Speeding up workflow! Advice for editing long takes. Cubase 5 or Protools 8 ?

[Big_Bang]

I'm getting more and more requests for VO editing services, and numerous related projects, with the ocasional light video sync. But I'm a bit "scared" lol as I've been approached for some audiobook editing, if it works out, more might come, its actually a nice paying gig!

Also balancing between

- buying an mbox2 Protools 8 so I can do it on the laptop, and get up to date with it (been a while since I've seen the Tools...)

- or Cubase 5,

With all the new features, would you guys mind sharing your approach to quickly editing out silences, bringing parts together, fading in/out for clicks, mangling crossfades to morph words, etc etc... ?

Above all I'd like to develop the chops to quickly and efficiently get done with the cleaning up very long sections, before the creative flow drifts off, as future projects will involve sound design too...

I usually start of mixing before editing (VO only of course!)! Bring up all the ooompf compressing and eq'ing and twisting and turning as requested. All the little stuff jump straight out.

Currently I'm on Cubase 4, alt+clicking (cut) close the the inicial vocal transient all the way through, then pulling back silences to end of each section, the go through the the audio and deleting repititions, then I do a last run fine tuning fades, rythmn, sync, whatever.

your views?

[yoshimodular]

IMHO, Cubase/Nuendo has the best and fastest editor in any DAW. All DAWs has (more or less) the same features, but the workflow in Cubendo is really fast.


Regards.

[Big_Bang]

Yoshi, gracias por contestar

Well, I am in no ways trying to make this thread into ... .. yet ANOTHER DAW war thread... far from it !

Each person adapts to each DAW because they logically (to them) get things done withat that DAW.

But that is in general terms. For instance, I'll take Cubendo any day of the week for any type of job... but I've extensively mixed with Protools and I LOVE it too... but that is when I have all the editing done with. Because I very quickly forget and start to think too much about shortcuts, Cubase is better right now for me, for ninja style keyboard operations.

But, I'll give it to the Tools that stripping silence and bringing the waves snapped to events can be much quicker. Or, I missed this one with Steinberg ...? Oh, and plugins is not always a solution as I work with numerous studios.

Love/hate asside, the process of editing very long takes can be reduced considerably, and it is in this department that I feel I could speeed up things.

[Jesse Peterson]

+1 cubendo

especially with dialog editing anything repetitive. cubendo programable macro commands save the day.

[auvarov]

I'll definitely take PT for that. Obviously, it's just an opinion. But I'm confident that you can edit fast in any environment, Pro Tools or otherwise. The key, as people have pointed out, is knowing your shortcuts. It's true that there aren't any programmable macros in Pro Tools, but I find that I don't need them.
Some time ago, someone on this board has suggested unplugging a mouse for one session and trying to edit with just a keyboard. At the beginning you hate it, but after a little learning you speed up. Excellent suggestion! As a general statement, all you really need is trim commands, edit mode toggles, and fades. Keyboard allows you to have all of those things at your fingertips. Add a mouse to point your cursor in the right direction, and your editing becomes that much faster.

Of course, you'd be able to do that with any software. I'm just pointing out that PT should not be disregarded as a tool for fast editing.

[Etch-A-Sketch]

Originally Posted by Big_Bang

I'm getting more and more requests for VO editing services, and numerous related projects, with the ocasional light video sync. But I'm a bit "scared" lol as I've been approached for some audiobook editing, if it works out, more might come, its actually a nice paying gig!

Also balancing between

- buying an mbox2 Protools 8 so I can do it on the laptop, and get up to date with it (been a while since I've seen the Tools...)

- or Cubase 5,

With all the new features, would you guys mind sharing your approach to quickly editing out silences, bringing parts together, fading in/out for clicks, mangling crossfades to morph words, etc etc... ?

Above all I'd like to develop the chops to quickly and efficiently get done with the cleaning up very long sections, before the creative flow drifts off, as future projects will involve sound design too...

I usually start of mixing before editing! Bring up all the ooompf compressing and eq'ing and twisting and turning as requested. All the little stuff jump straight out.

Currently I'm on Cubase 4, alt+clicking (cut) close the the inicial vocal transient all the way through, then pulling back silences to end of each section, the go through the the audio and deleting repititions, then I do a last run fine tuning fades, rythmn, sync, whatever.

your views?

Not saying either is better. I just happen to use protools for everything.

Cmd+U to bring up the strip silence window.

Shuffle mode (F1) to edit while keeping audio regions butted up against each other

Smart tool (F7 and F8 simultaneously) to do crossfades quickly.

