The Kensington Expert Mouse is an oversized trackball-style mouse with 4 buttons and a scroll wheel.  Its designed to dramatically reduce wrist fatigue (and comes with a gel wrist pad).  Trackballs are much better for your wrist than a traditional mouse (no carpal tunnel!)

Before delving into the features, I can tell you that the mouse feels excellent.  The ball is very large, and the added inertia helps you make smooth and precise movements.  The buttons are strategically placed, with easy access yet few mis-clicks.  The scroll wheel is a great addition (which is usually not present on trackballs), and in my opinion is one of the features that really sets this mouse apart.

The mouse comes with a software package to help you customize its functions.  Each button is assignable to any click, function or key combination.  Notice that one of my buttons is assigned to “Swap Scrolling”.  By clicking that button, the scroll wheel (around the ball) changes from vertical to horizontal scrolling.  This means you will never have to move your mouse to the side of a window to scroll, in any direction, ever. In addition, you can assign a function to the pressing of both top and both bottom buttons.  For me, this means I can switch tools, edit modes, and track views in Pro Tools without my left hand on the keyboard.  Below is the software panel where you can choose your functions.

After getting used to the mouse for about 15 minutes, I noticed a dramatic improvement in speed.  Having extra “hotclicks” at your disposel is really awesome.

The one downside is that this is not an inexpensive mouse.  It retails for over $100, but you can find it on Amazon for around $70. In my opinion, I would gladly pay twice that.

A DAW user’s dream, with no wrist fatigue.

C

The Studio Files

This is a great technique to know when a pop filter fails to do its job.  With a little EQ, a gigantic plosive can be squelched to a fraction of its former self.

So, wait… how do I turn on keyboard focus?  In Pro Tools 8, there are a few different windows in which you can have keyboard focus enabled.  You enable it by clicking the “AZ” button in each window (see below).  I would highly recommend enabling the region section of the Edit window, and the group section of the Mixer window (NOT the group selection of the edit window).

See the small gold, square box with the AZ button on the far right side of the picture?  Make sure that is yellow, not greyed out:

Pretty much the same (gold box, AZ) thing in the Mix window, except that the button is over by the Groups in the bottom left corner of the window.

So, why would I suggest these two, rather than say the Region or Group focus in the Edit Window?  With these two enabled, when you are in the edit window, all of your editing tools are a keyboard click away.  When you are in the Mix window, you can switch groups on and off by pressing the corresponding letter of their group.  (I.E. in the picture above, I could click the “A” key on my keyboard to turn off/on the first group, labeled “Gtr 1″)

I’m not going to go into keyboard focus basic editing yet (next post!), but I will talk about a few keys now.  

First off – the dreaded “N” key.  With keyboard focus on, the “N” key turns on/off “Insertion Follows Playback”.  If it is enabled, than when you playback your song, and hit the spacebar to stop, the insert point will have traveled with the playback (rather than operating normally, where the insert point would remain in one spot until you moved it).  This can be a big pain in the butt if it isn’t set in a way that is conducive to your workflow, so be aware of the “N” key.

Another key that everyone should know about is the minus (“-”) key.  This is not the one on the number pad, rather it is almost above the “P” key, next to “+”.  When in the edit window, if you click in the region of a track and hit the “-” key, the track’s view will switch.  For example, if you click in an audio track’s region, the minus key will alternate the view between waveform and volume views.  This is amazingly useful and quick.

Final one for today – If you are like me, you probably use the waveform zoom tools to zoom in on waveforms sometimes.  (see picture)

However, there is no button there to return waveforms to their default view.  To do this, hold all three modifier keys (Control + Alt + Command) and press the “[” key.  (That key is the key directly to the right of “P”).

More to come -

C

The Studio Files

Your man about town here with a first (second) look at the Line 6 JM4 Looper.

As promised, I spent the extra time to read through the manual before busting open this beautiful machine. It was hard… but I got through it, and I am glad I did. There is so much to know about this station. I would have been very limited if I would have just fiddled with the UI for a couple of weeks.

