Blending copied event into existing event

cincy_kid

cincy_kid

Active member
I didn't know if I should post it here or directly in the Sony Acid forums but I figured it was a question that could be applicable for many different recording programs so here it goes.

I use Sony Acid Pro 7.

In the past, when I was recording tracks (lets use guitar tracks as an example), I would play all the way through the song on 1 track and do the same thing for 3-5 tracks so I would have 3-5 different "takes" of that track all on separate tracks. Then when it was time to mix, I would listen to all of the tracks and lets say the beginning part was best on track 1 but the middle part in track 2 sounded better. So I would erase the middle of track 1 and erase the beginning and end of track 2 so that when I pressed play, I would get the beginning of track 1, middle in track 2 and the end back in track 1. That worked well on vocals because there are breaths and pauses in between sections. Harder to do with guitar when the previous chord is still ringing through the chord changes.

Yes, I am sure there are some of you laughing at me by now, but that's the only way I knew how to do it.

Then I discovered "punch in recording". That enables me to just do 1 take of the guitar track and if I mess up the middle, I can just select the middle in the track, and go back and record the middle over and over and it makes new clips for each take and I can choose the one i like the best when I am ready to mix again. Again, easier on vocals for the same reason I mention above.

Now, that brings me to my question. I have the guitar track recorded and the song has 3 verses. The first verse sounds good but the other 2 I played a bit more sloppy. So I want to take the first verse, copy it, and paste it over top of verse 2 and 3 so that all 3 sound equally good.

Am I able to just paste over top of the existing track? Also if its not lined up exactly perfect, you will hear where it "jumps" a little bit making it sound like crap. Do I just use some sort of faders to blend one into the other? Is this even the best approach or is there an easier way? :)

thank in advance for any advice!
 
You should be able to fade in and out using controls in Acid. Whether your recording fits depends very much on how accurately it's tracked and played to a consistent time... did you use a click/metronome? Also depends upon how prominent the track is in the recording, the type of sound you're using and a few other factors.

A hint - don't get too hung up on "this verse is good" and "this verse isn't good" unless it's the whole verse that's completely wrong. We all punch in and out and edit and it's best to look for points that you can best edit at, which may or may not be the beginning of a verse... could be one bar in, for instance where there's a volume drop or other small gap... and there might be only a small section that you need to replace , so don't think you must replace the whole verse because one part of it is wrong.

Depends entirely on how it's played though.. try it and see.

You can also keep all your material and crossfade between tracks if you want to. If I was doing it, I'd try to get it all one one track, though. Just don't actually delete anything until you've decided you've achieved success. Copy everything to a new track and do your assembling there....
 
thanks for the reply Armistice!

So it sounds like punching in may be the best way for me to go. That way if I only mess up 1 chord, lets say, then I can just punch in at the beginning of that section, get a little lead in to the chord which should allow me to replace that bad chord a lot easier.

The only reason I was looking at "copy/pasting" was because that way I don't have to set up my mics again the same exact way at the same gain levels and make sure I get the same sound/tone on the recording :)
 
You'll notice the punch in least when you drop it in just a touch before you play the chord - ensuring that you play the chord before... as you've noted. Generally you can get a satisfactory outcome.

Good luck.
 
Oh the beauty of using click tracks.... makes it all possible.. I do it all the time... I just cut the bad stuff out and paste in the good. I'm using Traction... it came with my Mackie interface. Anyway.... I am a beleiver in useing a click... always... and to add to that... when recording live make sure you are using the same BPM .... why??? cause you may just have a killer lick that you can steal and paste into an earlier recording of that song.
 
goodstudios said:
Oh the beauty of using click tracks.... makes it all possible.. I do it all the time... I just cut the bad stuff out and paste in the good. I'm using Traction... it came with my Mackie interface. Anyway.... I am a beleiver in useing a click... always... and to add to that... when recording live make sure you are using the same BPM .... why??? cause you may just have a killer lick that you can steal and paste into an earlier recording of that song.
Click to expand...

What this guy said.

If you have a click track, the whole process becomes SO easy.

My very first recording client said he'd prefer to track without the click. Later on, he decided he didn't like how his guitar sounded somewhere and wanted to re-record it. It was during the INTRO to the song, where no drums were playing, and there was no click to work off of. It took us hours just to get the intro to come in at the right time.

However, the next band I recorded I insisted on a click. There were a few wonky parts we wanted to redo, so we just set the Play back/Timeline marker at the spot we didn't like, gave two bars of pre-roll, and BAM! It worked perfectly.

Throw in some cross fades, and all of a sudden, no one could tell that it was recorded from two separate takes. Loved it.
 
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