Wavelab 4-point editing

JGebauer · Junior Member Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Posts: 15

Hi,

I am new to Wavelab (running the trial and trying to decide whether I should buy it) and although I already had some help from Tom here, I am still investigating how things are done.

Some time ago David Spearrit posted some tips on something he called 4 Point editing, along with some screenshots. Unfortunately these screenshots are no longer available, and I wonder whether someone can show me how something like 4-point editing is done in Wavelab. I guess that true 4-point is not possible, but perhaps something that comes close?

Johannes

David Spearritt · Member Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 487 Location: Brisbane

Hi Johannes

Here are two screenshots that explain how I use two tracks of the montage to edit classical music. The first shows a full view of a completed piece showing the transfer of clips between the two tracks, and then the second shows a zoomed in view of one of the edits showing the 4 point overlap.

Let me know if you need more explanation.
http://www.lodestarrecordings.com.au/download/fourpoint.png
http://www.lodestarrecordings.com.au/download/fourpointzoom.png
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David
http://www.lodestarrecordings.com.au

markino · Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 11:11 pm Post subject:

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JGebauer · Junior Member Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Posts: 15

Thanks, David, for sharing this.

I am still very unclear as to how this works: Do you have your source material in the same Montage, or do you use two Montage windows? How do you finetune your transitions, and once you are happy, how do you make them stay put? Do you use the zoom window, the kicker?

Thanks for any insights, I am in desperate need to find a new tool for editing classical music recorded in takes. I have done several CDs on an old version of Peak, but I cannot get it done on any recent versions. Wavelab seems like a very good choice, I just need to find a good way to work.

Johannes

David Spearritt · Member Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 487 Location: Brisbane

Johannes,

One montage only, two tracks. Each track contains clips that alternatively are source and destination. Let me see if I can draw it in ASCII:

| Clip 1 source|-----------------------|dest Clip 3 source|-----------------------|dest Clip 5 | etc
------------------|dest Clip 2 source|-----------------------| dest Clip 4 source|

Does this help. The second zoomed picture above is the detail of one of the crossfades.
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David
http://www.lodestarrecordings.com.au

JGebauer · Junior Member Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Posts: 15

Yes, I understand that much, but where do you have your takes, ie the raw recorded material? For my latest project I have 82 takes, where do I put them to listen to and select?

And yes, I understand the crossfades, but how do you make them stick if you go back to an earlier crossfade, or insert another clip in the middle? The timing always changes, so one of the clips moves, is there a way to make them all move at once, so that the crossfades stay in sync?

I am probably just missing the obvious...

Johannes

markino · Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 10:58 am Post subject:

Hello,

There are two specific buttons to make all the clips move at once. I suppose you are totally unfamiliar with this program. It's easier than it looks, believe me.

To listen to the raw material you could use the Browse, or open another track and put them in it temporarily.

Save your work often!
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S-EH · Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 12:18 pm Post subject:

one way

work with one Montage as a Source with takes / markers etc
create an other Montage as Destination / work bench

possible to work as David do or work with one Track or more (multi)

or with Audio Files windows as Source and Montage as Destination

study Montage and menu Modes / Command bars
Focused Clip / Clips / Peripheral windows etc

regards S-EH
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Arjan P · Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 3:47 pm Post subject:

David Spearritt · Member Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 487 Location: Brisbane

Typically the takes are in another montage, usually the TakeCD montage I gave the artists or producer if I am not producing. Before editing we know what takes are going to be used and often have hundreds to choose from.

But the editing montage is the main workspace. I just add each file as I need it, edit its clip boundaries and move on. There are those commands mentioned above that move all clips to the right with the one being moved.

As and also mentioned above, you can use some more tracks to try a couple of different edit options for audition before deciding and moving on.

