Steinberg Cubase Essential 4 Operation Manual

							161
The Sample Editor
5.Verify the tempo and bars in the Definition tab. 
In the next step, the loop will adapt to the project tempo 
set in Cubase Essential. 
6.In the Hitpoints tab, click on the Slice & Close button 
to create audio slices from hitpoints.
The following happens:
 The Sample Editor closes.
 The audio event is “sliced” so that there is a separate event for 
each hitpoint. 
 The audio event is replaced by an audio part, containing the 
slices (double-click the part to view the slices in the Audio 
Part Editor).
 The loop is automatically adapted to the project tempo.
The slices in the Audio Part Editor. Here, the project tempo was higher 
than the loop’s original tempo – the slice events overlap slightly.
Sliced clips are represented by a different icon in the 
Pool.
Dragging the sliced clip from the Pool to an audio track 
will create an audio part with the slices adapted to the 
project tempo, just as above.
7.If you activate cycle playback on the Transport panel, 
the loop should now play back seamlessly at the tempo 
set in the program!
Note that if the project tempo is lower than the original 
tempo of the loop, there may be audible gaps between 
each slice event in the part.
This can be remedied by using the Close Gaps function on the Ad-
vanced submenu of the Audio menu, see “Close Gaps” on page 165. 
You should also consider activating auto fades for the respective audio 
track – fade-outs set to about 10 ms will help eliminate any clicks be-
tween the slices when you play back the part. See “Fades, crossfades 
and envelopes” on page 62.
If the project tempo is higher than the loop’s original 
tempo, you may want to activate auto crossfades for the 
track.
You can use the Close Gaps functions in this case as well, see “Close 
Gaps” on page 165.
Editing hitpoints
In this section, we go back a bit and look at what can be 
done with hitpoints in the Sample Editor. There are two 
ways to invoke the hitpoint calculation:
Use the sensitivity slider on the Hitpoints tab of the 
Sample Editor Inspector.
Select Calculate Hitpoints from the Hitpoints submenu 
on the Audio menu.
For some loops, this may be all that is needed to set the 
hitpoints so that each slice to be created will contain a 
single “hit” or sound. However, there will almost certainly 
be cases when the automatic calculation may add a hit-
point where there shouldn’t be one, or fail to add a hitpoint 
where one is needed, even if the sensitivity slider is set to 
maximum. If there are too many or too few hitpoints in a 
loop, the created slices will most probably not play back 
properly.
When this occurs, you have to edit the hitpoints manually 
in the Sample Editor.
Auditioning slices
A slice is a section of the waveform, from one hitpoint to 
the next.  
						

							162
The Sample Editor
The first thing you should do before editing hitpoints is to 
listen to each slice in the Sample Editor to determine what 
they contain. The aim is to avoid “double hits”, like a snare 
hit being followed by a hi-hat hit within the same slice. You 
also want to determine whether any hitpoints have been 
added that should be removed: 
1.Open a loop in the Sample Editor.
If you have already created slices, you can open them in the Sample Ed-
itor by double-clicking any event in the Audio Part Editor. If it is a new 
loop, follow the instructions below.
2.Open the Hitpoints tab and select the Edit Hitpoints 
tool.
When you point in the waveform display, the pointer changes to a 
speaker icon.
Click on this button to edit hitpoints
3.Now you can simply point and click in any slice area 
and the corresponding slice will be played back from the 
beginning to the end.
Listen for “double hits” and slices that contain parts of a single sound. 
If you find hitpoints that need to be removed or instances 
where a hitpoint needs to be added, the first thing to try is 
to change the sensitivity setting – see the following sec-
tion.
Setting the sensitivity
The loop is first analyzed to determine where hitpoints 
should appear (where the individual “beats” in the loop are), 
then you manually set the sensitivity with the sensitivity 
slider to determine how many hitpoints there should be.
Try raising the sensitivity to add “missing” hitpoints and 
lowering it to remove unwanted hitpoints.
This may or may not work, depending on the situation, but as a general 
rule you should try this first.
Audition the slices again to determine if changing the 
sensitivity has improved matters.
The “Use” pop-up menu in Hitpoints tab of the Sample 
Editor Inspector affects which hitpoints are shown and is 
a useful tool for removing unwanted hitpoints. The options 
on the pop-up menu are:
If your main reason for slicing the loop is to change the 
tempo, you generally need as many slices as you can get, 
but never more than one per individual “hit” in the loop.
Disabling slices
You might run into situations where there are too many 
slices – a single sound may have been split into two 
slices, for example. You could of course reduce the sensi-
tivity to get rid of the hitpoints you don’t want, but then 
other hitpoints could disappear too, which may be unde-
sirable. What you need to do in a situation like this is to 
disable an individual slice:
Option Description
All All hitpoints are shown (taking the sensitivity slider into 
account).
1/4, 1/8, 
1/16, 1/32Only hitpoints that are close to the selected note value 
positions within the loop will be shown (e.g. close to ex-
act sixteenth note positions, if the 1/16 option is se-
lected). Again, the sensitivity slider is taken into account.
Metric Bias This is like the “All” mode, but all hitpoints that are close 
to even meter divisions (1/4 notes, 1/8 notes, 1/16 
notes, etc.) get a “sensitivity boost” – they are visible at 
lower sensitivity slider settings. This is useful if you are 
working with dense or cluttered material with a lot of hit-
points, but you know that the material is based on a strict 
meter. By selecting Metric Bias it will be easier to find the 
hitpoints close to the meter position (although most other 
hitpoints are also available, at higher sensitivity settings). 
						

