Correcting the timing of audio recordings in Reason

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moggadeet
Posts: 94
Joined: 27 Jun 2018
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

30 Aug 2019

Hi everyone,

in the last song I worked on I was confronted for the first time with an acoustic guitar played without metronome, which resulted in hours of work correcting the audio in the sequencer in slice mode. I wanted to check out with you because maybe there are better ways to correct the recording than the one I am using.

I noticed that treating a whole song in slice mode is not effective, basically because if I want to correct one point, I would need the rest of the points right from it to slide with it, and I cannot do it. Working with large chunks of audio in slice mode often gives me awfull modulation artefacts after editing for a while, which I cannot recover from.

So this is what I do currently:

1) I chop the recording in phrases about 1 or 2 bar long. Bounce them all and delete the original.
2) Position the slices inside the sequencer grid and stretch the end of the clips with ALT. Bounce the clips and delete the original.
3) I go slice per slice with the slice mode, delete all automatically detected transients, and add transients and reposition them by hand, one slice at a time. Bounce the clips and delete the original.

At that point I have a corrected track at the risk of having a nerve breakdown when I hear a transient between the audio chunks I corrected.

How do you go about it?

Thanks in advance

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selig
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Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

30 Aug 2019

If the performance is close, just set quantize to the desired grid and quantize (use percentage quantize if you don’t want 100% to the grid).
[EDIT: scratch that, it's not what you asked for since the original isn't recorded to a click!]

I often work in slice mode to correct performances - the only time you would want to move all later points (and you CAN do this by making a selection) is if all later points were out of time. The only time this would apply would be taking a 100% free performed recording and locking it to a new grid/tempo.

I do this by first selecting ALL points, the de-selecting each point/bar after I’ve corrected it to the grid as I move along the timeline. One suggestion is to first get every downbeat for each bar, or every 2-4 or even 8 bars or more, on the beat. You can work through the song quicker this way, and then you can possibly use the quantize command to get the sections between the quantized downbeats on the grid. Make sense?
Selig Audio, LLC

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jam-s
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30 Aug 2019

This method could be easier if the tempo fluctuations are not too extreme:


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selig
RE Developer
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Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

30 Aug 2019

jam-s wrote:
30 Aug 2019
This method could be easier if the tempo fluctuations are not too extreme:
That's a different thing, that may or may not be what the OP wants. Good to have options, but also good to know which one you want.

The OP wants to conform the guitar to a click to correct timing and tempo variations, and this technique leaves the timing and tempo variations in place and instead moves the click (bar lines) to the music.

Both are useful, one is probably more desirable to the other depending on the intent of the producer.
Selig Audio, LLC

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jam-s
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Location: Aachen, Germany
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30 Aug 2019

selig wrote:
30 Aug 2019
The OP wants to conform the guitar to a click to correct timing and tempo variations, and this technique leaves the timing and tempo variations in place and instead moves the click (bar lines) to the music.

Both are useful, one is probably more desirable to the other depending on the intent of the producer.
That adjustment of the click is only the first step. Then after a bounce the info gets imprinted into the clip so it is on beat and you have a time/beat aligned clip as it's explained in the video from 7:40 onwards.

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moggadeet
Posts: 94
Joined: 27 Jun 2018
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

02 Sep 2019

Thanks for the information! I will try both methods next time I get into the same situation.

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mcatalao
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02 Sep 2019

selig wrote:
30 Aug 2019
jam-s wrote:
30 Aug 2019
This method could be easier if the tempo fluctuations are not too extreme:
That's a different thing, that may or may not be what the OP wants. Good to have options, but also good to know which one you want.

The OP wants to conform the guitar to a click to correct timing and tempo variations, and this technique leaves the timing and tempo variations in place and instead moves the click (bar lines) to the music.

Both are useful, one is probably more desirable to the other depending on the intent of the producer.
Exacly horses to coarse. I just spend around 1 hour getting a guitar and 10 vocal performances to tempo. A client recorded with a telephone metronome and his recording was total whacked.

Using seligs technique works great because the guitar conforms to tempo and I could create an additional set of instruments for a 50s rock ballad arrangement.

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moggadeet
Posts: 94
Joined: 27 Jun 2018
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

06 Oct 2019

So, today I confronted a free-played piano recording and tried the first method, from Jam-s: it started fine, but as I progressed, the automation lane for tempo started oscillating with each bar. I started at 62bpms, and the next bars went like 62,61,64,60,65,58,69,30,80 ... and at this point the artifacts were already distorting the sound.

I went with Giles' method: deleted all slices, marked the quarter notes, snap to quarter note, CTRL+A, move the first slice, deselect it, adjust the second, deselect it, etc. It works flawlessly.

Philup
Posts: 85
Joined: 21 Feb 2015

07 Oct 2019

Time is money - If it is for paid work, and the plan is for the finished product to be locked to a specific tempo, call the performer and make them play correctly to a metronome. Unless you find a tedious process like this therapeutic as some do.

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moggadeet
Posts: 94
Joined: 27 Jun 2018
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

09 Oct 2019

Oh, never mind, this is just my evenings hobby so I work with whatever material I can get hold on anywhere in internet and correct it myself =)

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