8.0

Sample Editor
Working with hitpoints and slices
298
Purpose and preparation
Hitpoints are useful to slice up audio to make it fit the project tempo or to create a
situation that allows the song tempo to be changed while retaining the timing of a
rhythmic audio loop.
When you have successfully detected the hitpoints for an audio file, you can do a
number of useful things:
• Change the tempo of the audio material without affecting the pitch and audio
quality.
• Use slices to replace individual sounds in a drum loop.
• Extract sounds from loops.
You can further edit these slices in the Audio Part Editor. You can, for example:
• Remove or mute slices.
• Change the loop by reordering or replacing slices.
• Apply processing to individual slices.
• Create new files from individual slices using the “Bounce Selection” function
on the Audio menu.
• Edit slice envelopes.
Hitpoints can also be used to quantize audio material without creating slices.
RELATED LINKS
Quantizing MIDI and Audio on page 166
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 should have a noticeable attack.
Slow attacks, legato playing, etc. may not produce the expected result.
• Poorly recorded audio might be difficult to slice correctly.
In these cases, try to normalize the files or to remove DC Offset.
• The recorded audio should contain as little crosstalk signals as possible.
Crosstalk refers to the “bleeding” of a sound into a microphone placed before
another instrument during recording.
• There may be problems with sounds drowned in smearing effects, like short
delays.