Destructive editing

[Rob Quin-2]

This topic has kind of been covered before but I want to take a slightly
different approach.

I have several recordings which I made on my portable multi-tracker. They are
mostly 5-track. Generally 15 to 25 minutes long with 2 to 3 minutes of useful
audio in amongst the bad takes and studio chat. I want to rough edit most of
the useless information off these tracks before I import them into ardour for
final editing. The tracks exist as separate mono wav files, so I need an
editor that I can import the files into separate tracks. Then crop them all
at the same time so that the new start points are all at the same place. If
not then the tracks won't be in sync when I import them into Ardour. Then
save each track as a separate wav file again.

I can see that I could make a temporary Ardour project. Trim off the excess
and then do 5 separate exports before deleting the temporary project. However
past discussions here have given me the impression that Ardour may not be the
easiest tool to do destructive editing with, So my question is: Does anyone
have any suggestions or opinions upon which software would be better to use
for this kind of operation?

Rob
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[Paul Davis]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 9:55 PM, Rob Quin <robquin@...> wrote:
> This topic has kind of been covered before but I want to take a slightly
> different approach.
>
> I have several recordings which I made on my portable multi-tracker. They are
> mostly 5-track. Generally 15 to 25 minutes long with 2 to 3 minutes of useful
> audio in amongst the bad takes and studio chat. I want to rough edit most of
> the useless information off these tracks before I import them into ardour for
> final editing.

Why? You can do everything you outline without this step.

--p
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[Ray Rashif]

2009/10/31 Paul Davis <paul@...>

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 9:55 PM, Rob Quin <robquin@...> wrote:
> This topic has kind of been covered before but I want to take a slightly
> different approach.
>
> I have several recordings which I made on my portable multi-tracker. They are
> mostly 5-track. Generally 15 to 25 minutes long with 2 to 3 minutes of useful
> audio in amongst the bad takes and studio chat. I want to rough edit most of
> the useless information off these tracks before I import them into ardour for
> final editing.

Why? You can do everything you outline without this step.

I think he wants to work on the edited tracks - I do that all the time with drums (limiting and normalising). It's a workflow some of us feel more comfortable with. And I use Audacity, it can render stems/"export multiple tracks".

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[Patrick Shirkey]

On 10/31/2009 07:48 PM, Ray Rashif wrote:

2009/10/31 Paul Davis <paul@...>

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 9:55 PM, Rob Quin <robquin@...> wrote:
> This topic has kind of been covered before but I want to take a slightly
> different approach.
>
> I have several recordings which I made on my portable multi-tracker. They are
> mostly 5-track. Generally 15 to 25 minutes long with 2 to 3 minutes of useful
> audio in amongst the bad takes and studio chat. I want to rough edit most of
> the useless information off these tracks before I import them into ardour for
> final editing.

Why? You can do everything you outline without this step.

I think he wants to work on the edited tracks - I do that all the time with drums (limiting and normalising). It's a workflow some of us feel more comfortable with. And I use Audacity, it can render stems/"export multiple tracks".

Sure you can do it in audacity, sweep, rezound, snd, and several other multi track editor apps.

However you could also just embed the tracks in a session and trim the start points then either "print" or record the tracks to a new track or export the tracks or even just the selected area to disk and reimport them.

I'm not sure why Rob has the impression that Ardour has issues with performing this relatively simple task. I haven't experienced any problems doing this with ardour for several years now.



Cheers.



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[Ray Rashif]

2009/10/31 Patrick Shirkey <pshirkey@...>

or export the tracks or even just the selected area to disk and reimport them.

Yes you could re-record in-the-box, but it feels cleaner to do it in an external editor such that to the DAW's "knowledge and history", the edited files _are_ the raw files. Using an editor also allows you to get immediate visual feedback of changes to the waveform.

But anyway, 2.X can't render stems.

DAWs should be non-destructive - that's why there are destructive editors to take care of your destructive needs =p

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[Jörn Nettingsmeier-5]

Ray Rashif wrote:

> 2009/10/31 Patrick Shirkey <pshirkey@...
> <mailto:pshirkey@...>>
>
>     or export the tracks or even just the selected area to disk and
>     reimport them.
>
>
> Yes you could re-record in-the-box, but it feels cleaner to do it in an
> external editor such that to the DAW's "knowledge and history", the
> edited files _are_ the raw files. Using an editor also allows you to get
> immediate visual feedback of changes to the waveform.

sure, whatever floats your boat.

> But anyway, 2.X can't render stems.

not sure if i understand what you mean by "stems", but ardour can
bounce/consolidate/whatever pretty much anything you throw at it.

