Cubase SX Tracking Question

M

moelar2

New member
I've been working cubase for several years now. I'm currently recording my band and our drummer keeps on bugging me about tracking section by section, eventhough there aren't any breaks between those sections.

As far as I'm concerned, you can't really punch in/out unless there's some sort of break or pause, even if it's just a split second. But he swears that with Pro Tools, the guy he recorded with previously would tell him "okay, play the chorus 10 times; okay, next verse; okay next chorus, etc..." and then they'd construct each part of the song based on the better performance of each, EVENTHOUGH the drum part was continuous and without ANY pause.

I know that we can loop record many tracks and then pick the track that is best. But some times one chorus is perfect, while the verse was ok, and other times the opposite or less happens.

How do you guys do it??
 
I track myself, so I generally just set up to loop the entire song, and just play until I get a take that I'm happy with. However, you can certainly "punch-in" different sections and just cross-fade them together. As long as the drums, mics, preamps, etc. are set up the same, and you're recording to a click, it should work. Obviously, cymbal decay and things must be addressed, so your edit points have to be chosen carefully. Cubase can cut at zero-crossing points to make this easier.
 
scrubs -- what do you mean by "cubase can cut at zero crossing points..."?

Could you run me through the scenerio? I'll give you this hypo:

Kick, OH L, and OHR (for simplicity). Drummer sits down and says I want to do verse 1 and chorus 1. There are no breaks between the two.

The only problem i see with stacking is if you end up with 10 takes, how do you view all of them to see what section of each you'll use??? How would you cross fade betwee verse on take 4 and chorus on take 9?
 
The only problem i see with stacking is if you end up with 10 takes, how do you view all of them to see what section of each you'll use??? How would you cross fade betwee verse on take 4 and chorus on take 9?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, you can't see all of the tracks at once while comping the parts in stack mode, due to the fact that you have to edit each track individually in the part editor, of course. In that case, you'll just have to choose the best takes on a track-by-track basis, but it should work without any problems, and you'll probably only have to do very little in the way of crossfading if the parts are at all consistent from take to take. Also, as Scrubs mentioned, you'll need to pay attention to things like cymbal decay...but even that can be dealt with with a little more aggressive crossfading if it's a problem.

As for your question about recording the parts section by section without any pauses between them, all you need to do is set your locaters (loop points) to overlap the previous section a little bit (to give him something to play along with until you get to the point in the recording where he needs to punch in) and then discard the parts that overlap. You can then comp together that section just like you did the previous one. I've done it many times, and it works very well.

Oh, and a 'zero crossing' is the point in a loop where the audio data is equal to zero (meaning silence) and thus can be joined there without causing a pop.

Hope my babble helps! :D
 
Federjockey -- That's exactly what I tell him. Learn to play the fucken part and stop making do editing gymnastics.

Beersponge -- Its gonna take a while to digest your post. If I understand teh second part correctly, I'll set my locators to give him enough room to play along before the part that needs replacing, then when he nails it, splice the overlap (cue) part off?

I tried screwing with cross fades, but I've never liked the editor window in Cubase, and I'm not really use to it for the same reason; not quite sure which is a function of which, i.e., whether I don't like it because i'm not use to it, or whether I'm not use to it because I don't like it....hmmmm?
 
I don't see why you can't punch in. You just have to set it so that he's playing for a bit until it punches in. If he's solid enough it shouldn't be noticeable.
 
Except when the pussy wants to end and come back in when there is cymbals ringing...

Don't get me wrong..I've done punch in's in some crazy ways and pulled it off. I'm pretty good with edits sometimes.. But when I'm hired as producer I always pull the playing out of the player. Punch in's only when the guy kicked ass but there is one thing that maybe funny or something.

It's all about the playing...Section by section no matter how good the punchin's feels like midi crap...IT doesn't flow as nicely. That could just be me.. But my Asst at the studio is my drummer...Who is killer.. And I've seen him hired on the spot to cover the drummer who can't hang with it.
 
faderjockey said:
Except when the pussy wants to end and come back in when there is cymbals ringing...

Don't get me wrong..I've done punch in's in some crazy ways and pulled it off. I'm pretty good with edits sometimes.. But when I'm hired as producer I always pull the playing out of the player. Punch in's only when the guy kicked ass but there is one thing that maybe funny or something.

It's all about the playing...Section by section no matter how good the punchin's feels like midi crap...IT doesn't flow as nicely. That could just be me.. But my Asst at the studio is my drummer...Who is killer.. And I've seen him hired on the spot to cover the drummer who can't hang with it.
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Totally hear what your saying. Sometimes punch-in's just aren't possible I guess. And this is where the drummer needs to man up and come up with the goods.

A drummer should really be able to almost lay the drums down pretty much in one go, otherwise what cop are they going to be live?

If he wants to stop and come back in when the cymbals are ringing, he could stop, and then place the punch-in back a bit and start from a bit before there.

Thing is, as I said before, it takes a solid drummer to not have the punch-ins sounding like shit. The sort of drummer that could do it in one shot or so anyway...
 
legionserial said:
Totally hear what your saying. Sometimes punch-in's just aren't possible I guess. And this is where the drummer needs to man up and come up with the goods.

A drummer should really be able to almost lay the drums down pretty much in one go, otherwise what cop are they going to be live?

If he wants to stop and come back in when the cymbals are ringing, he could stop, and then place the punch-in back a bit and start from a bit before there.

Thing is, as I said before, it takes a solid drummer to not have the punch-ins sounding like shit. The sort of drummer that could do it in one shot or so anyway...
Click to expand...

Very well said. That's exactly the message I've conveyed to him. By the time I'm done editing and trimming, we couldhave just done it right the right way.

The midi comparison is good to. It just doesn't feel right. Especially if you know you made that punch in the middle everything. That's the kinda shit tha will haunt me. Bigtime. But I'll try it today. I'll be tracking in about 2 hours. We'll see how it goes. Anyone wannna comeover and help?? =) I've got Cokes in the refrigerator. And the singer of my band is a stripper escort, so I always have interesting girls coming in and out. What an inspiration.
 
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