Well, it works if you're recording to tape.....

[Mark Bastable]

So, as what little I know was learned recording on multitrack tape, when I figured CW's auto drop-in (or punch-in as Americans tend to say) I thought, "Brilliant. No more sweaty tension as the engineer attempts to hit Record at the right millisecond. The computer can bring me in right on the first beat of the bar I buggered up."

So that's what I did. Impossible chord change, and I sit there tapping time, fingers in position for the second chord, and I come in bang on the bar and all is copacetic.

Trouble is,  I've got an audible click at the join. When I (lazily too late) look up what you're supposed to do about that, it appears you're supposed to momentarily crossfade the clips at the overlap. But I've got no overlap - because I dropped in dead on the beat.

First question: do I have an out?

Second question: what should I have done? 

Incidentally, you may ask how I've ended up having to make a chord change I can't actually play - and there's a more than banal answer to that, which arises from specific local circumstances and  which opens up a whole conversation about the way in which songwriting works.

I might start another thread about that, though it's not really a DAW topic. It's more a music topic. Is that permitted here?

 

[scook]

19 minutes ago, Mark Bastable said:

First question: do I have an out?

Drag the upper left edge of the clip slightly to create a small fade-in

19 minutes ago, Mark Bastable said:

Second question: what should I have done? 

Edits should be made at zero-crossings when possible.

From https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=EditingAudio.08.html

Quote

You should also now be aware of some things to watch out for when editing your audio data. First, if you cut audio clips apart or splice them together, you should do so at zero-crossings in the waveform (places where the amplitude is zero), in order to avoid sudden changes in amplitude that may cause clicks and pops. Second, you should beware of clipping. Clipping of the audio waveform can occur if you record a signal at too high a record level, or if you apply audio processing or effects that increase the waveform amplitude too much. If you accidentally cause the waveform to clip, you should undo the command and try again with different parameters.

 

[Will.]

Click here:  How to create crossfades in Cakewalk

[RBH]

Audible clicks can sometimes comprise just a few  samples, these can usually simply be cut and - or rendered at a significantly lower volume. These are generally not audible with -in the context of a track. If it's a solo instrument - or very upfront, there are a few other tricks to help mask them. Generally though - as Scook said - a short crossfade can save the day. Personally - I think CbB has excellent editing tools, the quick, splitting, moving, cross fading, time stretching alone is better implemented than most other DAWS. Once you learn a few easy key strokes.

Edited August 2, 2021 by RBH

[David Baay]

Not sure it's clear from previous responses: you can drag the split point between the two takes later to create an overlap so you have something to crossfade. 5-10ms of overlap and cross-fading is all you need.  Zoom  in on the punch point, and set snap to .005 seconds so you don't have to guesstimate how long the fades are and you can easily get them to start and end at the same place.  The cross-fade should negate the need to worry about snapping to zero-crossings, which isn't really that helpful. As I've posted many times (and demonstrated at least once), splitting at a zero-crossing is no guarantee you won't have a pop if the surrounding signal level is high - you still need a 3-5ms fade. 

The way you did it is fine given that you couldn't play your way up to the punch point because you had to be ready to play the change. Normally, if you were able to play the change correctly - but maybe only once in 3 or 4 attempts - I'd recommend doing multiple takes of several bars around the problem point until you get a good one, and then use the Comp Tool to create splits with auto-cross-fades into and out of the good take, and drag the split points as necessary get the cleanest possible transitions. As a MIDI guy, I don't actually do that much audio recording and editing, but it seems to me that multi-lane recording and comping capabilities make punching largely unnecessary.

[John Vere]

This is exactly why cakewalk doesn’t delete previous audio files like was brought up just recently in another thread. You can almost be sloppy about the new punch in and then just drag stuff around until it sounds correct. 
The original audio is underneath the new take so finding the sweet spot is easy. 

Edited August 3, 2021 by John Vere