After spending a couple hours getting to know the JM4 Looper I am very impressed.

Line 6 made a big leap from their past model,  M13 Stompbox Modeler, which featured a plethora of stompbox amp modules, but only 28 seconds of recording time. The JM4 has a completely streamlined designed, which makes tweaking your music a lot more intuitive. It feels much more like an actual amp unit than the drum machine layout of its ancestors.

The JM4 Looper seems to be designed for both the writer and performer in mind. While there are large number of features and effects that can be adjusted, saved, and recorded, the looper can also be set up so only a few features are easily altered. This makes performing with the station a much less complicated experience.

Line 6 also increased the usability of the station by featuring 4 separate inputs.

-guitar

-mic

-Aux

-CD/MP3

The player is able to switch between these channels on the fly with simple tapping commands. This allows for each channel to have its own level, EQ, effect settings for a performance. Switching between them takes a little practice, but works really well once you have the technique down. You can use SD card to save your recorded loops and bring in music from other recordings. I have yet to do this, so I am not sure how well this feature works. I intend on recording music to be sent back and forth with another musician using reason, so I hope it works as well as it sounds.

The JM4 features a bank of nice drum grooves and full songs to jam to. There are a wide variety of genres recorded by well known musicians. When choosing a full song to jam to, the station will automatically load an amp module that fits with the style of song being played.  From there you can tweak the levels to jam with whatever sound you want. I had some fun playing around with the drum tracks. I think they will come in handy when trying to write an upbeat guitar part when I am away from an actual drummer. My only complaint, however, was that the drum tracks only have one tempo setting. I spent a bunch of time thumbing through the manual, but couldn’t find a solution.

There is an ON BOARD TUNER … sorry, I was really excited about this. When you want to tune your guitar, hold the tap tempo button, and it mutes to signal and displays the tuner. This is a very convenient feature that I am sure a lot of people will appreciate.

That is all I have for now. I still have a lot more noodling to do with it, but I thought I would share my first impressions. There are soooooooo many capabilities with this machine that it will take some time before you can really fluid with the UI.

Stay tuned for more about the Line 6 JM4 Looper as I learn more and get some recordings up.

BJSR

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This video will show you how to use all the different editing tools in Pro Tools.  This includes the zoom, edge, selector, grabber, scrubber, and pencil tools.  (I also talk about the multiple types of zoom tools, the time compression/expansion and loop tools, and also the object and separation grabber tools).  Stay tuned, because a video posted later today will discuss the edit modes of Pro Tools (shuffle, spot, slip, and grid/relative grid) and also the Smart Tool (also known as the Super Tool).

Transcript:

