don't have some magical fast drum editing solution as the title may imply(Tricked ya! haha)

but. I have spent the last 48 hours(minus some naps) editing drums by hand in cubase 4 and it is really wearing down on me. Before this project I was transferring to midi and overdubbing real cymbals, and that went by much faster. This new way sounds a lot better (way more powerful for some reason, and more natural to boot) but it takes SO GOD DAMN LONG!!!

Right now I am going through the song and cutting up all the hits (this part I have down to a science and I can do a whole song in 10-15 minutes or so) and then I go through and move each hit. I base my fixes on the feel of the song, so I can't just hit Q and X and be done with it. It takes a looongggg looonggg time. I have developed a few little tricks here and there that make it a bit faster but there has got to be a better way.

anyone?

 

[Trep]

+ 1

 

[Ermz]

ProTools. Your only real expedient solution when dealing with masses of un-edited raw drums.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

ProTools. Your only real expedient solution when dealing with masses of un-edited raw drums.

I actually got M-Powered for this project, just to edit.

I spent about 2 hours trying to figure it out. It was not fun, so I went back to Cubase. I can't see anything in there that would make me that much faster. Beat Detective sucked(maybe I just suck at using it) and Tab to Transient was kinda cool but didn't really work that well either.

 

[C_F_H_13]

ProTools. Your only real expedient solution when dealing with masses of un-edited raw drums.

+1. Beat Detective is faster then anything for editing drums....period. I'll challenge anyone who says different to an "Edit off" hahahahaha.

If you couldn't get it to work, then it's a matter of user error. I could type out an explanation on how to use it, but I feel that youtube must be a better teacher at this point.

If you're still stuck by tomorrow, pm and I'll help you out.

Oh I almost forgot,....m-powered probably has the shitty stereo version of beat detective that is useless unless you know the sweet work around.....

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

+1. Beat Detective is faster then anything for editing drums....period. I'll challenge anyone who says different to an "Edit off" hahahahaha.

If you couldn't get it to work, then it's a matter of user error. I could type out an explanation on how to use it, but I feel that youtube must be a better teacher at this point.

If you're still stuck by tomorrow, pm and I'll help you out.

Oh I almost forgot,....m-powered probably has the shitty stereo version of beat detective that is useless unless you know the sweet work around.....

Nah I got the music production toolkit as well, I think the main issue is that I just wasn't as picky with the drum performances as I needed to be. When I was doing the midi stuff I could pretty much let the dude play as shitty as he wanted and I could still fix it lickity-split after transferring to midi. This is the first time I've edited real drums so I wasn't in the proper mindset yet. Beat Detective is quantizing stuff to the wrong places because a lot of the hits aren't close enough to where they need to be.

I'm sure I could get the hang of protools when I have the time to work with it, but I just can't afford to do that in the middle of the project. So for now I just need by-hand drum editing tips to make it faster.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

(this part I have down to a science and I can do a whole song in 10-15 minutes or so)

well, actually it shouldn't take longer than 3-4 minutes, you should revise your technique

first create a macro: n->altx-->n

You'll always need that one-

duplicate your snare (and kick or whatever you wanna use as quant.-base) tracks and place it above the drumFOLDER (takes about 5 seconds).
Detect silence on that track...you should do that in sections=1-2 minutes (I'd actually just to a section, then quantize that section, consolidate and continue with the next section...just "pretenting" like you're doing the whole song here to show you how I come to the 2-3 mins in total).
place your cursor before the first hit and press and hold the key command for the macro you've just created and you'll have all your drumhits sliced in about 1 minute = 3-4 minutes in total.

BUT you should always do the song ion sections.
anothe rhint: when using that macro zoom in fairly large, that way you will get no accidental occasional cuts at the end of an event instead of the beginning.

next step: highlicht selection and hit Q, then hit X.
almost done....you should (still with all tracks highlighted) track that wee crossfade to the left a bit (all crossfades will move accordingly) to make sure that it's in front of every hit throughout the section.

then check the section, fix a hit if necessairy and consolidate.

the crossfade should be very short (use that curve all the way to the left in the x-fade window and set it to about 3-5ms as default for drumediting).

granted multitrack BD is the shit and more convenient than Cubase, also does it have iterative quantization which is really important IMO, but if you've got your technique down, drumediting in cubase is as fast.

here's how to use BD in LE:



when you're quantizing this way make very sure to just hit "conform" once for every track, not accidently twice or so...cause that way you'd get phase shit (because the overheads for example will be tighter on the grid than the snare or so)

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

well, actually it shouldn't take longer than 3-4 minutes, you should revise your technique

first create a macro: n->altx-->n

You'll always need that one-

duplicate your snare (and kick or whatever you wanna use as quant.-base) tracks and place it above the drumFOLDER (takes about 5 seconds).
Detect silence on that track...you should do that in sections=1-2 minutes (I'd actually just to a section, then quantize that section, consolidate and continue with the next section...just "pretenting" like you're doing the whole song here to show you how I come to the 2-3 mins in total).
place your cursor before the first hit and press and hold the key command for the macro you've just created and you'll have all your drumhits sliced in about 1 minute = 3-4 minutes in total.

