Steinberg Cubase 4 Operation Manual

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The Sample Editor
This example illustrates the general methods of using 
warp tabs and the Free Warp tool. But you can of course 
use warp tabs for other operations than aligning down-
beats to grid positions. With the Free Warp tool, you can 
literally stretch any region within a sample to any position!
Editing warp tabs
Moving the destination position of existing warp tabs
To move a destination position of a warp tab (and thus 
stretch the audio), select the Free Warp tool and position 
the pointer on the Warp line in the waveform so that the 
line in the middle of the pointer becomes blue. Then click 
and drag to move the position of the warp tab. 
Moving the source position of existing warp tabs
If you simply wish to change the position of a warp tab re-
garding the audio, click and drag the warp tab header in 
the ruler. However, this will change the warping.
Deleting warp tabs
To delete a warp tab, press [Shift] so that the pointer be-
comes an eraser and click on the warp tab.
Unstretching audio files
By selecting “Unstretch Audio” from the Realtime Process-
ing submenu of the Audio menu, all realtime time-stretching 
(by sizing or by warp tabs) can be removed.
ÖNote that realtime transpose (in the infoline) and 
Straighten Up mode will not be removed by this.
Whether the “Unstretch Audio” menu item is available de-
pends on whether the time-stretching was applied on the 
event or clip level: 
If you sized an audio event in the Project window using 
“Sizing Applies Time Stretch” (see “Resizing events using 
time stretch” on page 50), you can undo the time-stretch-
ing by selecting the event in the Project window and then 
applying “Unstretch Audio”.
This will remove all time-stretching and warp tabs.
When you have entered a tempo and/or length using 
the Definition tab, this information is saved for the source 
clip and all events that use it.
Creating warp tabs from hitpoints
You can also create warp tabs from hitpoints selecting 
“Create Warp Tabs from Hitpoints” on the Realtime Pro-
cessing submenu of the Audio menu.
For descriptions of how hitpoints are created and edited 
please see “Using hitpoints” on page 252. 
						

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The Sample Editor
Realtime pitch-shifting of audio 
events
Audio events can be pitch-shifted in realtime just like MIDI 
events. The process is very simple:
1.Open the audio event in the Sample Editor and open 
the Playback tab.
2.Set a value in the corresponding field in the Transpose 
section.
The value range is up/down two octaves in semitone steps. 
3.Press [Enter].
The audio event is now transposed to the set value using pitch-shift.
4.If a root key is specified or if the Transpose track has 
been added, you can click the Follow Global mode to ac-
tivate/deactivate Global Transpose.
Event transpose will be added to the Global transpose value.
For more information on the transpose functions and the 
Transpose track, see the chapter “The Transpose func-
tions” on page 111. 
You can also select the audio event in the Project win-
dow and change the Transpose value on the infoline. In 
this case, you can also fine-tune selected audio events in 
cent steps (100ths of a semitone) by entering a value in 
the Finetune field to the right.
Flattening the realtime processing
You can “flatten” any realtime processing at any time. This 
can be done to serve two purposes; to conserve CPU 
power and to optimize the sound quality of the processing. 
Select the audio event(s) you wish to process and se-
lect “Flatten Timestretch and Transpose” from the Real-
time Processing submenu of the Audio menu.
You should also use this function before applying any offline processing. 
When the flatten processing is applied, a copy of the original file is auto-
matically created in the Pool so that the original audio clip remains intact.
Selecting an algorithm for the flattening (Cubase only)
When you flatten the realtime processing, you can use the 
MPEX 3 algorithm to process the audio, which may pro-
duce better sound quality than the realtime processing. 
This is also the only way to achieve polyphonic formant 
conserving pitch-shifting, apart from offline processing. 
Proceed as follows:
1.Select the audio event(s) you wish to process.
2.Click the Flatten button on the Playback tab of the 
Sample Editor Inspector, or select “Flatten Timestretch 
and Transpose” from the Realtime Processing submenu of 
the Audio menu.
A dialog appears where you can select an algorithm for the processing. 
You can either select the MPEX 3 algorithm, which will produce the high-
est sound quality, or the Realtime algorithm which is much quicker but 
will not improve the audio quality of the processing (although it will 
lessen the CPU load).
!Audio and MIDI events cannot be transposed simul-
taneously. 
						

