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kevink
Location: France
Posts: 9
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 Posted - Sun May 25, 2003 7:02 am
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I'm working on some audio data that was transferred
"in bulk" from multitrack analog tape, one session
per reel. Each reel is about 500MB, and so it takes
a while to load. I'm trying to break things up into
smaller projects. For the first project on the tape,
that's easy. I save a truncated copy of the constituent
tracks, and wrap a session around them. But for subsequent
projects, I need to trim an increasing number of MB
off the beginning as well. Furthermore, I need to
trim off *exactly* the same amount from all tracks,
or I will lose synchronization. Doing a select and
delete of time in the multitrack view is a "virtual"
edit. It works for purposes of future mixdowns, etc,
but if one opens the constituent track WAV files,
the "deleted" time is still there, and still taking
up space on the disk. What is the recommended procedure
for extracting a synchronized multitrack section from
a longer multitrack session, such that one stores only
the interesting data?
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Graeme
Member
Location: Spain
Posts: 4663
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Posted - Sun May 25, 2003 9:12 am
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I'm not sure that I really understand the question - but I'll have a stab at it anyway - if it doesn't solve your problem, it might help someone else.
I think what you are saying is that you have transferred all of the tracks from an analogue multitrack into CEP and now you want to isolate the tracks which are associated with each 'song'?
For the first song, you just deleted everything past the end of that song? However, 'songs' further in you are finding it difficult to sync the tracks together?
It seems to me you should be using the 'Trim' function.
Open the whole file in MT view and select all tracks. Use the cursor to highlight between the start and end of the song you are interested in and then use 'trim' to delete everything either side of that selection. Now 'Save Session As' whatever you want to call it. Click 'Undo' and highlight the next song area... just keep repeating until you have isolated each song.
When you re-open the files, you will have to move them all to the left, so they start at zero. However, that's quick and easy to do, since each track is exactly the same length (and, more to the point) starts at the same time.
If this isn't what you are looking for, you'll have to explain it to me again  .
Quick Tip: If you haven't already done so, make the original file 'read only'. If you then press the wrong button, all will not be lost.
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kevink
Location: France
Posts: 9
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Posted - Sun May 25, 2003 10:29 am
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| Graeme wrote: |
It seems to me you should be using the 'Trim' function.
Open the whole file in MT view and select all tracks. Use the cursor to highlight between the start and end of the song you are interested in and then use 'trim' to delete everything either side of that selection. Now 'Save Session As' whatever you want to call it. Click 'Undo' and highlight the next song area... just keep repeating until you have isolated each song.
When you re-open the files, you will have to move them all to the left, so they start at zero. However, that's quick and easy to do, since each track is exactly the same length (and, more to the point) starts at the same time.
If this isn't what you are looking for, you'll have to explain it to me again .
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That's one way of working, but note that it's still just
a virtual edit - "trimming" does not affect the underlying
wav files. So every time I want to work on any section of
the project, I still have to load the full 500MB of audio
files, all my post-processing re-writes are applied to the
full wav files, etc. Rather than have multiple multitrack
projects, all of which read (and modify) a common set of long
wav files, I want to be able to cleanly cut the wav files up
into song-sized "slices", and give each project its own set
of wavs that are only as long as the song.
I guess that, worst case, I can write down the
minutes/seconds/microseconds values from the multitrack
display and manually try to cut the wav files all at
the same point, but that's amazingly tedious, and
I can't believe there isn't *some* way to do it.
All I *really* need is a way to make the area selection
in the multitrack view apply to more than one subsequent
waveform view - I could select a section, then drop into
each waveform to delete the same exact amount of time.
Alas, if one selects in multitrack view and drops down
into the first waveform, one retains the selection, but
once one does the delete in the waveform view, the select
is cleared in the multitrack view. And if I try the
inverse operation, selecting the time to be *included*
while in the multitrack view, then dropping into the
waveforms to trim, really strange things happen - the
desired time gets deleted from the wav, but popping
back up into multitrack, one finds the selected area
has changed, with its beginning shifted ahead in time
by an amount which looks to be the length of what was
deleted in the first track. There's *got* to be
a trick somewhere...
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Sun May 25, 2003 11:35 am
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The alternative might be this (if I've understood it properly!), and this works well with CEP2.1, although it should also work with CEP1.2a, I think.
Open all the files in your original session, and in a blank track, highlight in time the section that you want to save for your new session. In this highlighted (edit) [t:0eb6705605]session[/t:0eb6705605] section, select all the files (Ctrl-click on them), and select 'split', which will split all of the files at exactly the same time point. Now, if you drag these split sections down with a right-mouse click, you can have this part of the session on separate tracks, but still aligned. You can drag this lot to any convenient place, as long as each section is on a track of its own (so if you've got a 16-track session, move the split group down so it starts from thrack 17). Now deselect all the tracks. If you now select each split-out track on its own, you get a menu option to 'Convert to unique copy'. Do this for each track. If you don't save the original session, you can close it without the split being saved, so you still have the original session unchanged. But those unique copies you can save.
Then all you have to do is create a new session from them. They will all be correctly aligned, so you can shove them all up against the LHS and start from there. But the files will only have the split section in them, and be much smaller. The world is then your oyster - you can do what you like!
Is this what you want to do, or have I misunderstood you?
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Graeme
Member
Location: Spain
Posts: 4663
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Posted - Sun May 25, 2003 2:19 pm
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| kevink wrote: |
That's one way of working, but note that it's still just
a virtual edit - "trimming" does not affect the underlying
wav files. So every time I want to work on any section of
the project, I still have to load the full 500MB of audio
files, all my post-processing re-writes are applied to the
full wav files, etc. |
True.
