Punch In Recording. Same Track Blended Regions

[dougdude9]

Hey All,
Its me again with another silly question. Sick of me yet?

I haven't had to do this yet, but I'm sure I will. Let's say I'm recording drums and recorded verse 1 of a rocking tune (overheads and close mics used). I stop the recording at the end of verse 1. Now I want to punch in at the beginning of chorus 1 which we can also say is the end of verse 1. I know the recording will create new regions on each of the drum tracks. The problem I'm thinking I would have is that what if I needed the end of the regions for the verse to overlap the beginning of the regions of the chorus? You might ask why. The reason is because let's take a cymbal crash for example. It might still be ringing out at the end of the verse (odd I know) and go into the chorus. Or another example (probably better example) would be going from the end of chorus 1 into verse 2. I would want that crash or crashes from near the end of chorus 1 to go into verse 2, but if I punch in at the beginning of verse 2, it will cut off the regions of the chorus. I could always record to separate tracks, but that makes thing messy.

I would imaging there is a way to join/blend the regions?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Doug D.

... Dreaming of the day I'm helping people on here and not asking questions all the time!

[Chris Lambrechts]

Hi Doug,

interesting topic for sure !

As in the analog days to tape - there are still no miracle solutions for cuts and edits that have overlapping sounds like the ringing cymbal you describe in your example. However a DAW does have the advantage that you have over tape or even some of the earlier Disk based recorders that those are not necessarily hard cuts with no way to go after the facts.

Here's how I would do this. I would use track punch or quick punch. Both or these allow you to manually punch in / out on the fly to your record enabled tracks but you have the advantage that the recording to disk actually starts as soon as you start transport. Say you have it run up to the cut for 4 or 8 bars - it will actually be recording even though it does not appear to overwrite.
You would have the drummer play along of course and then afterwards you can trim the region beginning and end and create crossfades so the cut is inaudible.

You can of course also just use pre-roll - have pro tools punch in and out according to a selection you make and then keep a safety margin calculated in left and right of the edit you want to make. But I find track / quick punch to be easier and definitely more fun to use.

Hope this helps

Chris

[Stig Eliassen]

This a common problem in many recording sessions. The way I deal with drums is that I'll have the drummer play about 4 bars earlier than needed, and also about 4 bars longer than needed, which gives me enough audio to make nice crossfades between recordings. I usually do it this way no matter what I'm recording so the drummer/ singer/ guitarist can get into the right mode for that particular part.

For anything else recorded with a single mic, I duplicate tracks as many times as needed, and I include plugin, volume, pan and sends settings so they sound the same. Makes comping easier too, at least for me.

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by dougdude9

It might still be ringing out at the end of the verse (odd I know) and go into the chorus. Or another example (probably better example) would be going from the end of chorus 1 into verse 2. I would want that crash or crashes from near the end of chorus 1 to go into verse 2, but if I punch in at the beginning of verse 2, it will cut off the regions of the chorus.

You know that you can change the length of the clips later, right?
So make shure the punch-in overlaps on each side, and adjust the cut later. Then you would probably make a crossfade.

Originally Posted by Chris Lambrechts

I would use track punch or quick punch. Both or these allow you to manually punch in / out on the fly to your record enabled tracks but you have the advantage that the recording to disk actually starts as soon as you start transport. Say you have it run up to the cut for 4 or 8 bars - it will actually be recording even though it does not appear to overwrite.

So you don't even have to think about having enough to go on before the clip.

You might have one problem. Overhead mics will be picking up the whole set all the time, but probably not under the cymbal fade, and reappear when it's over. Might not be a biggie, but to fix it you'll have to duplicate tracks and mix them and merge them again. Leaving you with overhead tracks that are from two takes at the same time, during the cymbal fade. I hope that is slightly comprehensable.

[StudioRhythm]

You can do this with fades only, without duplicating tracks or cutting off cymbals, as long as there's no overlap in the what the drummer played (ie if he hits just the downbeat of the next section and then lets the cymbal ring out, and then in the next pass doesn't hit the cymbal to start the section.)

Create a long fade, long enough to to cover the cymbal decay from the earlier clip, and in the fades dialog unlink the fade out from the fade in. Adjust the out fade for a long slow fade, and the in fade for a very short steep one (you'll have to drag the "fully in" part of the fade as far left as possible and then play with the shape, possibly readjusting the fade length to get it just right. This is when you'll wish that the interface of the fades dialog box had been upgraded since 1999, as dragging the fade start/end points is not an easy thing to do, usually requiring you to click twice on the start/endpoint before you can get it to move rather than adjust the curve....) This is a great way to do a lot of different edits, including adding extra hits into a drum part without adding extra tracks, and so on.

[Drew Mazurek]

What he said. I do this ALL the time. Same with vocals. Why do a whole new track when you just need an overlap??

Originally Posted by StudioRhythm

You can do this with fades only, without duplicating tracks or cutting off cymbals, as long as there's no overlap in the what the drummer played (ie if he hits just the downbeat of the next section and then lets the cymbal ring out, and then in the next pass doesn't hit the cymbal to start the section.)

Create a long fade, long enough to to cover the cymbal decay from the earlier clip, and in the fades dialog unlink the fade out from the fade in. Adjust the out fade for a long slow fade, and the in fade for a very short steep one (you'll have to drag the "fully in" part of the fade as far left as possible and then play with the shape, possibly readjusting the fade length to get it just right. This is when you'll wish that the interface of the fades dialog box had been upgraded since 1999, as dragging the fade start/end points is not an easy thing to do, usually requiring you to click twice on the start/endpoint before you can get it to move rather than adjust the curve....) This is a great way to do a lot of different edits, including adding extra hits into a drum part without adding extra tracks, and so on.