							263
The Sample Editor
The MPEX3 algorithm allows you to select one of seven 
different quality settings:
ÖNote that you can only select the MPEX 3 algorithm if 
the time-stretching factor is between 0.5 and 2 through-
out the whole event. For audio that has been stretched 
with a factor outside this range, only the Realtime algo-
rithm can be used.
If the audio has been transposed, the dialog also con-
tains the option “Formant Correction”. Activate this if you 
want to e.g. avoid a “chipmunk voice” effect.
3.Select an algorithm and click OK.
When the processing is finished, any loop that was previously stretched 
in realtime or had been pitch-shifted will play back exactly the same, but 
Straighten Up mode will be deactivated and the realtime pitch-shifting 
will be set to 0.
The audio clip is now like any standard audio clip before 
applying realtime processing, i.e. it will not follow tempo 
changes. The flattening processing function is best used 
when you have determined the tempo or key of a project, 
but you can of course always adapt the audio to a new key 
or tempo. In this case, it is better to revert back to the orig-
inal audio clip rather than to process the already pro-
cessed file again.
Option Description
Preview This mode should only be used for preview.
Mix Fast This mode is a very fast mode for preview. This works best 
with composite music signals (mono or stereo material).
Solo Fast Use this mode for single instruments (monophonic mate-
rial) and voice.
Solo Musical Same as above but higher quality.
Poly Fast Use this for processing monophonic and polyphonic ma-
terial. This is the fastest setting that gives still very good 
results. You can use this for drum loops, mixes, chords.
Poly Musical Use this for processing monophonic and polyphonic ma-
terial. This is the recommended MPEX default quality set-
ting. You can use this for drum loops, mixes, chords.
Poly Complex This high quality setting is quite processor intense and 
should be used only when processing difficult material or 
for stretch factors above 1,3. 
						

							19
The Audio Part Editor 
						

							265
The Audio Part Editor
Background
The Audio Part Editor allows you to view and edit the events 
inside audio parts. Essentially, this is the same type of edit-
ing that you do in the Project window, which means that 
this chapter contains a lot of references to the chapter “The 
Project window” on page 25.
Audio parts are created in the Project window in one of 
the following ways:
By selecting one or several audio events on the same 
track, and selecting “Events to Part” from the Audio menu.
By gluing together two or more audio events on the 
same track with the Glue Tube tool.
By drawing an empty part with the Pencil tool.
By double-clicking between the left and right locator on 
an audio track.
With the last two methods, an empty part is created. You can then add 
events to the part by pasting, or by using drag and drop from the Pool.
Opening the Audio Part Editor
You open the Audio Part Editor by selecting one or more 
audio part(s) in the Project window and double-clicking 
on any one of them (or using the Edit-Open key command, 
by default [Ctrl]/[Command]-[E]). The Audio Part Editor 
can display several parts at once, and you can also have 
more than one Audio Part Editor open at the same time.
ÖDouble-clicking on an audio event in the Project win-
dow will open the Sample Editor (see “Opening the 
Sample Editor” on page 234).
Window overview
The toolbar
The tools, settings and icons on the toolbar have the same 
functionality as in the Project window, with the following 
differences:
 A Solo button (see “Auditioning” on page 267).
 Separate tools for auditioning (Speaker) and scrubbing (see 
“Scrubbing” on page 267).
 No Line, Glue Tube or Color tools.
 Play and Loop icons and an Audition Volume control (see 
“Auditioning” on page 267).
 Independent Track Loop settings (see “The independent track 
loop function” on page 267).
 Part List controls for handling several parts: activating parts 
for editing, restricting editing to active parts only and showing 
part borders (see “Handling several parts” on page 268).
ÖYou can customize the toolbar by hiding or reordering 
its items.
See “The Setup dialogs” on page 466.
The ruler and info line
These have the same functionality and appearance as 
their counterparts in the Project window.
Note that you can select a separate display format for 
the Audio Part Editor ruler by clicking on the arrow button 
on the right and selecting an option from the pop-up menu 
that appears.
For a list of the available formats, see “The ruler” on page 34. 
						

