Tips for aligning tracks when editing?

[T Boog]

Cheers guys. This is less of a technical question and more about advice from your own editing approach.

If u record a full band live with no click and the band is fairly sloppy, what is ur approach to tightening/synching the tracks together? Would u normally start by breaking it down to just bass & drums and get them in synch first? Then maybe solo each instrument along with the drums to get them in synch with the drums?

Btw, I like that the overall timing speeds and slows in diff sections. I'm just trying to use my ears & my eyes to move small clips of waveforms around until it sounds like a great live performance... Not too perfect, not too sloppy.

So how do u guys go about this? Something tells me u veterans here have developed ur own basic approach that makes pretty quick work of this. Any tips are appreciated. Thanks!

[HOOK]

Depends.  Full band....is there bleed in everything?  If so, you're toast.

If there's not bleed, your solution to start with bass and drums is a good place to start.  I don't envy you in this errand.  Because you'll be aligning and time stretching till the cows come home...and still probably have something that's not quite right.

When I was still doing full bands and it was THAT BAD I would pull the plug on the project,  have a heart-to-heart with the band about coming back when they get tight and send them home with a refund.  They'd either show up better or they'd go somewhere else. 

[treesha]

I would use melodyne to try to align the tracks, you don’t mention how long the piece is but it could get quite tedious if its long. 

[Will.]

14 hours ago, T Boog said:

Cheers guys. This is less of a technical question and more about advice from your own editing approach.

If u record a full band live with no click and the band is fairly sloppy, what is ur approach to tightening/synching the tracks together? Would u normally start by breaking it down to just bass & drums and get them in synch first? Then maybe solo each instrument along with the drums to get them in synch with the drums?

Btw, I like that the overall timing speeds and slows in diff sections. I'm just trying to use my ears & my eyes to move small clips of waveforms around until it sounds like a great live performance... Not too perfect, not too sloppy.

So how do u guys go about this? Something tells me u veterans here have developed ur own basic approach that makes pretty quick work of this. Any tips are appreciated. Thanks!

You first start by finding the Tempo of the performance in the DAW.  I cant stress enough how important this will be with your entire project. Finding the tempo does not only counts for the editing, but also for everything you'll be doing after you synced everything together. 

Finding the correct tempo will align the project to your grid, so you your metronomewith your drums or bass guitar for this. From here everything else will be a "CAKEWALK."

Edited October 5, 2023 by Will.

[msmcleod]

AudioSnap is designed specifically for this task. There are various YouTube tutorials covering this.

First you need to decide whether to (1) snap the grid to the band,  or (2) snap the band to the grid.  

For option 1:   
https://youtu.be/I7D3wZldUJw?si=wWmHI8Sv7uXPJIo3

 

For option 2:  There are plenty of YouTube videos covering this:
https://youtu.be/9rg5c-4QiEg?si=YWXGaT4Yff6Fv90X

https://youtu.be/d5Vpyj4dkQs?si=pmHIEgYEPMDpfU5V

https://youtu.be/SyKEMul_VGA?si=joDJqObAs5Dv0QO8

You can of course use a combination of 1 & 2 - i.e. use option 1 to create a varying tempo map that matches what the band is playing,  then edit the tempo map and use option 2 to align everything to a steady tempo.

 

[Brian Johnston]

As a side note, it's annoying that you cannot select 'all' and move the entire section. I have to individually select each track and sections of each track (if not recorded in one fell swoop) in order to shift it all over a bit. That and the program quitting every few minutes and me having to reopen it (usually happens when I just finish recording something... maybe lack of memory, but nothing else is open).

[RBH]

I add all the drums to a selection group.. and cut and re- align them manually. Once that chore is complete  - them I move on to the basic rhythm tracks. It can be  tedious, but I've never found another method that gets it right without moving things around that I didn't want moved.

[T Boog]

1 hour ago, RBH said:

I add all the drums to a selection group.. and cut and re- align them manually. Once that chore is complete  - them I move on to the basic rhythm tracks. It can be  tedious, but I've never found another method that gets it right without moving things around that I didn't want moved.

Thanks. There's been some good tips above but this was the type of answer I was fishing for.  And yes, it's def tedious but I been making some good progress just cutting & nudging things around. It's for a good friend so I'm fine putting in the work.

I basically did what I mentioned above... Started with drums & bass, then I've been soloing every other instrument with the drums & bass. I want it to still feel live so it doesn't have to be perfect.

Anyway, glad to know I'm not the only one cutting and nudging things around like that.

(Who said u can't polish a turd ? ?)

 

[John Vere]

8 hours ago, T Boog said:

want it to still feel live so it doesn't have to be perfect.

This. I just worked on a similar project where it was a young bands very first live show. They had never used a PA other than for the 1 singer so the family asked if I could help them.
I offered to also record the show as well.   There were the occasional bass boners and wrong guitar chords etc. overall they played way better than I was expecting. And for a young band it was a surprise to hear them cover Southern Rock.
But I thought it best to use the tools needed to remove any blunders. 

I mostly used my copy paste trick where you delete a bad note and see if you can copy it from elsewhere in the song. 
If that didn’t work then I used Melodyne.  
 

I’ll say that the reason overall they had no timing issues is the drummer was very focused on tempo and was not flashy at all.
I also showed them how to put the bass player and amp right next to him so they can lock in. 

It also was a perfect venue. A huge stack of hay behind and an open Barn around them. 
 

They were very receptive to the idea of purchasing in ear monitors for future gigs.  If you’ve never played in a band that uses them there’s one aspect not always mentioned. Stage latency.  
In ears tighten a band up if set up properly. Just use one if you like,  that’s what I do. It’s like being in the studio at gigs. 
Modern mixers like the Behringer x18 are perfect for this. 

Edited October 8, 2023 by JohnnyV