TC/E Trim tool (F6 twice) to time compress/expand words to match sync to picture

There are so many other commands I use for editing too, it's hard to list them all. But, for me anyway, editing dialogue and/or VO is very quick with ProTools.

[josh broome]

Pro Tools is incredibly fast for this particular task, with the smart tool you can create a fade and adjust the fade length with one click + drag on the region corner. the A key will cut and delete all before insertion and S key does the same after insertion. R and T zoom in and out and space bar for play/stop.

All these shortcuts are laid out so you everthing you may need to do while you edit can be done with your left hand in it's (basically) natural resting position, and your right hand on the mouse. It's fast easy and comfortable. Of course other DAWs let you map your own commands, but the other great thing about Pro Tools is... It's Pro Tools! If you work with audio it's pretty much expected that you are proficient with the program. Plus the way the region bin is laid out makes it a breeze to cut in alt takes.

If you record with an m-box and already have nice pres and A/D conversion, go into the Mbox via SPDIF.

[ErikG]

Plus the way the region bin is laid out makes it a breeze to cut in alt takes.

LMAO, hysterical joke!

Not a joke? seriously illinformed...

The archaic region bin in PT should have gone away with the dinosaurs.

The fact that a lot of folks use PT is no reason at all to choose it for a specific task. But OTOH if you work with other post houses a PT system is a necessity still.

The person that have never used macros just becasue there are none in PTitself is missing a lot. You cant beat a set of well setup macros to speed up your work. Its simply not possible to do the same things as fast and correct manually as a macro can.

But don't be afraid of using an external macro program with PT, it works fine that way to. You can also use it to make changes in PTs default key commands so that you can work even faster.

Ive used Pro Tools since it was called Sound Tools and could only edit stereo stuff. But I still prefer the customizability of Nuendo and the little things that set the applications apart so that when given a choice, I choose Nuendo over PT for both editing and mixing.

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Any DAW that you are familiar with can be very good for the tasks you are asking about. I use Wavelab for editing and am very quick at doing it.

The biggest thing is to get very familiar with the DAW and use it every day. Bouncing back and forth between multiple DAW IMHO is not productive.

[celticrogues]

Originally Posted by ErikG

LMAO, hysterical joke!

Not a joke? seriously illinformed...

The archaic region bin in PT should have gone away with the dinosaurs.

Just curious - what exactly is your problem with the region bin? I happen to quite like it. You can change how you view the files, sort, and search in the bin pretty easily. Its a handy place to access all the takes. I've never felt like it was slowing me down.

Cheers!
-Mike

[ErikG]

We call it "a bin"

A bin was the box system where all the mag pieces were store when we used to cut on flatbeds/moviolas.
§ You could have more then one bin around you.
§ You could easily move a piece of mag from one bin to another.
§ You could move the bins in relation to eachother.
§ When moving between editing rooms you could just bring the bins with you.
§ Within each bin you could have your own sorting system.

This was then applied in the Avid and also Audiovision workflow.

Enabling you to have just that: Electronic bins with individual sorting methods.
You could actually move a bin from one editing room to another.

See where I'm going....
We have ben waiting for Digidesign to get this right since they bought and closed down AudioVision, but it never happened.

This is a short explanation on whats still wrong with the old PT Bin.
Look at it, it hasn't really changed since forever. The sorting has improved some, searches are half way ok but the bin itself is still just crap.

There's a lot of good things in how ProTools works, the bin is not one of them.

[pkautzsch]

I have found myself to be faster in PT when it's about editing. Routing has also been more flexible in PT due to the bus system. Can't route a track to a bus which is the input of another track in Nuendo (actually, I think they changed that in the latest version, did they?).
Everything else I've found to be more convenient in Nuendo. Especially the clip volume is nice, you'd need a trim plug + auto in PT for that. So as soon as volume matching starts, I prefer Nuendo. (plus I prefer floating point...but that's the old "PT-vs-rest of DAW world" discussion...)

[ErikG]

Yup, the bus thing got fixed in v4 wich have been around for aquite some time now.

[Big_Bang]

Guys guys guys !! First off, I am a semi-seasoned professional that decided to take a turn in life, Monday through Monday 12-15 hour recording sessions makes life a little too complciated

And pleeeeease

From now on, DAW Wars is for morons who drink elephant urine and eat goat droppings. Unless you give specific example of WHY like Jesse and Etch-A-Sketch. Anything other than that is pointless...

Thanks Jesse!

especially with dialog editing anything repetitive. cubendo programable macro commands save the day.

I know that macro's are great, but one has to make them, and I don't know how far the new Cubase 5 features are able to handle this, like stippig silence and bumping cut events together etc... Care to share you macro chain?

