Steinberg Cubase Le 4 Manual

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Audio warp realtime processing
Realtime pitch shifting of audio 
events
Audio events can be pitch-shifted in real time just like MIDI 
events. 
The process is very simple:
1.Select one or several audio events in the Project win-
dow.
Audio parts cannot be transposed.
2.Open the event info line.
3.Set a value in the Transpose field to the far right on the 
info line.
The value range is up/down two octaves in semitone steps. 
4.Press [Enter].
All selected audio events are now transposed to the set value using pitch 
shift. The same general rules apply as for other event editing on the info 
line, see “The info line” on page 19.
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.
Freezing the realtime processing
You can “freeze” 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 “Freeze Timestretch and Transpose” from the Real-
time Processing submenu of the Audio menu.
When the freeze processing is applied, a copy of the original file is auto-
matically created in the Pool so that the original audio clip remains intact.
After freezing, the audio clip is like any standard audio clip 
before applying realtime processing, i.e. it will not follow 
tempo changes. The freeze 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 original audio clip rather than to process the already 
processed file again.
Variance Variance is also a percentage of the whole length of the 
grains and sets a variation in positioning so that the overlap-
ping area will sound smooth. A Variance setting of 0 will 
produce a sound akin to time stretching used in early sam-
plers, whereas higher settings will produce more (rhythmic) 
“smearing” effects but less audio artefacts.
!Audio and MIDI events cannot be transposed simul-
taneously.
Parameter Description 
						

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Working with hitpoints and slices 
						

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Working with hitpoints and slices
Background
Hitpoint detection is a special feature of the Sample Edi-
tor. It detects attack transients in an audio file and then 
adds a type of marker, a “hitpoint”, at each transient. 
These hitpoints allow you to create “slices”, where each 
slice ideally represents each individual sound or “beat” in 
a loop (drum or other rhythmic loops work best with this 
feature). When you have successfully sliced the audio file, 
you can do a number of useful things with it:
 Change the tempo without affecting the pitch.
 Replace individual sounds in a drum loop.
 Edit the actual playing in the drum loop without affecting the 
basic feel.
 Extract sounds from loops.
ÖThe term “loop” is used throughout this chapter. Loop 
in this context means an audio file with a musical time 
base, i.e. the length of the loop represents a certain num-
ber of bars and/or beats at a certain tempo. Playing the 
loop back at the right tempo in a cycle set to the correct 
length will produce a continuous loop without gaps.
Using hitpoints
The basic functionality of using hitpoints to slice up a loop 
is to make a loop fit the tempo of a song, or alternatively to 
create a situation that allows the song tempo to be 
changed while retaining the timing of a rhythmic audio 
loop, just like when using MIDI files. 
Which audio files can be used?
Here are some guidelines as to what type of audio files are 
suited for slicing using hitpoints:
Each individual sound in the loop should have some no-
ticeable attack. 
Slow attacks, legato playing etc. may not produce the desired result.
Poorly recorded audio might be difficult to slice cor-
rectly.
In these cases, try to normalize the files or to remove DC Offset.
There may be problems with sounds drowned in smear-
ing effects, like short delays.
Calculating hitpoints and slicing a loop – a 
quick tutorial
Before proceeding, find a suitable loop using the criteria 
above. Proceed as follows:
1.Open the event or clip for editing in the Sample Editor.
You can do this by double-clicking an event on an audio track in the 
Project window or a clip in the Pool. In this example, we assume you 
work with an event on a track.
2.Click the Hitpoint Mode button on the toolbar.
Now the Sensitivity slider is added, and the Use menu is activated. The 
items on this pop-up don’t affect the actual detection but rather which 
hitpoints will be shown afterwards. If you e.g. know that your loop is 
based on 1/16th notes, select “1/16”. If you’re uncertain, set this to “All” 
– you can change this setting afterwards if needed.
The Hitpoint Mode button
3.Select the Hitpoint Edit tool on the Sample Editor tool-
bar or open the Audio menu and select “Calculate Hit-
points” on the Hitpoints submenu.
The hitpoints are detected.
The Hitpoint Edit tool
Now, as you can see, hitpoints have been set at the begin-
ning of each sound in the loop. 
						

