audio clips/pops after cutting or chopping (comping vox)

[beatzz]

Ok so when i cut or chop my audio with the scissors tools many times i get clip/pop near the end.

What i do most of the time is to employ a quick 12ms fade to the end, add a short decay,x-fade, or automate a fader. Most of the time that solves the problem.

What other methods do you guys use to get rid of this problem when comping vocals. I have read a little about point of zero crossings


Zero crossing point: waveform where it crosses from positive to negative

Is there a way to visually see this when zooming in on the region? Does it look like a straight line (zero crossing point)? I know i'm "supposed to cut at that point" to minimize fades.

[KBOY]

What software are you using?

[beatzz]

Pro tools LE most of time. When doing midi i use Cubase.

[opentune]

Guess you should search for an option like "find zero crossings". Cubase
has such an option in the "main settings dialog".

Know what i mean? Enabling this option will prevent audio being cut
in a "non zero crossing" area.

Hope this helps.

[ExistanceMusic]

zero crossing editing is easy. just do your "apple-e" or "apple-r" edits as normal, then zoom RIGHT in and use the trim tool to shift the points back and forth so the edit points sit on a part where the wav is right down to the middle line.
We're talking 10-20 samples either way, so musical timing is rarely affected.

Having said all that, I operate in a bit of a "geek vacum" regarding PT, so someone else may have an awesome way that is 10x easier, but that works pretty well for me. But I don't do any heavy beat chopping.....

[s.d.finley]

Tab to Transient 99.9% of the time will put you on a zero cross right infront of the audio part of the audio file , coulndt think of a better way to say it!!


rock

sdf

[JonCraig]

make all your edits, then select the entire track, press cmd+f, and there is a field in the bottom right corner to allow you to set crossfade length for all fades in area selected. i usually use 5ms and have no problems.

--jon

[yeloocproducer]

Maybe some DC offset? This can cause excessive pops and clicks during editing.

[ExistanceMusic]

Originally Posted by s.d.finley

Tab to Transient 99.9% of the time will put you on a zero cross right infront of the audio part of the audio file , coulndt think of a better way to say it!!

See! I love this place, always learnin!

[Lagerfeldt]

Originally Posted by yeloocproducer

Maybe some DC offset? This can cause excessive pops and clicks during editing.

That would be my guess too.

[espasonico]

When using PT I always use the " Auto fade in out region " set to 1ms and never hear any clicks. This way you don´t have to worry about zero cross or whatever.

[yeloocproducer]

Originally Posted by espasonico

When using PT I always use the " Auto fade in out region " set to 1ms and never hear any clicks. This way you don´t have to worry about zero cross or whatever.

kinda scary... I wouldn't want that on all the time, esp. if I was sound replacing drums or something. You could lose very important transients.

[espasonico]

Originally Posted by yeloocproducer

kinda scary... I wouldn't want that on all the time, esp. if I was sound replacing drums or something. You could lose very important transients.

You just have to remember the preference. It´s only bad if you are using regions as individual samples but I don´t usually work that way, only for the click track where I usually use the same cow sample all the time and sounds fine. If I have to soundreplace drums I do it in long regions not kick by kick. When I have to beatdetective a drum kit I always consolidate the tracks and sounds fine. But it´s true that when you are using a kick sample region copied X times you can hear it but in my opinion, with 1ms sounds great. I remember once assisting a well known spanish engineer that was also operating PT that told me that our PT rig was broken because the kick drum ( wich was copied and pasted ) sounded with no attack and I told him to take a look at the preferences and was set to 10ms !!!.

You have to know your tools. It´s also a bit dangerous because if you consolidate a track that sounds fine and you don´t do the fades you can hear clicks because the preference it´s just for monitoring. Anyway, I usually never consolidate except if BeatDetective ( where I save the session with another name and delete the 1.000.000 regions for faster loading of the session ) and if they want the tracks from 0.

Hope this helps

[7rojo7]

If you edit with tab to transient and put a cross fade on it you will lose the transient unless your fades are butt end in and "whichever" out (dangerous, you might notice it after you compile and consolidate).
If you use the batch fades, you don't have to cut on the transient but can cut before it like this: Tab to transient> -5 (10)ms nudge (you can set this in your nudge dialog)> apple-E. When you do batch fades set the crossfade time to less than the nudge value and you'll preserve the front tip.
Remember that most regions that you're editing contain audio before the start point of the in and after the endpoint of the out, so if youre moving regions around to change the timing you'll have to trim back or forward to cover gaps (drums that have cymbals, pads, gtrs, declicking and depopping vox)
In the end it's just another key to hit, when you're doing alot of it it doesn't even take anymore time and you almost never have to go back because something sounds funky.
Vocal comping I do with play list editing, copy from one and paste on the comp track, I use the trimmer to change the edit points, this way I get a track together fast, if I have to move something at least I'm sure that it starts out from its original position. Actually I do this for all my comping, from a different playlist or the takes popup.