							266
The Audio Part Editor
About lanes
If you make the editor window larger, this will reveal addi-
tional space below the edited events. This is because an 
audio part is divided vertically in lanes. 
Lanes can make it easier to work with several audio events 
in a part:
In the top figure it is unnecessarily hard to discern, select 
and edit the separate events. In the bottom figure, some of 
the events have been moved to a lower lane, making se-
lection and editing much easier.
To move an event to another lane without accidentally 
moving it horizontally, press [Ctrl]/[Command] and drag it 
up or down.
This is the default modifier key for this – you can adjust this in the Prefer-
ences if you like.
Overlapping events
Only one event per track can be played back at the same 
time! This means that if you have overlapping events (on 
the same lane or different lanes) these will cut each other 
off, according to the following rules:
For events on the same lane, the ones that are on top 
(visible) will be played.
To move overlapping events to the front or back, use the Move to Front 
and Move to Back functions on the Edit menu.
For events on different lanes, the event on the lowest 
lane gets playback priority.
The overlapping sections of the upper event will not be played since the 
event on the lower lane has playback priority!
Imagine the following situation: You have two overlapping 
audio events, with the top event audible during playback. 
What happens when you mute the audible event?
By default, you will not hear the overlapped event when 
muting an event that has playback priority over another 
event.
This default behavior ensures that you don’t suddenly hear audio events 
that previously were not part of your mix.
In the Preferences dialog (Editing–Audio page) you will 
find the option “Treat Muted Audio Events like Deleted”. 
When you activate this option, any events overlapped by a 
muted event will become audible.
Lanes 
						

							267
The Audio Part Editor
Operations
Note that if a part is a shared copy (i.e. you have previ-
ously copied the part by [Alt]/[Option]+[Shift]-dragging), 
any editing you perform will affect all shared copies of this 
part.
To indicate that it is a shared copy, its name is displayed in italics and a 
symbol is displayed in the lower right corner of the part in the Project 
window.
Auditioning
There are three ways to listen to the events in the Audio 
Part Editor:
By using the Speaker tool
If you click somewhere in the editor’s event display with the 
Speaker tool and keep the mouse button pressed, the part 
will be played back from the position where you clicked. 
Playback will continue until you release the mouse button.
By using the Audition icon
The Audition and Audition Loop icons.
Clicking the Audition icon on the toolbar plays back the 
edited audio, according to the following rules:
 If you have selected events in the part, only the section bet-
ween the first and last selected event will be played back.
 If you have made a range selection, only this section will be 
played back.
 If there is no selection, the whole part will be played back. If 
the project cursor is within the part, playback starts from the 
current cursor position. If the cursor is outside the part, play-
back starts from the beginning of the part.
 If the Audition Loop icon is activated, playback will continue 
until you deactivate the Audition icon. Otherwise, the section 
will be played back once.
When auditioning with the Speaker tool or Audition 
icon, audio will be routed directly to the Control Room 
(Cubase only) or to the Main Mix (the default output bus), 
if the Control Room is disabled. In Cubase Studio, the 
Main Mix bus is always used for auditioning.
By using regular playback
You can of course use the regular playback controls while 
in the Audio Part Editor. Furthermore, if you activate the 
Solo Editor button on the toolbar, only the events in the 
edited part will be played back.
The independent track loop function
The independent track loop is a sort of “mini-cycle”, affect-
ing only the edited part. When the loop is activated, the 
events in the parts that are within the loop will be repeated 
continuously and completely independent – other events 
(on other tracks) are played back as usual. The only “inter-
action” between the loop and the “regular playback” is that 
every time the cycle starts over again, so does the loop.
To set up the independent track loop, proceed as follows:
1.Turn on the loop by clicking the Independent Track 
Loop button on the toolbar.
If it isn’t visible, right-click the toolbar and add the Independent Track 
Loop Settings section – see “The Setup dialogs” on page 466.
When the loop is activated, the cycle isn’t shown in the ed-
itor’s ruler. Now you need to specify the length of the loop:
2.[Ctrl]/[Command]-click in the ruler to set the start and 
[Alt]/[Option]-click to set the end of the loop.
You can also edit the loop start and end positions numerically in the 
fields next to the Loop button.
The loop is indicated in purple in the ruler.
ÖThe events will be looped as long as the Loop button 
is activated and the Audio Part Editor window is open.
Scrubbing
In the Audio Part Editor, the Scrub tool has a separate icon 
on the toolbar. Apart from that, scrubbing works exactly as 
in the Project window (see “Scrubbing” on page 45).
!Zooming, selecting and editing in the Audio Part Ed-
itor are done just as in the Project window (see 
“Operations” on page 35). 
						

