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Replacing a messed up transition using multitracking software


Steve

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Chopping out and re-doing a transition that you fucked up isn't the only use for what I'm about to say here when it comes to multitracking, and I don't believe that live mixes should be edited much at all other than to chop out dead space at the beginning and end, but if you make an hour long live mix and trainwreck the last transition, I think this is acceptable rather than re-recording the whole thing. Obviously, if you had to use this lots, I'd say you just need to practice more, and always be honest about your methods.

 

So, let's say you have your live mix recorded in track 1 and you've fucked up a transition from song A to song B. All you need to do is this: -

 

1. Cue up song A a few bars before you messed up your transition. Make sure the pitch of it is exactly matched with the recording you've already made.

 

2. Prime track 2 of the multitrack to record and mute track 1. Make sure track 1 is not primed to record or you'll record over what you've done already!

 

3. Start recording, play song A, then do your transition to song B. If all is good, carry on with the mixing.

 

Also, if you carried on beyond the fucked up transition already and are happy with the rest of the mix, but you just want to fix one transition, the same thing basically applies, except stage 3 would be this instead: -

 

3. Start recording, play song A, then do your transition to song B, let song B play for a little bit, then stop.

 

So, in the first instance where you stopped at the point of fucking up the transition, you now essentially have two halves (or parts, not necessarily halves) of the mix that you need to stitch together. Your multitrack view will look something like this: -

 

1.jpg

 

So in track 1 is the bulk of your mix (muted in this case), up to the point where you fucked up. In track 2 is the new second part of the mix that you've just re-recorded, but at the moment it's not lined up.

 

So, unmute track 1, then line up both audio blocks as so, using zoom to get them absolutely spot on: -

 

2.jpg

 

Next, lock both audio blocks in time, then move the time marker (the yellow line) to a spot where the waveform is on the centre red line for each channel, so for example, the placement of the time marker in the screenshot above is fine. This sort of placement is not fine: -

 

3.jpg

 

Placing the time marker in a spot like that where the waveform is peaking away from the centre line can lead to a slight click/pop where you make the cut, although if you're 100% accurate with lining up the two blocks, this shouldn't really matter.

 

So, now that you have the two blocks lined up, locked in time, and with the time marker placed, split both audio blocks at that position. Now, you want to remove the right section of the upper block and the left section of the lower block, so it looks like this: -

 

4.jpg

 

Obviously, I've zoomed out a little here compared to the last screenshot. The last stage is to just drag the block from track 2 up to track 1. As it's locked in time, you can move it up and down, but it won't move left and right and go out of time. So you end up with this: -

 

5.jpg

 

And as long as you lined up the blocks accurately, cut them in the right place, and made sure you locked them in time before moving them up and down, the two will be stitched together seamlessly.

 

If you completed your mix, but you just want to fix one transition, you would do the same as the above, except you would then do the same at the other end of the corrected transition, so it looks something like this: -

 

6.jpg

 

So the block in track 2 contains the fixed transition from song A to song B and it's been perfected lined up with each section of the mix in track 1. All you've done is cut out the bad transition and replaced it with a good one.

 

Then all you've gotta do is make sure the blocks are locked in time and move the block from track 2 up: -

 

7.jpg

 

And there you go. One replaced transition!

 

If you do multitracked mixes, you'll use this technique a lot for lining up blocks and then cutting parts out.

 

And again, I also want to repeat that this isn't a method for cheats to correct a mix that's full of fuck ups so they can pass themselves off as some master mixer!

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