> DAWs should be non-destructive - that's why there are destructive
> editors to take care of your destructive needs =p

i wonder what those destructive needs would be :) disks are cheap.

best,

jörn



--
Jörn Nettingsmeier

Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik

Audio and event engineer
Ambisonic surround recordings

http://stackingdwarves.net
[phone]

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[Ray Rashif]

2009/10/31 Jörn Nettingsmeier <nettings@...>

> But anyway, 2.X can't render stems.

not sure if i understand what you mean by "stems", but ardour can
bounce/consolidate/whatever pretty much anything you throw at it.

So how should I export/bounce/consolidate  24 separate tracks so I have 24 processed audio files?

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[Patrick Shirkey]

On 10/31/2009 09:41 PM, Ray Rashif wrote:

2009/10/31 Jörn Nettingsmeier <nettings@...>

> But anyway, 2.X can't render stems.

not sure if i understand what you mean by "stems", but ardour can
bounce/consolidate/whatever pretty much anything you throw at it.

So how should I export/bounce/consolidate  24 separate tracks so I have 24 processed audio files?

One way to do it with Ardour is to select the tracks and export the selection to disk using multiple outputs.

Another way would be to trim all the tracks and then export them all one by one or two by two or four by four etc...

Then you can simply delete the original tracks from the session and if you feel like it completely delete them from your disk too.

 






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[Jörn Nettingsmeier-5]

Ray Rashif wrote:

> 2009/10/31 Jörn Nettingsmeier <nettings@...
> <mailto:nettings@...>>
>
>     > But anyway, 2.X can't render stems.
>
>     not sure if i understand what you mean by "stems", but ardour can
>     bounce/consolidate/whatever pretty much anything you throw at it.
>
>
> So how should I export/bounce/consolidate  24 separate tracks so I have
> 24 processed audio files?

don't use "export", it can only do stereo.
create a range over all the tracks you want to bounce, then context
menu: bounce | bounce with processing | consolidate.
the latter will exchange the current range in the track(s) with the
freshly bounced region(s).


best,

jörn


--
Jörn Nettingsmeier

Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik

Audio and event engineer
Ambisonic surround recordings

http://stackingdwarves.net
[phone]

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[Patrick Shirkey]

On 10/31/2009 10:42 PM, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:

> Ray Rashif wrote:
>    
>> 2009/10/31 Jörn Nettingsmeier<nettings@...
>> <mailto:nettings@...>>
>>
>>      >  But anyway, 2.X can't render stems.
>>
>>      not sure if i understand what you mean by "stems", but ardour can
>>      bounce/consolidate/whatever pretty much anything you throw at it.
>>
>>
>> So how should I export/bounce/consolidate  24 separate tracks so I have
>> 24 processed audio files?
>>      
> don't use "export", it can only do stereo.
> create a range over all the tracks you want to bounce, then context
> menu: bounce | bounce with processing | consolidate.
> the latter will exchange the current range in the track(s) with the
> freshly bounced region(s).
>
>    

That's a handy trick to know.

I'm sure I remember having an option to assign the number of tracks to
an exported track last time I exported.



Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd



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[Ray Rashif]

2009/10/31 Jörn Nettingsmeier <nettings@...>

Ray Rashif wrote:
> 2009/10/31 Jörn Nettingsmeier <nettings@...

> <mailto:nettings@...>>

>
>     > But anyway, 2.X can't render stems.
>
>     not sure if i understand what you mean by "stems", but ardour can
>     bounce/consolidate/whatever pretty much anything you throw at it.
>
>
> So how should I export/bounce/consolidate  24 separate tracks so I have
> 24 processed audio files?

don't use "export", it can only do stereo.
create a range over all the tracks you want to bounce, then context
menu: bounce | bounce with processing | consolidate.
the latter will exchange the current range in the track(s) with the
freshly bounced region(s).

Now _that_ is a neat workaround, thanks.