In this video from The Studio Files .com, I am going to talk about all the different editing tools that are available in Pro Tools LE.  All of your editing tools are up here in the Edit window, and you can select them either by clicking on them, or hitting the hot key command (which I will try to mention for each tool).  Let’s start with the zoom tool which is F5.  Now, if you click and hold on the zoom tool, you will notice that there are two different modes: Normal Zoom and Single Zoom.  Let’s start with normal zoom.  With normal zoom, you just click and drag on the region you want to zoom in on, and the window will automatically resize for you.  And, in normal zoom, notice that my tool stays on the zoom tool, no matter how many zooms I make.  With single zoom, when I make a zoom, my tool will automatically revert to whatever tool I selected before, and in this case it is the selector tool.  See, it went back.  Personally, I find myself using single zoom a lot more than normal zoom mode.   Let’s zoom out a little bit with the R key.  Let’s talk about the next tool:  the Trim tool (although some people call it the edge edit tool).  There are three modes: Standard, TCE, and Loop.  Let’s start with standard.  Standard is your normal edge editing tool.  When you drag an edge of a region, it edits the edge.   Very useful tool, you will use it all the time.  Let’s talk about TCE, which stands for time compression and expansion.  When you move an edge with this tool, it actually shortens or lengthens the time of the audio region.  Notice Pro Tools had to do a little processing there.  That’s because its expanding/compressing the region.  Be careful using this tool too much, because you can introduce some weird artifacts into the sound, but for little fixes, its great.  Finally, there is the loop tool.  And, if you are a Logic user,you will feel right at home.  In Logic, the loop tool will appear automatically if you put your mouse in the upper right hand corner of the region.  In Pro Tools, it works the same way, just click and drag, and you will notice that this kick drum is now looped.  Let’s now talk about the selector tool.  This is probably one of the most commonly used tools.  It looks like the cursor of a word processor.  You use it for selecting things, which can then delete, You can also select things (like we talked about in the keyboard focus video) and make fades.  You can select across multiple tracks to delete or edit.  Its also the tool you use to separate by clicking in an audio region and hitting the B key.  Let’s move on to the grabber tool.  There are a couple different modes, there’s Time, Separation, and Object.  Time is the one you are going to use the most.  So, click a region, and its selected via the timeline.  You can delete that, you can move it, you can copy it by holding down the option key while dragging, or, if you double click it, you can rename it.  Now, lets go to the separation tool.  You won’t use this tool quite as much, but I will talk about it.  Its actually a tool that you need to use another tool with.  You have to use the selector tool first.  Select a region that you want to separate.  And now, if you use the separator grabber tool and move this region, it will automatically separate it.  Personally, I prefer to hit B to separate and use the normal grabber, but, in certain situations, it may be very useful.  The final grabber tool is the object grabber, and this is a cool tool.  If you need to copy and paste (or move) things that are on different tracks, and you don’t want to grab everything in the middle when you hold shift to select them, this is the tool for you.  Notice when you click things, they are outlined in black.  I’m holding shift and clicking a few different regions here.  Now, I am going to hold option and move these.  That copies it.  Notice how it just got the audio that I selected.  Go to the normal grabber and see what happens when we do that.  Notice how it highlights it.  And when you go to copy it, it takes everything.  So, the object grabber is a very useful tool.   Let’s talk about the scrubber.  This works like any scrubber, just click and hold and move your mouse to the left or right to scrub audio forwards or backwards.  Its great for hearing small details or hearing things in slow motion, that sort of thing.  Now we are on the final tool, which is the pencil tool.  If you click on that, there are lots of options.  Free hand, line, triangle, square, random, parabolic, s-curve.  Let’s pick Triangle.  This is normally for writing automation, so we need a parameter that is automatable.  (Yes, I made that word up).  Let’s choose volume.  If I draw in with the pencil, notice that it makes the triangles for me.  And if you choose the line tool, it will draw in a straight line.  Now you know about the six tools in Pro Tools LE, and our next video will cover the edit modes and the smart tool.  

C

The Studio Files

Once you’ve watched our videos on grouping tracks and the introduction to keyboard focus, you are ready to learn drum editing in Pro Tools. I show two types of edits The first is a multi-track edit to fix the timing across all the drums. The second replaces a bad snare drum hit.

Transcript (slightly different from latest video, but same structure) :

