Best Cut and Paste Methodology?

[Phillip]

I would like to cut or delete a measure of music (perhaps 1 - 4 seconds of time) within one track of
music, and replace it seamlessly with a nearly identical measure from another track of music. This is
done all the time during the remastering of professional CDs to correct errors. Can someone suggest the
best methodology of doing this using DC5? If the newly pasted measure is not quite timed right, what is
the best way to correct or readjust it in time?

[Rick Barber]

Re: Best Cut and Paste Methodology?

No answers here but I am intrested too.

[Rick]

Re: Best Cut and Paste Methodology?

One way to do this is to use the L/R channel selectors in conjunction with copy and paste over to move measures of music between tracks and channels. If will even convert between mono and stereo on the fly.
For example, you want to move a measure from file A, which is a mono file, to the right channel of file B you would go to file A and copy the piece of interest. Then go to file B and select the channel you want to paste into using the L/R channel selectors. Then select the area to fix and do a paste over. This works only if the music is at the same tempo. You can adjust the start and stop times by adjusting the highlighted area.

If both tracks are the same number of channels, you could do this with cut and insert. If you are inserting music that is a different length than what was cut, then you would have to use cut and insert.

If the music that you just inserted is at the wrong tempo, you would select the newly inserted area and use stretch and Squish to fix the tempo.

By the way, do all of this in fast edit mode or else you will be waiting a long time for all of the file writing to take place.

[Jason Begley]

Re: Best Cut and Paste Methodology?

Hi All,

When I am performing this type of editing I tend to use markers to "mark" my start and end point. This gives you far greater control, allowing you to get down to sample level, and also find the "perfect" zero cross point and avoid clicks.


Regards,

[Phillip]

Re: Best Cut and Paste Methodology?

In answering my own question, here is what I have done to create seamless edits. Any suggestions or
improvements to this procedure are very welcomed. I made good use of Paste Crossfade. DC5 has a
weakness in zooming to the left marker of a highlighted area and then later trying to zoom to the
right marker of the same selected area if the time interval is long. However, I have found this to not
be a problem in the procedure listed below.

SCENARIO: A violinist records a nearly perfect version (Take1) of the Brahms Violin Concerto, but she
flubs a scale right in the middle of it. Rather than wasting the orchestra's time, the recording engineer
asks for another take (Take2) going from a few measures before and after the mistake.

To correct this with DC5 or Millennium, assuming the same tempo of the takes:

1. Backup Take1 and Take2.
2. Open Take1 in a window. Find and carefully highlight the area that needs editing. I suggest the left
marker edge of the highlight area be on a low volume point and at a zero (rising) crosspoint of the
fundamental frequency.
3. Make note the time interval of the highlighted area.
4. Open up Take2 in another window and find the same beginning of the potential area to be pasted.
Using care with the left marker, mark the exact beginning of this area as was done in Take1. The right
end of the highlight area will be at or near the time interval that was noted in Take1.
5. Mute out the highlighted area of Take1. This will create a beginning PartA, a middle silence area, then
an ending PartB of Take1.
6. Now, I suggest adding an additional 1 second of silence to the middle of the muted area of Take1,
which will push out PartB in time.
7. Copy the highlighted area in Take2 to the clipboard.
8. Zoom in and select the last .01 seconds of PartA of Take1. Paste Crossfade the clipboard to this
.01 seconds of music. Try to match the phase of the fundamental frequency of the end of Take1(PartA)
with the phase of the fundamental frequency in the beginning of the clipboard material.
9. Highlight Take 1(PartB) from the exact beginning of the music to the end of the file. Copy this to the
clipboard. Ideally, there should be at least 2 seconds of muted silence at the end of this file.
10. Zoom in and highlight the last .01 seconds of the end of the newly pasted material in Take1.
11. Paste Crossfade the clipboard to this .01 second section. Match the phases if you can.
12. Go to the end of Take1 and insure that no unwanted material exists there, in that you have pasted
PartB ahead in time by about 1 second.
13. Take1 now has a patch from Take2 seamlessly editted into the middle of the take.