User manual

252
The Sample Editor
Determining the tempo of an audio loop and
slicing your audio
1. Import a suitable audio file, for example a drum loop.
2. Double-click the loop to open it in the Sample Editor.
If your want to work with longer audio file, possibly with an upbeat, define
a loop or resize the event as described in the section “Determining the
audio tempo automatically and time-stretching your audio” on page 247.
3. Open the Definition tab and make sure the length in
bars corresponds to the actual audio file.
If necessary, listen to your audio and enter the correct bar length.
4. On the Hitpoints tab, open the “Use” pop-up and se-
lect the desired option.
This affects which hitpoints should be shown when moving the Sensitiv-
ity slider (see “Setting the sensitivity” on page 255).
5. Adjust the Sensitivity slider.
The hitpoints are shown.
6. If necessary, select the Edit Hitpoints tool to edit hit-
points manually.
You can add, delete and listen to hitpoints by pressing [Alt]/[Option] and
clicking in the waveform. For detailed informations about hitpoints and
their editing, see below.
7. Now, click the Slice & Close button in the Hitpoints
tab to create audio slices from your hitpoints.
The loop will be sliced and adjusted to the project tempo. The Sample
Editor will be closed.
In the following sections you will find more detailed infor-
mation on editing and using hitpoints.
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 with it:
• Change the tempo without affecting the 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.
Ö The term “loop” is used throughout this section. Loop
in this context usually means an audio file with a musical
time base, 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 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.
!
When a selection range is defined, hitpoints will only
be detected within this range.