This is The Studio Files .com video on drum editing in Pro Tools LE. This is basically the same video as before, but with updated graphics so that you can see the demonstration a little better. Now, if you haven’t watched our videos yet on keyboard focus or track grouping (or you aren’t familiar with those concepts), you will want to watch those first, because I apply all those skills in this video. So, I have marked two spots that I need to edit. The first is going to be a multi-track edit for timing, and the second is going to replace a snare drum hit. Let’s listen in to this first marker and figure out what needs to be edited. It sound like right in here, the drums are getting a little sluggish. (Both the kick drum and the snare hits). Let’s listen one more time. Let’s check out this kick, so zoom in with the F5 key. This kick seems to be coming in a little late. So, separate with the B key. Our nudge amount (just like in the previous video) is at 100, so we are going to leave it there. And, we will nudge back with the comma key. Let’s just move it 100 samples (or 1 click) to start. I’m going to zoom out with the R key, and lets listen to that. That sounds pretty good, but now, the next kick drum sounds like it is late. Incidentally, make sure that your ALL DRUMS group is selected (like I showed in the grouping tracks video). Otherwise, you are going to have to make single edits on every single drum (which will take forever). Let’s separate this kick with the B key. And, this kick sounds a little bit later, so let’s nudge it back 200 samples. Let’s listen to that. Everything is getting better. Now, this kick and this snare are getting behind. So, lets separate those with the B key, and nudge the whole thing back 200 samples. The kick is fixed, but that last snare is still late. We need to move it a tiny bit more, so separate with the B key, and move it back 100 samples (or 1 click). Let’s listen one last time. Sounds good. Now that we are done editing, we need to crossfade all of these edit points so that they don’t pop and click. So, zoom in with the F5 tool. Like we showed you in the last video, just highlight the overlapped regions and hit F (assuming you have keyboard focus on). And, it doesn’t matter if there’s space in between the regions like here. As long as you highlight and hit F, Pro Tools will automatically fix that for you. Let’s talk about the other type of drum editing. Zoom out with the R key. This type of drum editing is where you need to replace a hit. This is very much like our Logic video, but rather than replacing a bad noise, we are going to replace a bad drum hit. Yeah, on that snare hit, it sounds like hit flams the drum or mis-hits it or something. Listen one more time. So, we can replace that. We know that the snare hit right before it (here) is good. So, we will just replace it with that. But, you do not want to have your ALL DRUMS group selected, because you just want to affect your snares. So, go down [to the bottom left side of the screen] and make sure to turn off ALL DRUMS. OK, lets select the snare drum that we know is good, separate that with the B key, and switch to your grabber tool with F8. And while holding down option, drag that snare hit over the new one. Now we need to make sure that it is all lined up correctly, so zoom in with the F5 zoom tool. Switch to the edge edit tool, which is F6 (that tool will drag audio region edges back and forth). I am going to drag the original hit over to see where it starts, and just make sure that the new hit is lined up. That is pretty close, but it looks like I need to go back just a little bit, so I am going to nudge it with the comma key. And, just like we did with the multitrack, I am going to write in fades. So, hit F7 for your selection tool. Highlight and hit F. Zoom out, and listen to it to make sure it is OK. Much better. OK, so now just like in Logic Pro, you know how to do multitrack drum edits to fix timing, and you know how to replace individual drums. Stay tuned for our next video on the tools in Pro Tools if you need a refresher on that.

C

The Studio Files

Now that you learned how to group your tracks together in Logic Pro (by watching the video posted right below this one) you are ready to edit drums. I cover two types of drum editing. First, I show you how to edit multitrack drums (with a group) to fix timing issues/errors. Then, I show you how to disable the group to edit individual tracks to remove pops, clicks, false hits… etc.

Transcript:

