Steinberg Nuendo 4 Operation Manual

271
The Sample Editor
Drawing in the Sample Editor
It is possible to edit the audio clip at sample level by draw-
ing with the Pencil tool. This can be useful if you need to 
manually edit out a spike or click, etc.
1.Zoom in to a zoom value lower than 1.
This means that there is more than one screen pixel per sample.
2.Select the Pencil tool.
3.Click and draw at the desired position in the waveform 
display.
When you release the mouse button, the edited section is automatically 
selected.
Options and...

272
The Sample Editor
Audio Warp realtime processing / 
Tempo matching audio to the 
project tempo
Audio warp is the generic name for the realtime time-
stretching and pitch-shifting functions in Nuendo. The main 
audio warp features are tempo-matching any audio loop to 
the project tempo (see “Determining the tempo of an audio 
loop and slicing your audio” on page 277) and matching up 
an audio clip with fluctuating tempo to a fixed tempo. 
If you want to tempo match an audio loop to the project 
tempo,...

273
The Sample Editor
Make a selection range in a longer clip and click the Au-
dition Loop button.
Adjust the selection range until the loop is smooth. 
A 4 bar loop has been selected.
3.Open the Definition tab and make sure the Bars value 
corresponds to the length of the audio file, or the selection 
range, respectively.
If necessary, listen to your audio to determine the correct bar length.
4.Cick the Auto Adjust button to automatically adjust the 
grid to the audio file.When you click Auto Adjust,...

274
The Sample Editor
In this pop-up you can find various options that govern the 
audio quality of the realtime time-stretching. There are pre-
sets for common types of audio material and an Advanced 
option where you can manually set warp parameters:If you select the Advanced menu item, a dialog opens 
where you can manually adjust the three parameters that 
govern the sound quality of the time-stretching:
6.If you are satisfied with the result, i.e. the vertical lines 
match bars and beats positions,...

275
The Sample Editor
About the Straighten Up mode
The Straighten Up mode is one of the key audio warp fea-
tures. It allows you to lock audio clips to the project tempo 
by using realtime time-stretching. This is very useful if you 
want to use loops in your project and do not want to worry 
too much about timing.
Straighten Up mode is automatically activated if the Pre-
view button on the Definition tab is activated and the 
tempo of the audio file or loop has been specified either 
automatically by...

276
The Sample Editor
2.Audition the file to determine where the first downbeat 
occurs.
3.Move the mouse pointer to the beginning of the audio 
file until the pointer changes to a green flag (Set Grid 
Start).
4.Click and drag the green flag to the right until it 
matches the first downbeat in the sample and release the 
mouse button.
Now the ruler grid is offset so that it starts on the first downbeat in the 
sample.
5.Make sure that the length in bars shown in the lower 
section of the Definition tab...

277
The Sample Editor
10.Now have a look at the single beats in between the 
bars, and, if necessary, hold down [Ctrl]/[Command] to use 
the blue flag (Adjust Beat Position - Single) to adjust them.
Drag the flag until the single beat position is aligned with the waveform, 
and release the mouse button. 
11.Activate playback.
If you find that the beat sounds too straight, you can either adjust the 
Quantize value on the Playback tab or move the Swing slider to add 
swing.
The loop will automatically...

278
The Sample Editor
Working with hitpoints and slices
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...

279
The Sample Editor
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 edit the hitpoints in various other ways 
so that one individual sound is played between each hitpoint. For details, 
see “Editing hitpoints” on page 279.
5.Verify the tempo and bars in the Definition tab. 
In the next...

280
The Sample Editor
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...