Steinberg Cubase Le 8 Manual
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Sample Editor General Functions 291 Select Event Selects only the audio that is included in the edited event. This is grayed out if you have opened the Sample Editor from the Pool (in which case the whole clip is opened for editing, not an event). From Start to Cursor Selects all audio between the clip start and the project cursor. From Cursor to End Selects all audio between the project cursor and the end of the clip. For this to work, the project cursor must be within the clip boundaries. Left Selection Side to Cursor Moves the left side of the current selection range to the project cursor position. For this to work, the cursor must be within the clip boundaries. Right Selection Side to Cursor Moves the right side of the current selection range to the project cursor position (or the end of the clip, if the cursor is to the right of the clip). NOTE Several of these options are also available on the Sample Editor context menu. Editing selection ranges Selections in the Sample Editor can be processed in several ways. If you attempt to edit an event that is a shared copy (i. e. the event refers to a clip that is used by other events in the project), you are asked whether you want to create a new version of the clip. • Select “New Version” if you want the editing to affect the selected event only. Select “Continue” if you want the editing to affect all shared copies. NOTE If you activate the “Please, don’t ask again” option in the dialog, any further editing will conform to the selected method (“Continue” or “New Version”). You can change this setting at any time with the “On Processing Shared Clips” pop-up menu in the Preferences dialog (Editing–Audio page). Cut, Copy, and Paste The Cut, Copy, and Paste commands (on the Edit menu in the Sample Editor context menu or on the main Edit menu) work according to the following rules: • Selecting Copy copies the selection to the clipboard. • Selecting Cut removes the selection from the clip and moves it to the clipboard. The section to the right of the selection is moved to the left to fill the gap.
Sample Editor General Functions 292 • Selecting Paste copies the data from the clipboard into the clip. If there is a selection in the editor, this is replaced by the pasted data. If there is no selection, the pasted data is inserted starting at the project cursor. The section to the right of the line is moved to make room for the pasted material. Delete Selecting Delete (on the Edit menu in the Sample Editor context menu or on the main Edit menu) removes the selection from the clip. The section to the right of the selection is moved to the left to fill the gap. Insert Silence Selecting “Insert Silence” (on the Range submenu of the main Edit menu) inserts a silent section with the same length as the current selection, at the selection start. • The selection is not replaced, but moved to the right to make room. If you want to replace the selection, use the “Silence” function instead. Processing The Processing features (on the Process submenu of the Audio menu) can be applied to selections in the Sample Editor. RELATED LINKS Silence on page 270 Audio processing and functions on page 262 Creating a new event from the selection using drag & drop You can create a new event that plays only the selected range. PROCEDURE 1. Make a selection range. 2. Drag the selection range to an audio track in the Project window.
Sample Editor General Functions 293 Creating a new clip or audio file from the selection You can extract a selection from an event and either create a new clip or a new audio file. PROCEDURE 1. Make a selection range. 2. Open the context menu and select “Bounce Selection” from the Audio submenu. RESULT A new clip is created and added to the Pool, and another Sample Editor window opens with the new clip. This clip refers to the same audio file as the original clip, but contains the audio corresponding to the selection range only. Working with regions Regions are sections within a clip. One of the main uses for regions is Cycle recording, in which the different “takes” are stored as regions. You can also use this feature for marking important sections in the audio clip. Regions can be dragged into the Project window from the Sample Editor or the Pool to create new audio events. RELATED LINKS Cycle Recording on page 147 Creating and removing regions PROCEDURE 1. Select the range that you want to convert into a region. 2. Click the “Set up Window Layout” button and activate the Regions option. The regions list is displayed on the right. 3. Click the Add Region button above the regions list (or select “Event or Range as Region” from the Advanced submenu of the Audio menu). A region is created, corresponding to the selected range. 4. To name the region, double-click on it in the list and enter a new name. Using this procedure, regions can be renamed at any time.