Now that all of our drums are grouped together, we are ready to edit drums in Logic Pro. Let’s go into the arrange window with [key command] Apple+1. Now before you start editing, look at a couple things. First, in the upper right hand corner [of the arrange window], there is the drag menu. There are five different options, but I am going to suggest crossfade (X-Fade) simply because, that means when you make edits and regions overlap, Logic will automatically draw crossfades in. Also, there are three different cursor (or mouse) options. There are choices for left click, command+click, and right click. I am OK with my left click on the pointer tool for selecting and dragging regions, and my right click is on the scissors tool for making edits, but I am going to change my command+click to the text tool (rather than the Marquee). That way, if I need to rename any audio regions, I can do it pretty easily. In the bottom right hand corner of the arrange window, click the waveform zoom button. You will notice a slider appears. By moving the slider up and down, it will increase and decrease the individual waveform zoom on each track. That’s really helpful when you are editing drums, because you can see the transient peaks a lot better. So let’s leave some zoom on. Ok, lets listen to the drums and find a spot that needs an edit. There’s one. Here, that kick drum that hits when the guitars come back in sounds like it is a little bit early. For those of you who don’t know, to zoom in and out, click your cursor in the timeline, and then either move your mouse up to zoom out, or down to zoom in. Now, we know that kick drum is early. So, lets zoom in on it both horizontally and vertically. Since our tracks are grouped together, if you zoom in on one track, they will all zoom the same. So, put your cursor in the bottom left hand corner of the track name, and click and drag downwards. Notice all of the drums zoom in together (since they are in a group). To make edit points, we have our right click assigned to the scissors tool, so that’s going to be very fast. Make an edit point right before the kick drum starts. And make another edit point somewhere before the next transient. In this case, its our next snare hit. Now just drag to the right. As a reference point, look down here. The guitars and bass all start a little bit later than the kick drum. So if we can edit our kick to start when they do, it will probably fix the problem. Logic is a little confused about how to display our crossfade since the way the regions overlap, but click in there regions over here [to the right], and the crossfade is fixed. Now drag back with the edge edit tool. That will appear automatically if you put your cursor near the end of a waveform. And Logic automatically put in a crossfade on those regions. Let’s zoom out and listen to that. Its a lot better, let’s listen one more time. Great. Now there’s one more type of editing you may have to do when one drum has a little “bop” [artifact] in it, whether the drummer hits the mic or the cable got kicked, and you don’t want to edit all your drums at once. I have an instance of this over here in my low tom. Where the cable must have gotten stepped on or something. Listen to the nasty noise in the left channel. Hear that? And you can actually see it [the noise]. Now, we just want to edit our low tom, so we need to disable the “ALL DRUMS” group. Lets go into the mixer window with Apple+2. And just like we did before, highlight all your drums, and in the group selection box, just go to “No Group”. That will disable the group. OK, back to the Arrange window with Apple+1. Let’s just edit that noise out completely. So, using your scissors tool, make an edit right before that nasty noise and right after it. Click [select it] and delete with the delete key. Lets see how that sounds. That’s a lot better. Now if you are getting pops and clicks, you are going to need to use the fade tool to fade in and out at your edit points. Now you know how to edit multitrack drums all at one time, and you know how to go in and do “surgical strikes” on bad noises on individual drum tracks.

C

The Studio Files

This video shows the process of grouping tracks in Logic Studio Pro. Specifically, I show you how to group your drum tracks together to prepare them for editing. The next video in this series will show you how to edit drums once you group them. Later today, I am going to post that video, so be sure to check back.

Transcript:

This is thestudiofiles.com video on how to group tracks together in Logic Studio Pro. Its really essentially to learn how to do this because when you are working with a large number of tracks or when you are editing drums, it will save a lot of time by editing things with a group. So lets go into the mixer window with [key command] Apple+2. Now, you want to group similar tracks together; so, for instance, I have a snare top and a snare bottom mic. So highlight those two tracks, then right above the automation [selection] button you’ll see there is a blank space. Click in there, and you will see the thirty-two different groups Logic has available. Lets pick group 20 for the snares. Now the Group Settings dialog box opens, lets call [this group] snare (it makes sense…); and, there are a bunch of different check boxes that you can choose to indicate how you want your tracks to be grouped together. For now, we are just going to check “Region Selection (Edit)”, which will make the tracks edit together, and track zoom, so they will zoom [vertically] together. Let’s do the same thing for our toms, we have low tom, mid tom, and high tom. Go into the group menu. The next available group is twenty-one. Call the group “Toms” and check “Region Selection (Edit)” and “Track Zoom” again. And finally, group the overheads. Now the most important group when editing drums is the “All Drums” group. You need to make a group that selects all your drums at once. Again, this is the most important group when you are editing, which you will see in our next video. So highlight all your drum tracks and choose the next available group (which is twenty-three). Call it “ALL DRUMS”. Stay tuned for our next video coming up really soon on how to use these groups when you are editing drums in Logic Pro.

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The Studio Files

1. Timing: Keeping it in the groove

Just about all major releases you hear on the radio have at least one thing in common: impeccable groove and timing. Most often, these songs are tracked to a click, and edited in detail until no spots stick out as “mistakes”. Granted, there is a point where over-editing can destroy the “feel” of the song, but make sure everything sounds very “locked in” while enhancing the groove of the song.