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Working with hitpoints and slices
4.If you now move the hitpoint sensitivity slider to the 
left, this gradually hides the hitpoints. Moving the slider to 
the right increases the sensitivity to reveal additional hit-
points detected during the calculate process.
The basic aim is to add, remove or in various other ways edit the hitpoints 
so that one individual sound is played between each hitpoint. For details, 
see “Editing hitpoints” on page 124.
In the next step, the loop will adapt to the project tempo 
set in Cubase LE.
5.Pull down the Audio menu and select “Create Audio 
Slices from Hitpoints” from the Hitpoints submenu.
The following happens:
 If the original tempo of the audio file is unknown, a dialog 
opens in which you are asked to enter it.
 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.
If you opened the Sample Editor for a clip in the Pool, 
you will find that the icon for the clip changes in the Pool 
(to indicate that it is sliced).
Dragging the sliced clip from the Pool to an audio track will create an au-
dio part with the slices adapted to the project tempo, just as above.
6.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 128. 
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 “Auto Fades and 
Crossfades” on page 64.
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 128.
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:
Select Calculate Hitpoints from the Hitpoints submenu 
on the Audio menu.
Select the Hitpoint Edit tool from the toolbar or Quick 
menu.
The last method will calculate hitpoints if they haven’t already been cal-
culated.
As outlined in the previous section, this makes the pro-
gram calculate hitpoints in the audio event, and you can 
use the Sensitivity slider to change how many hitpoints 
are shown. 
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, and fail to add a hit-
point 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, it will not play back properly.
When this occurs, you have to edit the hitpoints manually 
in the Sample Editor. 
						

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Working with hitpoints and slices
Auditioning slices
A slice is a section of the waveform, from one hitpoint to 
the next. 
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 in the tutorial.
2.Select the Hitpoint Edit tool.
When you point in the waveform display, the pointer changes to a 
speaker icon.
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 section.
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
The “Use” pop-up menu on the toolbar affects which hit-
points are shown and is a useful tool for removing un-
wanted hitpoints. The options on the pop-up menu are:
How many slices do I need?
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.
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). 
						

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Working with hitpoints and slices
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 using the Hitpoint Edit tool:
1.Select the Hitpoint Edit tool.
2.Press [Alt]/[Option] and move the pointer to the han-
dle (the triangle).
The pointer turns into a cross in the Sample Editor window. 
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.
4.Now, the hitpoint won’t be taken into account when 
you create slices.
5.To reactivate a disabled hitpoint, [Alt]/[Option]-click 
on the hitpoint handle with the Hitpoint Edit tool.
Locking slices
If you lock a hitpoint by clicking on its handle with the Hit-
point Edit tool, it will stay even if you drag the Sensitivity 
slider all the way to zero. This can be used in situations 
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.Select the Hitpoint Edit tool and point at the handle.
The speaker icon changes to a normal arrow pointer.
6.Lock the new slice by clicking on its handle.
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 Hitpoint Edit tool with [Alt]/[Option] pressed.
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.
Adding hitpoints
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.Audition the area with the Hitpoint Edit tool to make 
sure that the start of the sound is in view.
3.Activate Snap to Zero Crossing 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 found by the Calculate function are automatically 
placed at zero crossings.
4.Press [Alt]/[Option] with the Hitpoint Edit tool selected 
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.
!Snap to Zero Crossing may alter the timing. In some 
cases it might be better to deactivate it, however, if 
you create slices afterwards, auto fades will be ne-
cessary. 
						

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Working with hitpoints and slices
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 Play tool to make sure 
you got what you wanted.
Moving hitpoints
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.Make sure Snap to Zero Crossing is activated on the 
Sample Editor toolbar.
2.Select the Hitpoint Edit tool.
3.Click on the hitpoint handle and drag it to the new po-
sition.
Deleting hitpoints
To delete a hitpoint, select the Hitpoint Edit 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 with the Hitpoint Edit tool.
About Q-points
Optionally, hitpoints can have individual Q-points. Their 
function is to define the point to which the quantizing will 
apply. Sometimes a slice might have a slow attack, and a 
peak further into the slice which you wish to use as the Q-
point. This defines the point which will be stretched to a 
grid position when quantizing.
To activate Q-points, open the Preferences dialog (Edit-
ing–Audio page) and activate the option “Hitpoints have Q-
Points”.
Next time you use the Calculate Hitpoints function, the hitpoints will have 
Q-points. Manually added hitpoints do not 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
After 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 below). This 
is done by selecting “Create Audio Slices from Hitpoints” 
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. 
The loop is automatically adapted to the tempo set in 
Cubase LE.
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 
LE tempo, and the slices are moved accordingly, keeping their relative 
positions within the part.
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 or effects 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.
!When you create slices, all events containing the ed-
ited clip will also be replaced. 
						