Sample Editor General Functions 294 RESULT When you click on a region in the regions list, it is instantly displayed in the Sample Editor. To remove a region from a clip, select it in the list and click the Remove Region button above the list. Creating regions from hitpoints If your audio event contains calculated hitpoints, you can choose to automatically create regions from hitpoints. This can be useful to isolate recorded sounds. RELATED LINKS Working with hitpoints and slices on page 297 Editing regions The region selected in the list is displayed in gray in the waveform display and the overview line. There are two ways to edit the start and end positions of a region: • Click and drag the region start and end handles in the waveform display (with any tool). When you move the pointer over the handles, it automatically changes to indicate that you can drag the handles. • Edit the Start and End positions in the corresponding fields in the regions list. The positions are shown in the display format selected for the ruler and info line, but are relative to the start of the audio clip rather than the project timeline. Auditioning regions You can listen to a region by selecting it in the list and clicking the Play Region button above the list. The region will play back once or repeatedly, depending on whether the Loop icon on the toolbar is activated or not.
Sample Editor General Functions 295 You can also listen to a region by selecting it in the list and clicking the Audition icon on the toolbar. This way you can preview separate regions by clicking on them in the list or by selecting them with the up/down arrow keys on your computer keyboard. Making selections from regions If you select a region in the list and click the Select Region button above, the corresponding section of the audio clip is selected (as if you had selected it with the Range Selection tool) and zoomed. This is useful if you want to apply processing to the region only. NOTE You can also double-click a region in the Pool to have its audio clip opened in the Sample Editor with the area of the region automatically selected. Creating audio events from regions You can create new audio events from regions using drag & drop. PROCEDURE 1. In the list, click on the region and keep the mouse button pressed. 2. Drag the region to the desired position in the project and release the mouse button. RESULT A new event is created. You can also use the “Events from Regions” function from the Advanced submenu of the Audio menu. RELATED LINKS Region Operations on page 123 Exporting regions as audio files If you create a region in the Sample Editor, the region can be exported to disk as a new audio file. This is done from the Pool. RELATED LINKS Exporting Regions as Audio Files on page 329
Sample Editor General Functions296 Selecting an algorithm for realtime playback On the Algorithm pop-up menu on the toolbar you can select the algorithm preset to be applied during realtime playback. This setting affects warp changes in Musical Mode. The pop-up menu contains various options that govern the audio quality of the realtime time stretching. There are presets for common uses and a Custom option that allows you to manually set warp parameters. R ELATED LINKS Time stretch algorithm on page 279 Musical Mode You can use the Musical Mode to tempo-ma tch audio loops to the project tempo. Musical Mode allows you to lock audio clip s to the project tempo by using realtime time stretching. This is very useful if you want to use audio in your project without worrying too much about timing. If you want to use Musical Mode, verify th at th e length in bars corresponds to the audio file you imported. If necessary, listen to your audio and enter the correct length in bars and beats. When Musical Mode is activated, audio even ts wi ll adapt to any tempo changes in Cubase, just like MIDI events. You can activate Musical Mode on the toolbar. NOTE It is also possible to activate/deactivat e Musical Mode from within the Pool by clicking the corresponding checkbox in the Musical Mode column. IMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANTIMPORTANT Cubase supports ACID® loops. These loops are standard audio files but with embedded tempo/length information. When ACID® files are imported into Cubase, Musical Mode is automatically activated and the loops will adapt to the project tempo.
Sample Editor Warping audio 297 Warping audio Warping is a term used to describe the realtime time stretching of a selected section of audio. Warping is generally used to correct the tempo or timing of audio. Adjusting loops to the project tempo using Musical Mode Audio loops are normally short audio files containing a defined number of bars with straight beats. These loops can be adjusted to the project tempo by using the Musical Mode function. PROCEDURE 1. Import an audio loop into a project and double-click it to open the Sample Editor. 2. From the Algorithm pop-up menu on the toolbar, select the algorithm preset to be applied during realtime playback. 3. Listen to the loop and, if necessary, correct the Bars and Beats values on the toolbar. 4. Activate the Musical Mode button. Your loop is warped and stretched automatically to adapt it to the project tempo. RESULT In the Project window, the audio event is now shown with a note symbol and a warp symbol in the upper right corner to indicate that time stretching has been applied. RELATED LINKS Time stretch algorithm on page 279 Working with hitpoints and slices Cubase can detect hitpoints, musically relevant positions, by analyzing onsets and melodic changes. At these positions a type of marker is added. Hitpoints allow you to create slices, where each slice ideally represents each individual sound or “beat”. Drum or other rhythmic recordings or loops work best with this feature.