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[Jörn Nettingsmeier-5]

Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>
> I'm sure I remember having an option to assign the number of tracks to
> an exported track last time I exported.

you can decide which tracks you want to *use*, but you will currently
only ever get a 2-channel output. there's no way in ardour2 to directly
export a 3 or more channel file.

that's where sox -M comes to the rescue: just record everything to an
N-channel track and merge the individual channels into an interleaved file.

iirc, sakari bergen has worked on a more flexible export dialog for
ardour3, but i haven't tried it yet.


best,

jörn



--
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Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik

Audio and event engineer
Ambisonic surround recordings

http://stackingdwarves.net
[phone]

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[Rob Quin-2]

On Saturday 31 October 2009 02:05:47 Paul Davis
<paul@...>wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 9:55 PM, Rob Quin <robquin@...> wrote:
> > This topic has kind of been covered before but I want to take a slightly
> > different approach.
> >
> > I have several recordings which I made on my portable multi-tracker. They
> > are mostly 5-track. Generally 15 to 25 minutes long with 2 to 3 minutes
> > of useful audio in amongst the bad takes and studio chat. I want to rough
> > edit most of the useless information off these tracks before I import
> > them into ardour for final editing.
>
> Why? You can do everything you outline without this step.
>
> --p

If I just import the raw tracks into Ardour, it makes resampled 32bit copies.
Approximately 10 % of this file is useful, 90% is a waste of space. This
effectively turns a 1TB hard drive into a 100GB drive. My primary concern is
to save disk space. If I can do that easily from within Ardour then that
would be great but I haven't worked it out yet.

Thankyou to everyone who posted replies. I'll be working through the ideas
raised during the next week.

Rob
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[Paul Davis]

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 7:00 PM, Rob Quin <robquin@...> wrote:

> If I just import the raw tracks into Ardour, it makes resampled 32bit copies.

Turn off the "Copy files to session" toggle near the lower right
corner of the import dialog. As long as they are at the same sample
rate as the session - no copying, Ardour will just use the original
files.

Alternatively, or additionally, change Ardour's default native disk
sample format to 16 bit (Options -> Audio File Format -> Sample Format
-> 16 bit).

Enjoy.
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[Jörn Nettingsmeier-5]

Paul Davis wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 7:00 PM, Rob Quin <robquin@...> wrote:
>
>> If I just import the raw tracks into Ardour, it makes resampled 32bit copies.
>
> Turn off the "Copy files to session" toggle near the lower right
> corner of the import dialog. As long as they are at the same sample
> rate as the session - no copying, Ardour will just use the original
> files.
>
> Alternatively, or additionally, change Ardour's default native disk
> sample format to 16 bit (Options -> Audio File Format -> Sample Format
> -> 16 bit).

ouch! don't do that. in 2009, there is no excuse to work at 16bits any
more, unless you're doing really lo-fi stuff, such as speech archiving etc.
at every processing stage, you will get round-off errors (which is
signal-dependent noise), and they quickly accumulate, so that the
effective bit-rate will have degraded to well below 16bits by the time
you hit the CD, which effectively means you can *not* deliver CD
quality. with clever dithering, you can squeeze 17-18 bits of
information in there, which means you should not work at less than 20,
and that only if you don't have many processing stages.

(of course, ardour's internal sample format will always be float, so the
 processing degradation only happens when you bounce stuff - but that
happens, i'm told :-D)



--
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Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik

Audio and event engineer
Ambisonic surround recordings

http://stackingdwarves.net
[phone]

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[Rob Quin-2]

On Monday 02 November 2009 10:58:19 Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:

> Paul Davis wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 7:00 PM, Rob Quin <robquin@...> wrote:
> >> If I just import the raw tracks into Ardour, it makes resampled 32bit
> >> copies.
> >
> > Turn off the "Copy files to session" toggle near the lower right
> > corner of the import dialog. As long as they are at the same sample
> > rate as the session - no copying, Ardour will just use the original
> > files.
> >
> > Alternatively, or additionally, change Ardour's default native disk
> > sample format to 16 bit (Options -> Audio File Format -> Sample Format
> > -> 16 bit).
>
> ouch! don't do that. in 2009, there is no excuse to work at 16bits any
> more, unless you're doing really lo-fi stuff, such as speech archiving etc.
> at every processing stage, you will get round-off errors (which is
> signal-dependent noise), and they quickly accumulate, so that the
> effective bit-rate will have degraded to well below 16bits by the time
> you hit the CD, which effectively means you can *not* deliver CD
> quality. with clever dithering, you can squeeze 17-18 bits of
> information in there, which means you should not work at less than 20,
> and that only if you don't have many processing stages.
>
> (of course, ardour's internal sample format will always be float, so the
>  processing degradation only happens when you bounce stuff - but that
> happens, i'm told :-D)

The originals are at 16 bit because that's the best that my field recorder
will do. Till I have spare cash to invest in something better I'm stuck with
that. I'm quite happy for Ardour to resample to 32bit (no sense losing
further quality during the processing and mixdown).  I don't want Ardour to
be working with my originals (they're my backup). It's the length of the
files that I'm bothered about. I don't want the resampled file to be 20
minutes long when the finished export is going to end up at 2 minutes.