BUT you should always do the song ion sections.
anothe rhint: when using that macro zoom in fairly large, that way you will get no accidental occasional cuts at the end of an event instead of the beginning.

next step: highlicht selection and hit Q, then hit X.
almost done....you should (still with all tracks highlighted) track that wee crossfade to the left a bit (all crossfades will move accordingly) to make sure that it's in front of every hit throughout the section.

then check the section, fix a hit if necessairy and consolidate.

the crossfade should be very short (use that curve all the way to the left in the x-fade window and set it to about 3-5ms as default for drumediting).

granted multitrack BD is the shit and more convenient than Cubase, also does it have iterative quantization which is really important IMO, but if you've got your technique down, drumediting in cubase is as fast.

here's how to use BD in LE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ZJKdM8bE8

when you're quantizing this way make very sure to just hit "conform" once for every track, not accidently twice or so...cause that way you'd get phase shit (because the overheads for example will be tighter on the grid than the snare or so)

WOW! I hate myself for not thinking of this already.

THANK YOU

 

[::XeS::]

I don't know how you can edit a whole song in so little time...I think it depends from the performance, because a really fucked up drums takes way more time.
Most of the time I have to edit a song in parts because if I select the whole reference track, BD does a shitty editing, putting some hits in the wrong place.
Of course, the tutorials use pretty simple beats so it's very easy to edit them...but for fast metal songs it's much more complicated.

 

[Ermz]

Honestly, if you were to spend a little bit of time to learn the finer intricacies of BD or Elastic Audio, even with the tutorial overhead, you would still likely edit those drums faster than working by hand in Cubase. I'm not saying this to be smug, but out of honesty. If you have m-powered and the toolkit, you are well empowered to do blazing fast multi-track drum editing. Think of it as a long term investment for yourself, because you won't have these issues in the future.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

Honestly, if you were to spend a little bit of time to learn the finer intricacies of BD or Elastic Audio, even with the tutorial overhead, you would still likely edit those drums faster than working by hand in Cubase. I'm not saying this to be smug, but out of honesty. If you have m-powered and the toolkit, you are well empowered to do blazing fast multi-track drum editing. Think of it as a long term investment for yourself, because you won't have these issues in the future.

no no I definitely hear you on that, I just don't feel comfortable learning a new DAW while in the midst of a big project. I'll get to work on that as soon as this one is done though.

 

[greyskull]

pay me to do it

 

[Trep]

I always watch those editing youtube tutorials with the hope it will give me some tips, and they do. but they are always fixing such minor mistakes and teach you how to operate the Tools, but the thing that i dont understand how people can edit so quickly with such major flaws and fuck ups in performance.

How do i get the Worlds shittest drum to sound Robotic in abut 20 secs of editing????

 

[::XeS::]

^ Exactly

 

[James-Doolan]

Yea im slow as shit at editing but im also fussy as fuck i hand cut, trim, drag and crossfade every hit to the grid for drums dito every note for bass and guitar takes me ages but the results are usually worth it but the other day it took me 1 hour to edit 30 sec of guitars i

 

[KillFrenzy]

For a well recorded simple pop/rock song, it doesn't take more than 2 minutes + revision to do that in Reaper.
For more complicated songs, there is no way I'd do the same thing. It's absolutely necessary to do the process in small parts, mostly 'causa of rolls, thirds, etc.

 

[006]

Lasse, pretty much what I was going to say haha. Cubase and macros are the win for me. I have worked professionally with PTHD rigs and have had three different LE systems, one of them currently, and I've never denied PT's editing prowess. I just feel I get along real fine in Cubum.

Also, can I just say that an hour to edit 30 seconds of guitars is just ridiculous There is something wrong there... I'm anal too, I much prefer doing drums by hand anyway, it may take longer but I can make sure no automated process is fucking things up and I know it is right. I do use macros and things though too. For demos where I'm replacing 100% (sue me, I'm not spending days on a demo...) I like to open drum events and create hitpoints, then create events from that and then you can go a section at a time selecting a few measures of events and quantizing them. Again, may take longer than BD or Elastic but by going a measure at a time, again as well, I can make sure everything is cool along the way.

 

[James-Doolan]

Also, can I just say that an hour to edit 30 seconds of guitars is just ridiculous There is something wrong there...

Tell me about it 8 tracks of 16th notes @ 190 bpm fucking pain in my anus