Steinberg Nuendo 3 Operation Manual
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NUENDO Audio warp realtime processing 18 – 451 Quantizing without hitpoints It is also possible to apply Quantize Audio without creating hitpoints first. Although this method is quicker, it is in most cases better to cal- culate hitpoints using the normal method, as this gives you more con- trol over where the warp tabs will end up. •If you apply Quantize Audio to a selected audio event after just having set the length or tempo, the whole event will be quantized. Hitpoints are detected automatically, using the current settings set up in the Hitpoints Detection dialog. Warp tabs – not hitpoints – are created at each “hitpoint” found dur- ing the process. 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 window. Audio parts can not 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 page 106. •You can also fine tune selected audio events in cent (100th of a semi- tone) steps by entering a value in the Finetune field to the right. Audio and MIDI events can not be transposed simultaneously.
NUENDO 18 – 452 Audio warp realtime processing 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) that you wish to process and select “Freeze Timestretch and Transpose” from the Audio menu - Realtime Process- ing submenu. You should also use this function before applying any offline processing. When the freeze processing is applied, a copy of the original file is automatically created in the audio Pool so that the original audio clip remains intact. Selecting an algorithm for the freeze When you freeze the realtime processing you can use the MPEX 2 al- gorithm to process the audio, which may produce better sound quality than the realtime processing. Proceed as follows: 1.Select the audio event(s) that you wish to process. 2.Select “Freeze Timestretch and Transpose” from the Audio menu – Realtime Processing submenu. A dialog appears where you can select an algorithm for the processing. You can either select the MPEX 2 algorithm, which will produce the highest 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).
NUENDO Audio warp realtime processing 18 – 453 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 Musical mode will be deac- tivated 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 freeze processing 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 should you change your mind. It is then best to revert back to the original audio clip rather than to process the already pro- cessed file again.
NUENDO 19 – 456 Working with hitpoints and slices Background Hitpoint detection is a special feature of the Sample Editor. It auto- matically 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 indi- vidual 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 pitch. • Extract the timing (a groove map) from a drum loop. This can then be applied to quantize other events. • Replace individual sounds in a drum loop. • Edit the actual playing in the drum loop without affecting the basic feel. • Extract sounds from loops. • The term “loop” is used throughout this chapter. Loop in this context usually means an audio file with a musical timebase, i.e. the length of the loop represents a certain number of bars and/or beats at a certain tempo. Playing the loop back at the right tempo in a cycle set to the cor- rect 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 whilst retaining the timing of a rhythmic audio loop, just like when using MIDI files. What audio files can be used? Here are some guidelines to what type of audio files will render the best results when slicing files using hitpoints: • Each individual sound in the loop should have some noticeable attack. Slow attacks, legato playing etc. may not produce the desired result. • Poorly recorded audio might be difficult to slice correctly. However, the hitpoint detection function can automatically normalize the audio to im- prove the detection results – see below. • There may be problems with sounds drowned in smearing effects, like short delays.
NUENDO Working with hitpoints and slices 19 – 457 Calculating hitpoints and slicing a loop – a quick tutorial Before proceeding, find a suitable loop using the criteria above. At this point it doesn’t matter whether you know the original tempo of the loop, as this will be automatically detected. Proceed as follows: 1.Open the event or clip for editing in the Sample Editor. You could 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.Select the Audio Tempo Definition tool on the Sample Editor toolbar. 3.Enter the length and the time signature of the loop in the respective fields on the toolbar. The tempo is calculated automatically. 4.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 after- wards. 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. 5.Select “Calculate Hitpoints” on the Audio menu – Hitpoints submenu. Now a dialog appears with settings for the hitpoint detection. On the Presets pop-up you can choose a preset detection mode best suited to the audio material. Alternatively you can select “Advanced” where you can specify settings yourself. •The “Sense” parameter sets the sensitivity of the detection. The higher the setting the more transients will be detected. •The “Threshold” parameter sets the level threshold. The lower you set this the more low level transients will be detected.
NUENDO 19 – 458 Working with hitpoints and slices 6.Click Process. The hitpoints are detected. As you now can see, hitpoints have been set at the beginning of each sound in the loop (or at least at most of them). 7.If you now move the hitpoint sensitivity slider to the left, this gradually hides the hitpoints. Moving the slider to the right increases the sensitiv- ity to reveal additional hitpoints 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. This is described in detail starting on page 460. In the next step, the loop will adapt to the project tempo set in Nuendo. 8.Pull down the Audio menu, and select “Create Audio Slices from Hit- points” from the Hitpoints submenu. Now 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).
NUENDO Working with hitpoints and slices 19 – 459 • 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 – this means the slice events will 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 audio part with the slices adapted to the project tempo, just as above. 9.If you activate cycle playback on the Transport panel, the loop should now play back seamlessly at the tempo set in the program! 10.To make the loop follow any further tempo changes, make sure it’s set to “Musical time base” by using the toggle button in the Track list or Inspector (the button should show a note symbol – see page 124). •Note that if the project tempo is lower than the loop’s original tempo, there may be audible gaps between each slice event in the part. This can be remedied by using the Close Gaps function on the Advanced submenu – see page 471. You should also consider activating auto fades for the part’s audio track – fade-outs set to about 10 ms will help eliminate any clicks between the slices when you play back the part. See page 204. •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 if needed.
NUENDO 19 – 460 Working with hitpoints and slices Editing hitpoints In this section, we go back a bit and look at what can be done with hit- points 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 calculated. As outlined in the previous section, this makes the program calculate (or detect) 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. How- ever there will almost certainly be cases when the automatic calcula- tion may add a hitpoint where there shouldn’t be one, and fail to add a hitpoint where one is needed, even if the Sensitivity slider is set to max- imum. If there are too many or too few hitpoints in a loop, it will most probably not play back properly. When this occurs, you have to edit the hitpoints manually in the Sam- ple Editor. Auditioning slices A slice is a section of the waveform, from one hitpoint to the next.