I am very productive with it now and it all works quite well, apart from PG's refusal to add the dotted guide cursor to both fade in and fade out on a clip. This would make it even faster. Sad

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David
http://www.lodestarrecordings.com.au

S-EH · Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 12:23 pm Post subject:

Hi,

Lutz Rippe · Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 2:01 pm Post subject:

I don't want to push this nice and interesting thread into the wrong direction, but I want to point out that especially for classical or jazz music productions Wavelab could increase interest if more focus was laid on a dedicated source destination / 4-point editing.
Last week I have seen an impressive demonstration of the improved source/destination editing features in Sequoia. They have developed some very helpful features for working with many different takes: E. g. they implemented the possibility to automatically detect different takes of the same part of the music.
Another thing that I found very interesting was this:
Usually a production with many takes is aligned in a way that the different instruments are on different tracks and the different takes are arranged in the time domain. Sequoia has a new option to (optically) include all tracks of one take into one single track, so all different takes can be aligned above each other, with one track for one take. This makes it easier to find the right take for each part and once the correct take is determined the source destination editing can be applied.

I personally have little experience with this kind of production, so I find it interesting to read the experince David has gathered on this field and want to thank him for the insight he offers. I just think that the editing work with many different takes is something that should be regarded as something Wavelab should take care of and the orientation on Sequoia in the field can't be too bad.

Lutz
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JGebauer · Junior Member Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Posts: 15

Definitely my vote for true 4-point source/destination editing. If Wavelab did a good implementation of this it would draw many more classical producers in with the attractive price and the many possibilities. I think it would actually draw away pretty much the whole user base from soundblade, simply for price.

But it would need a proper crossfade editor alla Sequoia or Soundblade, not a thing like ProTools which turned out to be completely useless...

The Zoom Tool helps but is nowhere near the said editors...

Johannes

raythomas · Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 2:14 am Post subject:

A question: was/is Wavelab 6 any better at this 'source/destination' or '4 point editing' (i.e more Sequoia like: http://www.samplitude.com/en/products/sequoia/source_-_destination_editing.227.html ) than Wavelab 7 ? Or can REAPER perhaps be persuaded to do it more effectively ?
Ray
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JGebauer · Junior Member Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Posts: 15

Lutz Rippe · Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:49 am Post subject:

JGebauer · Junior Member Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Posts: 15

David Spearritt · Member Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 487 Location: Brisbane

Let's reduce this to fundamentals. Classical editing is about selecting two clips to be joined together at a predetermined edit point, whether we are in Wavelab or Sequoia. The steps are:

1. Find the files containing the two sections we want to use and insert them into our project.
2. Slide and align the clips in the time domain.
3. Set the 4 points for the fade specification, OutTakeStartFade, OutTakeEndFade, InTakeStartFade, InTakeEndFade.
4. Test for inaudibility, slide the 4 points around, or the edit point around to suit.

Now whether bits of this are done is a "source" window or "destination" window or "montage" is just terminology.

For Step 1, I always know what sections are being used before the editing starts, because the producer or artists or me has auditioned all the takes separately and written these take numbers and desired edit point on a score, so I don't need to go hunting around some other project and listening for the clips. If I have given the artists take CD's, (these come from a montage), they will have referred to the desired clips as CD tracks, so I have that takeCD montage open so that I can cross reference the CD track with a correct filename.

The reason I have two montage tracks where the clips alternate is that it makes step 2 easy, the alignment in the time domain, you can find the exact points in the two waveforms that match and get them one above the other to confirm the exact waveform alignment. Step 3 is then easily done like this as well because the overlap fades can be adjusted individually. 99% of the time the fade lengths have to match exactly, and I always use the sinus shape because it's and equal power crossfade, ie no volume change during the fade.

Step4 can then be done by sliding the clip edges and fade nodes around, and again, its nice to have them on two montage tracks so that they can all be moved independently and viewed with ease. I could do all this on one montage track, but the overlap point is messy, what with the overlapped waveforms generally filling the picture.

The issue of sliding all clips to the left or right of where you are is simply handled in Wavelab by using the little clip and track grouping buttons in the toolbar. If I forget to have these buttons in the correct status and move a clip, because all the edit fades are the same length, I can simply set the button correctly, slide the clip till it snaps to the fade nodes again and all subsequent clips are locked in again.

As I always work on the edits from start to finish this is rarely a problem. If I revisit an edit and slide it around, just set the grouping buttons correctly before sliding. Undo is used a few times.

It is very productive and very accurate. I am trying to learn and use Pyramix at present mainly for multitrack editing, but I can do it much faster in Wavelab, so its a bit frustrating.

Hope this helps further.
_________________
David
http://www.lodestarrecordings.com.au