Getting your timing to the point where it sounds really tight takes a lot of effort. For one, tracking to a click can be a challenge, especially if the musicians are not accustomed to performing with a metronome. Doing multiple takes of each part just to fix timing issues can feel like you are squandering precious studio time. Editing, on the other hand, can also be very tedious. However, just as you don’t want to record something that is sonically inferior with the intention of “fixing it in the mix”, you definitely don’t want to settle for an instrumental part with a shaky groove, forcing you to fix it with editing later. With all of that being said, when you are editing (if you tracked with a click), I would not suggest lining all the hits up exactly with the grid. Granted, its a nice reference point, but the song still needs to sound “human”. Use the grid as a reference, but use your most valuable asset (your ears!) to make the final decisions on edit points.

2. Get those vocals in tune!

Another thing you will notice about “major releases” is that literally every note is in tune. We all know that some of this (ok. ok, a lot) is accomplished with a tuning plug-in (such as AutoTune, Waves Tune, Melodyne, etc.), but just as often it is the result of talented musicians doing takes until the notes come out correctly. There is a “fine line” that is easy to cross, though: the point where “over AutoTuning” those vocals will also make your track sound less professional (unless, of course, you are going for that “Cher: Believe” effect). Its definitely a good idea to have a tuning plug-in at your disposal, but like with editing and mixing, make sure you get quality vocals from the talent while recording and use the effect judiciously. There is no perfect substitute for a vocal that is sung in tune in the first place. When you are tracking vocals, it is your job as engineer/producer to help the vocalist work through any pitch issues. Extended recording sessions can fatigue your ears and the singer’s technique, so be careful and take breaks once in a while.

3. Harmonies and additional vocal parts

Listen to a Kelly Clarkson or a Fall Out Boy record and you will get lots of ideas for harmonies and complementary vocal parts. For some songs, almost every phrase will have at least subtle harmonies or additional vocal lines. Try out different harmonies, descants, or even doubling to make your vocals stand out. But, especially with harmonies, make sure your intervals are in tune! A good tip is to lay down a scratch version of the harmonies that you want with a pad or vocal “ooh” sound so that the singers can use it as a teaching and reference point.

4. Make your stereo image exciting!

Don’t forget about those pan knobs. Try putting alternate guitar parts on opposite sides of the stereo image. Maybe pan those background vocals around? Double track your guitars (or vocals) and pan them oppositely. These are just some ideas to get you started.

A note though: this can be overdone, distracting or even annoying the listener. And make sure you watch out for phase issues. [Edit - we will cover phase problems and how to avoid /overcome them in an upcoming article--D.S.] Having every drum fill pan the listeners attention from hard left to hard right may also be distracting (although, the music will have to dictate this, sometimes it works). And, I may be sounding a little too “old school” here, but I would check your mixes in mono. What? This is 2008, no one listens in mono. This can be done in your DAW as well as with the mono sum toggle button that you might find on your mixer or monitor control box (like a Mackie Big Knob).

If you hit the “mono” button, and your guitars and keyboards disappear, you have phase problems. If you are double tracking with the intention of panning hard left and right, in certain situations, it may be beneficial to use a slightly different mic position (or mic) for the double track.

5. Turn down your distortion knob

Ideally, in many recordings (especially rock and metal) we want our guitars to be a “wall of sound”, slamming the listener with the glorious force of a stack of Marshall 4×12 cabs. However, by slamming that distortion knob to 11 (especially on a pedal or an inexpensive amp), you are adding a lot of high frequency energy and (sometimes) compression. In essence, you are are just making your guitar more brittle and harder to discern. Try turning that knob down, and maybe scooping the mids/high mids from the EQ a bit. Then track the guitar a second time and pan the two takes to opposite sides. Edit them so that they are generally “together”, but don’t overdo it! It is the small timing differences that make the stereo image so great. One example I can think of where the guitars aren’t distorted as much as you first think is in Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done”. When the guitars come in at the beginning and the choruses, they sound really huge. But if you listen closely, you can hear that they really aren’t that ridiculously distorted.