							163
The Sample Editor
1.Open the Hitpoints tab in the Sample Editor Inspector 
and select the Edit Hitpoints tool.
2.Press [Alt]/[Option] and move the pointer to the han-
dle (the triangle).
The pointer turns into a cross. 
3.Click on the handle of the hitpoint you wish to disable.
The hitpoint handle is diminished and its line disappears to indicate that 
it is disabled.
Now, the hitpoint won’t be taken into account when you 
create slices.
To reactivate a disabled hitpoint, [Alt]/[Option]-click on 
the hitpoint handle in Edit Hitpoints tool.
Locking slices
If you lock a hitpoint, it will stay even if you drag the sensi-
tivity slider all the way to zero. This can be used in situa-
tions where one or several slices contain double hits, but 
raising the sensitivity adds a lot of unwanted slices.
1.Find the place where you hear double hits when audi-
tioning.
2.Remember the current slider setting.
3.Raise the sensitivity slider to a higher value so that a 
hitpoint appears, separating the two sounds.
Most likely this will add a lot of other unwanted hitpoints as well.
4.Audition to make sure you got what you wanted.
5.Point at the handle with the Edit Hitpoints tool.
The speaker icon changes to a normal arrow pointer.
6.Click on the handle to lock the new slice.
Locked hitpoints are displayed in a darker color.
7.Drag the sensitivity slider to the original setting.
The locked hitpoint will remain shown.
You can unlock a locked hitpoint by clicking it again 
with the Edit Hitpoints tool.
Setting hitpoints manually
If you cannot get the desired result by adjusting sensitivity, 
disabling or locking, you can add, move and delete hit-
points manually.
Manually adding hitpoints can be done in situations where 
a hitpoint is missing at a specific point, but doesn’t appear 
even if the sensitivity is set to full.
1.Zoom in on the waveform at the point where you wish 
to add a hitpoint.
2.Select the Edit Hitpoints tool to audition the area and 
make sure that the start of the sound is in view.
3.Activate Use Snap on the Sample Editor toolbar.
By finding zero crossings in the waveform (positions where the amplitude 
is close to zero), manually added slices won’t introduce any clicks or 
pops. All hitpoints calculated by the program are automatically placed at 
zero crossings.
4.With the Edit Hitpoints tool selected press [Alt]/[Op-
tion] so that the mouse pointer changes to a pencil tool 
and click just before the start of the sound.
A new hitpoint appears. Manually added hitpoints are locked by default.
If you click and keep the mouse button pressed, you can 
adjust the position of the new hitpoint by dragging.
Releasing the mouse button adds the hitpoint.
5.Audition the new slice with the Audition tool to make 
sure you got what you wanted.
!“Use Snap” may alter the timing. In some cases it 
might therefore be better to deactivate it. However, if 
you create slices afterwards, auto fades will then be 
necessary. 
						

							164
The Sample Editor
If you manually added a hitpoint, and it was either placed 
too far away from the start of the sound or too far into the 
sound, you can manually move the hitpoint. It is also pos-
sible to move calculated hitpoints this way.
1.M a k e  s u r e  U s e  S n a p  i s  a c t i v a t e d  o n  t h e  S a m p l e  E d i t o r  
toolbar.
2.Select the Edit Hitpoints tool.
3.Click on the hitpoint handle and drag it to the new 
position.
To delete a hitpoint, select the Edit Hitpoints tool and drag 
the hitpoint out of the Sample Editor window. Hitpoints 
that you have created manually can also be deleted by 
clicking their handle.
Match-Quantizing audio
Optionally, hitpoints can have individual Q-points. These 
are mainly used for audio quantizing. Their function is to 
define the point to which the quantizing will apply. Some-
times a slice might have a slow attack, and a peak further 
into the slice which you wish to use as the Q-point. When 
you apply quantize, the Q-point will define where the warp 
tab will be added. This also defines the point which will be 
stretched to a grid position when quantizing.
To activate Q-points, open the Preferences (Editing–
Audio page) and activate the option “Hitpoints have Q-
Points”.
Next time you use the Calculate Hitpoints function, the hitpoints will have 
Q-points.
To offset the position of a Q-point in relation to the hit-
point, simply click on the “Q” icon and drag it to the right 
to the desired position.
Creating slices
When you have specified the correct loop length and time 
signature and worked on the hitpoints in the Sample Edi-
tor so that one sound per slice is heard, it is time to actu-
ally slice the file (if that is what you want to do – there are 
other uses for hitpoints as well, as described on the fol-
lowing pages). This is done either by clicking on the Slice 
& Close button in the Hitpoints tab of the Sample Editor 
Inspector or by selecting “Create Audio Slices from Hit-
points” from the Hitpoints submenu on the Audio menu.
The following happens:
If you edited an event on an audio track, the Sample Ed-
itor closes.
The audio event is “sliced” so that there is a separate 
event for each hitpoint.
In other words, the sections between the hitpoints become separate 
events, all referring to the same original file.
On the audio track, the former audio event is replaced 
by an audio part that contains the slices. 
If you edited a clip from the Pool, you need to drag it to an audio track to 
get a part with the slices. 
See also the section “Calculating hitpoints and slicing a 
loop” on page 160.
The loop is automatically adapted to the tempo set in 
Cubase Essential.
This takes the loop length you specified into account: e. g., if the loop 
was one bar long, the part is resized to fit exactly one bar in the Cubase 
Essential tempo, and the slices are moved accordingly, keeping their rel-
ative positions within the part.
!Sounds with a slow attack have their rhythmic center 
at some point before the peak. 
!Only when the audio tempo has been defined and 
the audio grid matches the project tempo, your slices 
will be straight (quantized). 
!When you create slices, all events containing the ed-
ited clip will also be replaced. 
						