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Working with hitpoints and slices
Other hitpoint functions
On the various submenus on the Audio menu, you will also 
find the following functions:
Create Markers from Hitpoints
This is located on the Hitpoints submenu. If an audio event 
contains calculated hitpoints, this function can be used to 
add markers – one for each hitpoint – to an existing or auto-
matically created marker track (see “Using the Marker track” 
on page 72). This can be useful for locating to hitpoints.
Divide Audio Events at Hitpoints
This Hitpoints submenu item can be used when you simply 
wish to create separate events according to the hitpoints 
for a file. 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, i. e. use sensitivity, 
note values, manually or any combination.
The slices created will appear in the Project window as 
separate events.
Set Audio Event from Loop
This Advanced submenu function will resize the event ac-
cording to the loop range in the Sample Editor.
Set Tempo from Event
This Advanced submenu function sets the project tempo 
according to the original tempo of the loop (as specified in 
the Sample Editor or in the Pool). The result depends on 
whether you are using a fixed tempo or the Tempo track.
If you are using fixed tempo, you will be asked to confirm 
that you want to change this – click Yes to set the fixed 
tempo to the event’s original tempo.
If you are using the Tempo track, but there are no tempo 
changes, you will be asked whether the global tempo 
should be changed.
Click Yes to change the global tempo (the first tempo event on the 
Tempo track) or No to insert tempo events at the beginning and end of 
the audio event (i.e. the project tempo will be adapted to the loop tempo 
but only during the course of the event).
If you are using the Tempo track with tempo changes, 
new tempo events will be inserted at the beginning and 
end of the audio event.
The project tempo will be adapted to the loop tempo during the course 
of the event.
Stretch to Project Tempo
This Advanced submenu function makes use of the origi-
nal tempo and applies time stretch to the selected event, 
so that it fits the current project tempo.
This can be used for stretching a whole loop (not sliced) 
to the project tempo.
Close Gaps
If you have sliced a loop for tempo changes, lowering the 
tempo below the loop’s original tempo will create gaps 
between the slices. The lower the tempo is in relation to 
the original tempo, the wider the gaps will be. This can be 
fixed using the “Close Gaps” function on the Advanced 
submenu:
1.Set the desired tempo.
2.Select the part in the Project window.
3.Select “Close Gaps” from the Advanced submenu.
Now time stretch is applied on each slice to close the gaps. Depending 
on the length of the part, 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 shrink the slices to fit.
If you decide to change the tempo again after using the 
Close Gaps function, you should undo the Close Gaps 
operation or start over again, using the original un-
stretched 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. 
						

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The Pool 
						

							130
The Pool
Background
What is the Pool?
Every time you record on an audio track, a file is created 
on your hard disk. A reference to this file – a clip – is also 
added to the Pool. Two general rules apply to the Pool:
All audio and video clips that belong to a project are 
listed in the Pool.
There is a separate Pool for every project.
The way the Pool displays folders and their contents is 
similar to the way the Mac OS X Finder and the Windows 
Explorer display folders and lists of files.
What can you do in the Pool?
In the Pool you can, among other things, perform the fol-
lowing operations:
Operations that affect files on disk
 Import clips (audio files can automatically be copied and/or 
converted).
 Convert file formats.
 Rename clips (this will also rename the referred files on disk).
 Delete clips (if you select the “Move to Trash” option and 
empty the Trash folder – see “Deleting clips” on page 133).
 Prepare File Archives for backup.
 Minimize files.
Operations that only affect clips
 Copy clips.
 Audition clips.
 Organize clips.
 Apply audio processing to clips.
Opening the Pool
You open the Pool in any of the following ways:
 By clicking the Pool icon in the Project window.
 By selecting “Pool” on the Project menu or “Open Pool Win-
dow” on the Media menu.
 By using a key command (by default [Ctrl]/[Command]+[P] – 
note that using this key command a second time will close the 
Pool again).
The content of the Pool is divided into three main folders: 
The Audio folder
This contains all audio clips currently in the project.
The Video folder
This contains all video clips currently in the project.
The Trash folder 
Unused clips can be moved to the Trash folder for later permanent re-
moval from the hard disk.
These folders cannot be renamed or deleted from the 
Pool, but any number of subfolders can be added (see 
“Organizing clips and folders” on page 138).
Window Overview
Audio folder
Trash folder Video folderAudio clip name
Waveform imageColumn Headings
Toolbar