							268
The Audio Part Editor
Handling several parts
When you open the Audio Part Editor with several parts se-
lected – all on the same track or on different tracks – they 
might not all “fit” in the editor window, which can make it 
hard to get an overview of the different parts when editing.
Therefore, the toolbar features a few functions to make 
working with multiple parts easier and more comprehen-
sive:
The Part List menu lists all parts that were selected 
when you opened the editor, and lets you select which 
part should be active for editing.
When you select a part from the list, it is automatically made active and 
centered in the display.
ÖNote that it is also possible to activate a part by click-
ing on it with the Arrow tool.
The button “Edit Active Part Only” lets you restrict edit-
ing operations to the active part only.
If you for example select “All” from the Select submenu on the Edit menu 
with this option activated, all events in the active part will be selected but 
not the events in other parts.
“Edit Active Part Only” activated on the toolbar.
You can zoom in on an active part so that it fills the 
screen by selecting “Zoom to Event” from the Zoom sub-
menu on the Edit menu.
The button “Show Part Borders” can be used if you 
want to see clearly defined borders for the active part.
When this is activated, all parts except the active one are grayed out, 
making the borders easily discernible. There are also two “markers” in 
the ruler with the name of the active part, marking its beginning and end. 
These can be moved freely to change the part borders.
“Show Part Borders” activated on the toolbar.
It is possible to cycle between parts, making them ac-
tive, with key commands.
In the Key Commands dialog – Edit category, there are two functions: 
“Activate Next Part” and “Activate Previous Part”. If you assign key com-
mands to these, you can use them to cycle between parts. Please refer 
to “Setting up key commands” on page 476 for instructions on how to 
set up key commands.
Common methods
Assembling a “perfect take”
When you record audio in Cycle mode, either an event or 
a region (or both) is created for each recorded lap (see 
“Recording audio in cycle mode” on page 75). These 
events and regions are named “Take X”, where “X” is the 
number of the take. You can create a perfect take by put-
ting together sections of the different takes in the Audio 
Part Editor.
ÖThe procedure below will not work if you recorded 
with “Keep Last” mode selected on the Transport panel.
In that case, only the last take will be kept on the track (although the pre-
vious takes will be available as regions in the Pool).
First, you have to create an audio part from the takes. This 
procedure is slightly different depending on whether you 
choose to create events or regions.
Creating an audio part from events
1.In the Project window, use the Object Selection tool to 
draw a rectangle around the recorded events.
This is necessary, since clicking on the event may just select the event on 
top (the last take). If in doubt, check the info line – the info text should be 
yellow.
2.Pull down the Audio menu and select “Events to Part”.
The events are converted to an audio part.
Note that the events cycle record mode also makes it 
easy to combine different takes in the Project window – 
see “Create Events mode (Preferences)” on page 75. 
						

							269
The Audio Part Editor
Creating an audio part from regions
1.In the Project window, select the event you recorded in 
Cycle mode.
After recording, this will play the last take.
2.Pull down the Audio menu and select “Events to Part”.
You are asked whether you want to “Create part using regions”.
3.Click “Regions”.
The regions are converted to an audio part.
Assembling a take
1.Double-click the part to open the Audio Part Editor.
Now, the different takes will be placed on different lanes, with the last 
take at the bottom.
2.Use the tools to cut out pieces of the takes and as-
semble the final result.
This can include splitting with the Scissors tool, resizing events with the 
Arrow tool or deleting with the Eraser tool. 
Remember that the events on the lowest lane have play-
back priority. 
Use the Audition icon to audition the result.
3.Close the Audio Part Editor.
You have now assembled a “perfect take”!
Options and Settings
The following options and settings are available in the 
Audio Part Editor:
Snap
You can specify an independent Snap mode (and snap value for the Grid 
mode) in the editor. The functionality is exactly the same as in the Project 
window.
Autoscroll
When Autoscroll is activated on the toolbar, the window will scroll during 
playback, keeping the project cursor visible in the editor. This setting can 
be activated or deactivated individually for each window.
Snap to Zero Crossing
When this option is activated, all audio edits are done at zero crossings 
(positions in the audio where the amplitude is zero). This helps you avoid 
pops and clicks which might otherwise be caused by sudden amplitude 
changes.  
						

							20
The Pool