OK there's more than one way of skinning a cat. SteveG has given you another.
I suppose you could also open all the individual tracks in EV (ensuring the cursor is synced across windows) highlight a song and then 'Save Selection' for each of the tracks - then start a new session using those files. Alternatively, you could copy the selection, open MT and 'Insert Current Selection' on each track and then save that session (which would be one song).
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kevink
Location: France
Posts: 9
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Posted - Sun May 25, 2003 2:37 pm
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| SteveG wrote: |
The alternative might be this (if I've understood it properly!), and this works well with CEP2.1, although it should also work with CEP1.2a, I think.
Open all the files in your original session, and in a blank track, highlight in time the section that you want to save for your new session. In this highlighted session, select all the files (Ctrl-click on them), and select 'split', which will split all of the files at exactly the same time point. |
I've tried (in CEP 2.1) to do as you describe. I create a
session with the untruncated wav files, highlight the desired
section in the first free track, ctl-click on all files while
the new track is still active, so that all the files are highlighted
(dark blue) in the file window. But I don't get a slit option.
Did you skip a step somewhere in your description?
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Sun May 25, 2003 2:50 pm
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No, I didn't. If you have a grey band covering the time section you want to cut, and you highlight the tracks you want to cut, then halfway down the 'edit' menu is 'split'. If you click on this, all the tracks you have highlighted will split at exactly the ends of the highlighted section. Then you have to pick up the split bits (LH mouseclick + Ctrl) and pull them down with a RH mousclick. Then it's as described before. It works fine here!
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kevink
Location: France
Posts: 9
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Posted - Sun May 25, 2003 2:58 pm
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| Graeme wrote: |
I suppose you could also open all the individual tracks in EV (ensuring the cursor is synced across windows) highlight a song and then 'Save Selection' for each of the tracks...
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I had already tried doing what you describe in several ways
before writing to this forum. The magic phrase is "ensuring
the cursor is synced across windows". How am I supposed to
do that? Yes, I can highlight the section while in multitrack
view, and if I go into EV via the EV button on the upper-left,
I have the same section highlighted in the EV, with a view of
the first file in the session. And yes, I can save the selected
part of the file. But I cannot seem to access any waveforms
other than the first one this way. Whatever file I highlight
in the files window, whatever track I select in the waveform
window, going into EV takes me to the first track. And if,
after doing my save of the selection, I close that file, I
lose the selection in the Multitrack View.
This is such a basic thing to want to do in processing
multitrack data that I can't believe it's that complicated.
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kevink
Location: France
Posts: 9
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Posted - Sun May 25, 2003 3:08 pm
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| SteveG wrote: |
| No, I didn't. If you have a grey band covering the time section you want to cut, and you highlight the tracks you want to cut, then halfway down the 'edit' menu is 'split'. If you click on this, all the tracks you have highlighted will split at exactly the ends of the highlighted section. Then you have to pick up the split bits (LH mouseclick + Ctrl) and pull them down with a RH mousclick. Then it's as described before. It works fine here! |
Your original instructions said that I needed to highlight the
desired time section in a BLANK track. That won't let me split.
If instead I select the desired time across the original audio
tracks, I do get a split option (yay) and I can drag the halves
around (yay), and do the unique copy thing. Amazingly tedious,
but at least I don't have to resort to paper-and-pencil.
Thank you very, very much. It's really unlikely that I'd
have stumbled on this technique on my own.
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Sun May 25, 2003 3:27 pm
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| kevink wrote: |
Your original instructions said that I needed to highlight the
desired time section in a BLANK track. That won't let me split.
If instead I select the desired time across the original audio
tracks, I do get a split option (yay) and I can drag the halves
around (yay), and do the unique copy thing. |
I did get one word wrong - I said 'session' instead of 'section' in the following line, which may have altered your perception slightly. But it does work that way - once you have the grey band, you pick up the tracks you want, and then you can split them. I only said to do it in a blank track because with some sessions, this can be slightly less misleading.
There are caveats - you should ungroup tracks before you try this, amd also they shouldn't be locked in time - this causes dragging chaos! But once you get into the swing of it, it's quite quick to do.
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Thank you very, very much. It's really unlikely that I'd
have stumbled on this technique on my own. |
More unlikely than you perhaps think - it's not in the help files or the manual. In fact, what it says in the manual about 'convert to unique copy' is slightly misleading... But I wouldn't blame anybody for this - the software is deep, and with the best will in the world, Syntrillium can't think of everything that people are going to want to do! That's what this forum is for, as much as anything.
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ozpeter
Location: Australia
Posts: 3200
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Posted - Sun May 25, 2003 4:35 pm
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Highlight the required area as suggested above, then Ctrl/rightclick/drag the material to a new location, (no split required), which will convert the selected area of each track to a unique copy in one go, without splitting (in CEP2.x at least)and without converting each track to a unique copy one by one. Much quicker. Or am I missing the point again?
- Ozpeter
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kevink
Location: France
Posts: 9
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Posted - Mon May 26, 2003 1:05 am
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| ozpeter wrote: |
| Highlight the required area as suggested above, then Ctrl/rightclick/drag the material to a new location, (no split required), which will convert the selected area of each track to a unique copy in one go, without splitting (in CEP2.x at least)and without converting each track to a unique copy one by one. Much quicker. |
Ah, yes, that *is* much quicker! Thanks a lot.
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Multitrack Deletion of Data in CEP