I am glad to hear from someone else in the same boat as me (we should start a club!)Astia wrote:Hi Alpha!
I hear You all the way. I‘m using the same method to quantize multitrack drums as You are and I totally agree about the issues with Smooth Audio Edits, closing gaps by hand (=crashing when selecting too many bites) and also the time it takes to do cross fades.
I totally understand the ppl who would rather just do another take than edit the drums. It just always isn‘t possible yo improve the take by re-recording it.. Altough in metal / hard rock(what I mostly do) there are very good drummers but still when playing double bass drum parts the snare usually isn‘t exactly on the kick. Turn up some high frequencies to snare & kick for proper sound that goes with the genre and it doesn‘t sound too good when they are flamming. If I want to use samples on tracks that are not beat detected, it sounds like the triggering has failed big time.
BDE is a great feature but it still needs some developing.
But..
rather than complaining, I‘d like to thank Motu for it because at least for me the editing nights have gotten a LOT shorter after BDE was introduced
I am currently working with alot of blues/swing type bands (just as that is what is booked into the studio at the moment) and I think that it is this that is making me doubt my methods. As suggested by the guys in previous replies I am going to investigate how to 'make the grid fit the drums' as oppose to vice versa. I think when working with bands of this type or similar this is definitely the way to go.
Rock bands in general are a different story and in my opinion hard quantising is the way to go.
Production values of today seem to require an inhuman degree of perfection and this has become almost part of the sound in certain genres.
I have to agree with you however and say that BDE has cut the time it takes me to edit by at least 80%, in studio hours this is a huge saving..THANK YOU MOTU! The frustrating thing is it is so close to being perfect, the problems are if you like, just bugs, so I really think it's possible that when the next DP is released these problems will be adressed (I really hope...)
As I mentioned previously the other engineer here uses Pro Tools using Beat Detective, He does things pretty much the same way as I do but starts to gain a serious time advantage on me when it comes to 'smooth audio edits' time, and also fading.
My wish list for 4.7 would include
1. Fix Smooth Audio Edits
2.Reduce the processing time for fades
3.Allow the beat markers to be copied onto a MIDI track as MIDI notes.
This would make me a very happy boy!