							165
The Sample Editor
You can change the tempo and have the loop automati-
cally follow. Furthermore, you can double-click the part to 
edit the slices in the Audio Part Editor to: 
 Remove or mute slices.
 Change the loop by reordering, replacing or quantizing slices.
 Apply processing to individual slices.
 Create new files from individual slices using the “Bounce Se-
lection” function on the Audio menu.
 Realtime transpose and stretch slices.
 Edit slice envelopes.
Other hitpoint functions
On the Hitpoints tab of the Sample Editor Inspector and 
on the various submenus of the Audio menu, you will also 
find the following functions:
Create Markers
If an audio event contains calculated hitpoints, you can 
click on the Create Markers button in the Hitpoints tab to 
add markers – one for each hitpoint (see “Using the Mar-
ker track” on page 83). This can be useful to snap to hit-
points, e.g. for locating hitpoints.
Create Events
When you simply wish to create separate events according 
to the hitpoints for a file, you can click on the Create Events 
button in the Hitpoints tab. This means that you do not have 
to make the same considerations as when slicing for tempo 
changes. You can use any method you like to set hitpoints.
The slices created will appear in the Project window as 
separate events.
Close Gaps
This Advanced submenu function on the Audio menu is 
useful, if you have sliced a loop for tempo changes. Low-
ering the tempo below the loop’s original tempo will cre-
ate gaps between the slices. The lower the tempo is in 
relation to the original tempo, the wider the gaps will be. 
Close Gaps can be used to remedy this.
1.Set the desired tempo.
2.Select the part in the Project window.3.Select “Close Gaps” from the Audio menu – Ad-
vanced submenu.
Now time-stretch is applied on each slice to close the gaps. Depending 
on the length of the part and the algorithm set in the Preferences, this 
can take a little while.
4.The waveform is redrawn and the gaps are closed!
Note that this feature creates new clips in the Pool, one 
for each slice.
Close Gaps can also be used when the project tempo 
is higher than the original loop tempo.
This will use the time-stretch function to compress the slices to fit.
If you decide to change the tempo again after using the 
Close Gaps function, you should undo the Close Gaps op-
eration or start over again, using the original unstretched 
file.
You can also use this function on individual events (in 
the Audio Part Editor or Project window).
The events don’t have to be slices – you can use Close Gaps simply to 
stretch an audio event to the start position of the next event. 
						

							16
The Audio Part Editor 
						

							167
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 14.
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 150).
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 169).
 Separate tools for auditioning (Speaker) and scrubbing (see 
“Scrubbing” on page 169).
 No Line, Glue Tube or Color tools.
 Play and Loop icons and an Audition Volume control (see 
“Auditioning” on page 169).
 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 169).
ÖYou can customize the toolbar by hiding or reordering 
its items.
See “The Setup dialogs” on page 314.
The ruler and info line
These have the same functionality and appearance as 
their counterparts in the Project window.
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 21. 
						

							168
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 upper figure it is unnecessarily hard to discern, se-
lect and edit the separate events. In the lower figure, some 
of the events have been moved to another lower lane, 
making selection 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 
						

							169
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 Main Mix (the de-
fault output bus). 
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.
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 28).
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.
!Zooming, selecting and editing in the Audio Part Ed-
itor are done just as in the Project window (see 
“Operations” on page 22). 
						

							170
The Audio Part Editor
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 using 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. See “Setting 
up key commands” on page 322 for instructions on how to set up key 
commands.
Common methods
Assembling a “perfect take”
When you record audio in Cycle mode, an event is cre-
ated for each recorded lap (see “Recording audio in cycle 
mode” on page 54). These events are named “Take X”, 
where “X” is the number of the take. You can create a per-
fect take by putting 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.
First, you have to create an audio part from the takes.
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.
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.