Sample Editor Working with hitpoints and slices 298 Purpose and preparation Hitpoints are useful to slice up audio to make it fit the project tempo or to create a situation that allows the song tempo to be changed while retaining the timing of a rhythmic audio loop. When you have successfully detected the hitpoints for an audio file, you can do a number of useful things: • Change the tempo of the audio material without affecting the pitch and audio quality. • Use slices to replace individual sounds in a drum loop. • Extract sounds from loops. You can further edit these slices in the Audio Part Editor. You can, for example: • Remove or mute slices. • Change the loop by reordering or replacing slices. • Apply processing to individual slices. • Create new files from individual slices using the “Bounce Selection” function on the Audio menu. • Edit slice envelopes. Hitpoints can also be used to quantize audio material without creating slices. RELATED LINKS Quantizing MIDI and Audio on page 166 Which audio files can be used? Here are some guidelines as to what type of audio files are suited for slicing using hitpoints: • Each individual sound should have a noticeable attack. Slow attacks, legato playing, etc. may not produce the expected result. • Poorly recorded audio might be difficult to slice correctly. In these cases, try to normalize the files or to remove DC Offset. • The recorded audio should contain as little crosstalk signals as possible. Crosstalk refers to the “bleeding” of a sound into a microphone placed before another instrument during recording. • There may be problems with sounds drowned in smearing effects, like short delays.
Sample Editor Working with hitpoints and slices 299 Automatic Hitpoint Detection When you add an audio file to your project by recording or by importing, Cubase automatically detects hitpoints. This allows you to navigate to hitpoints of an audio file from within the Project window. For long audio files, hitpoint detection may take a while. All operations that are based on hitpoints are disabled during the calculation. • To disable automatic hitpoint detection, select File > Preferences > Editing > Audio and deactivate Enable Automatic Hitpoint Detection. • In the Project window, hitpoints are shown for the selected event, provided that the zoom factor is high enough. To hide them, select File > Preferences > Event Display > Audio and disable Show Hitpoints on Selected Events. Filtering hitpoints You can filter hitpoints in the Hitpoints Inspector tab of the Sample Editor. You can use the following parameters to filter hitpoints: Threshold This filters hitpoints by their peaks. This allows you to discard hitpoints of quieter crosstalk signals, for example. Minimum Length This filters hitpoints by the distance between two hitpoints. This allows you to avoid creating slices that are too short. Beats This allows you to filter hitpoints by their musical position. This allows you to discard hitpoints that do not fit within a certain range of a defined beat value.
Sample Editor Working with hitpoints and slices 300 Using Hitpoints to Locate Audio Positions in the Project Window You can navigate through the hitpoints of an audio event in the Project window. PREREQUISITE Enable Automatic Hitpoint Detection is activated (File > Preferences > Editing > Audio). PROCEDURE 1. Select the audio track that contains the audio event for which you want to locate hitpoints. 2. Press [Alt]/[Option]-[N] to navigate to the next hitpoint, or [Alt]/[Option]-[B] to navigate to the previous hitpoint. RESULT The project cursor jumps to the respective hitpoint. Auditioning and hitpoints • You can audition the hitpoint slices, that is the area between two hitpoints, by pointing and clicking in any slice area. The pointer changes to a speaker icon and the corresponding slice is played back from the beginning to the end. Navigating between hitpoints • You can navigate between the slices using the arrow keys or by pressing the [Tab] key. • You can select the next or previous hitpoint marker using the “Locate Next/Previous Hitpoint” commands. The default key commands for this are [Alt]/[Option]-[N] and [Alt]/[Option]-[B]. Editing hitpoints You can change the state of a hitpoint, insert new hitpoints manually, and move existing hitpoints. Hitpoints can have three different states: enabled, locked, and disabled. “Enabled” is the normal state a hitpoint has immediately after the detection. Hitpoints can be “disabled” so that they are still visible as gray triangles on the timeline, but will not be taken into account for further operations. “Locking” hitpoints is an easy way to make sure that hitpoints are not accidentally filtered out. Locked hitpoints are not affected by the Threshold slider and Beats pop-up menu.