Hope these tips help. If you have questions about this article, or want to send me some tracks to listen to, I would be more than happy to share an ear. You can email me HERE.

C
The Studio Files

To see our recent video on drum editing in Pro Tools, click here. 

I received a question from Alex H. via email. Lets try to get it answered:

I recorded a song last weekend, and I laid down the drums for each part, because we wanted an improv feel to a few parts, so we could choose takes. Now, I’m familiar with blending different takes with crossfading, but that doesn’t work here. For example, I need the end of the verse to completely finish playing, while at the same time, the chorus begins. Crossfading doesn’t work because it’s cutting off what would be the natural sound of the drums, were I to have played both parts on one take. I know I can always make two tracks, and have one end as another begins, but that will double my track load. In DP, if you layer the tracks, it only plays the one on top. Any ideas? Ideally, I’d just place the end and start of the tracks over each other, and DP would play both.

Let’s talk through some possibilities.

EDIT: Expect a video to be posted on this soon. Its really really hard to explain without some quality visuals.

Well, this is a toughy. There are a few different things to try (I present 3 options). Options 1 is quick, but it may not sound great. Option 2 requires a lot more tracks and processing, but will probably sound good. Option 3 is your best bet (kind of a combination between the two). But, I would suggest familiarizing yourself with all the techniques, as you may have to use any one of them in another situation.

My first advice would be to try some different crossfading techniques. Before you do this, make sure all your tracks are grouped together so that any edit you perform will apply to all tracks. When you line up the two sections to crossfade, make a fade by dragging box in the corner of the waveform OR highlighting what you want to fade and choosing “create fade” from the above menu. If you chose to “drag the box”, now double-click on the fade. If you chose to “create fade”, that dialog box should have already appeared. Experiment with the different types of S-curve fades that are available. I would assume that since you want to make the first section “finish” before the next begins, you would want a curve that slowly faded out the 1st half, and quickly faded in the second. Its definitely one of those situations where you are going to need to experiment with different sized S-curves as well as smaller and larger fades. That being said, there is no guarantee that this will work…

Option 2 is to make a new additional track for each drum part. I would label them with some sort of tag (so you now have “Kick” and “KickA”, “Snare” and “SnareA”….). Then drag the verse you have to the original drum tracks, and the refrain to the “A”-tagged tracks. Then you can experiment with different fade lengths on each individual track. This will have the potential to sound the most natural and is the most flexible overall. However, it also requires probably at least another 8 tracks plus plug-ins… For DAWs with limited track counts or slower computers, this is a problem.

Option 3 is probably what I would suggest to do: Go ahead and leave everything on a single track as in option 1. Make the fade as best you can but don’t fuss about how it sounds too badly to start. Now, go ahead and mix your song. When you are COMPLETELY finished mixing, its time to “fix” the fades. Send your drums to a bus, and make a two new stereo audio track with that bus as their inputs. Delete the fades you have between each section on the original drum tracks, and drag the waveform edge to the right to expose audio past the fade. Now record-enable the first stereo track and record your drum part from the beginning of the song until that fade that you just deleted, being sure to record all the way to the edge that you just dragged.

The reason you are dragging the edges of the waveform before you record is that if you didn’t, you would just be recording TO the fade and not past/before it. Then, when you went to combine the sections, there would be no overlap to create a fade.

Now, record enable the second stereo track. Drag the other side of the fade to the LEFT this time, so that the waveform starts before the previous fade began. Now record your drum part (starting at that edge) until the next section break. See where I am going with this? Its basically the same thing as in option 2, but you are “bouncing” the drum track down to stereo in the process, which prevents you from having to make individual tracks for each drum.

Hopefully that made a little bit of sense… Alex also asked about reverb on drums, so I guess I should make a short web video about drums. I should be able to get to it tomorrow, so expect a video about this technique at least, if not also a video on mixing drums and using effects. If there is anything else anyone wants in the videos, or has any questions about this article, please email me.

Connor
The Studio Files Team