Rob
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[Lamar Owen]

On Monday 02 November 2009 07:47:21 am Rob Quin wrote:
> The originals are at 16 bit because that's the best that my field recorder
> will do. Till I have spare cash to invest in something better I'm stuck
>  with that.

When you do find spare cash, a good portable recorder to invest in would be an
Edirol R-09 or its successor.  24 bit 48kHz WAV recording on SD card.  
Unbalanced mic and line in on 1/8 inch stero jacks, headphone out on 1/8 inch
stereo jack, built-in stereo electret mics, input level meters and controls.  
Can drive a low-voltage phantom-power-needing mic (like Audio-Technica's
Pro24, or even a headset mic like a Plantronics).
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[Asbell, Henry C.]

I'm using an Olympus LS-10.  Somewhat similar to the Edirol.  I like the
LS-10 better.  The mics on the recorder are very good in situations
where you need to record stereo with a simple 2-mic setup.  It will do
24 bit up to 96k sampling rate.

-----Original Message-----
From: ardour-users-bounces@...
[mailto:ardour-users-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Lamar Owen
Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 9:40 AM
To: ardour-users@...
Subject: Re: [Ardour-Users] Destructive editing

On Monday 02 November 2009 07:47:21 am Rob Quin wrote:
> The originals are at 16 bit because that's the best that my field
recorder
> will do. Till I have spare cash to invest in something better I'm
stuck
>  with that.

When you do find spare cash, a good portable recorder to invest in would
be an
Edirol R-09 or its successor.  24 bit 48kHz WAV recording on SD card.  
Unbalanced mic and line in on 1/8 inch stero jacks, headphone out on 1/8
inch
stereo jack, built-in stereo electret mics, input level meters and
controls.  
Can drive a low-voltage phantom-power-needing mic (like Audio-Technica's

Pro24, or even a headset mic like a Plantronics).
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[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 7:57 AM, Asbell, Henry C. <asbellh@...> wrote:
> I'm using an Olympus LS-10.  Somewhat similar to the Edirol.  I like the
> LS-10 better.  The mics on the recorder are very good in situations
> where you need to record stereo with a simple 2-mic setup.  It will do
> 24 bit up to 96k sampling rate.
>

The LS-10 looks very nice. 24/96 capable. I wonder (but not a lot!)
about the less standard outward stereo mic placement. Seems that it
will record quite a lot. It has 2GB internally and supports SDHC
cards. $233 at Amazon.

The Zoom H4n has the more accepted inward stereo configuration. 24/96
capable. Uses SDHC cards up to 32GB. Has an external wired remote
option. Bigger and clunkier I think. $299 at Amazon.

The Edirol R-09HR is the 24/96 version. Internal forward facing mics
as best I can tell so not an X-Y config. Uses SDHC cards up to 8GB.
Has a wireless remote included. $277 at Amazon. I wonder if a single
wireless remote could start recording simultaneously on more than one
R-09HR. I could be interested in that myself.

If I had $1K spare I might buy them all. They all look quite nice.

- Mark
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[Daniel Joshua Worth]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Daniel Joshua Worth <pipemanmusic@...>
Date: Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 11:45 AM
Subject: Re: [Ardour-Users] Destructive editing
To: Mark Knecht <markknecht@...>

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@...> wrote:

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 7:57 AM, Asbell, Henry C. <asbellh@...> wrote:
> I'm using an Olympus LS-10.  Somewhat similar to the Edirol.  I like the
> LS-10 better.  The mics on the recorder are very good in situations
> where you need to record stereo with a simple 2-mic setup.  It will do
> 24 bit up to 96k sampling rate.
>

The LS-10 looks very nice. 24/96 capable. I wonder (but not a lot!)
about the less standard outward stereo mic placement. Seems that it
will record quite a lot. It has 2GB internally and supports SDHC
cards. $233 at Amazon.

The Zoom H4n has the more accepted inward stereo configuration. 24/96
capable. Uses SDHC cards up to 32GB. Has an external wired remote
option. Bigger and clunkier I think. $299 at Amazon.

The Edirol R-09HR is the 24/96 version. Internal forward facing mics
as best I can tell so not an X-Y config. Uses SDHC cards up to 8GB.
Has a wireless remote included. $277 at Amazon. I wonder if a single
wireless remote could start recording simultaneously on more than one
R-09HR. I could be interested in that myself.

If I had $1K spare I might buy them all. They all look quite nice.

- Mark
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I have a Zoom H4 and have to say I love it. It's been a great little device and works as a USB soundcard with balanced ins under linux.

Dan

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