I dont agree that I should stick to one DAW. Yes, you know one well, you know them all. But someone hires you for a session next weekend, no amount of reading/refreshing is going to make you look like a pro. Then, your cred flies out the window.

Jumping DAWs does twitch your head (shortcuts mainly), but after a while its second nature... like palying a different instrument! No problem there.

What I really "envy" about PT is exactly this, (and in addition to new PT8 features) - that for this specific job (long VO edits) it is sooooooo nice!

Not saying either is better. I just happen to use protools for everything.

Cmd+U to bring up the strip silence window.

Shuffle mode (F1) to edit while keeping audio regions butted up against each other

Smart tool (F7 and F8 simultaneously) to do crossfades quickly.

TC/E Trim tool (F6 twice) to time compress/expand words to match sync to picture

There are so many other commands I use for editing too, it's hard to list them all. But, for me anyway, editing dialogue and/or VO is very quick with ProTools.

Put me in a major studio and I'll record, edit and mix whatever you need, Cubase or PT.

Give me 30 hours of VO packed with repetitions, intonations, errors, etc... yes, I am leaning to bowing down at the Tools... I just never came across anything in Cubase that would compete in this.

[apple-q]

Originally Posted by ErikG

We call it "a bin"

A bin was the box system where all the mag pieces were store when we used to cut on flatbeds/moviolas.
§ You could have more then one bin around you.
§ You could easily move a piece of mag from one bin to another.
§ You could move the bins in relation to eachother.
§ When moving between editing rooms you could just bring the bins with you.
§ Within each bin you could have your own sorting system.

Most importantly:

Bins could contain a cut sequence not just single recordings of sounds. This is a major difference to "folders" that simply replicate the finder within a DAW. But this of course only makes sense in a DAW that supports sequences. So this rules out PT anyway. A Bin in the AVID and a simple folder with sound files is a huge difference.

[petessound@hotm]

hey, i started in cubasse and loved it. i moved to PT when i got more into post as swapping sessions and files around made life easier.

in the end one might be 10mins quicker in 'real time saved', maybe even an hour spread over a whole days editing so its worth considering how long it will actually take to learn a new DAW and weigh the two up

[diogo_c]

Originally Posted by Thomas W. Bethe

Any DAW that you are familiar with can be very good for the tasks you are asking about. I use Wavelab for editing and am very quick at doing it.

The biggest thing is to get very familiar with the DAW and use it every day. Bouncing back and forth between multiple DAW IMHO is not productive.

Absolutely agree with you Thomas.

In my case, Cubase all the way as I'm so used to the customized keyboard shortcuts I've developed over the years. I can edit fast in PT or Logic as well but it is not that lightning-fast that I can achieve with Cubase.

I'm considering a Steinberg C12 USB Interface for editing, because of that AI knob and its portable size fits nice for remote work. That AI knob looks very attractive to speed even more the workflow.

[pkautzsch]

Originally Posted by diogo_c

...I'm so used to the customized keyboard shortcuts I've developed over the years. I can edit fast in PT or Logic as well but it is not that lightning-fast that I can achieve with Cubase.

One could customize Cubendo shortcuts to mostly match PT's, so switching back and forth wouldn't be as much of an issue.

[Etch-A-Sketch]

Originally Posted by apple-q

Most importantly:

Bins could contain a cut sequence not just single recordings of sounds. This is a major difference to "folders" that simply replicate the finder within a DAW. But this of course only makes sense in a DAW that supports sequences. So this rules out PT anyway. A Bin in the AVID and a simple folder with sound files is a huge difference.

Region groups in PT do this... Cmd+Opt+G. all edits, fades, and sync are maintained within the region group yet while grouped it acts/behaves as one region. And you can undo the group (cmd+Opt+U), make changes to any of the regions within it, and then regoup it (cmd+opt+R). The other cool thing about region groups, it works with audio and midi tracks and can span multiple tracks (not just one track). Great for scoring to picture, using a certain sequence of sound effects in multiple scenes, or creating "verse, chorus, bridge" sections in a song that you can easily reorder and arrange.

Granted they might have been able to come up with a more elegant way to handle these in the region bin... but nonetheless the functionality is still there, you can see all the regions that belong to the group and you can drag and drop the group from the the bin to the timeline (and even spot it).

[jonnymac]

"mangling crossfades" you say?... then stick with cubase for sure!

in cubase and nuendo you can move a region thats connected to a crossfade and the crossfade contracts or expands in relation to the new regions location.
NOT in protools!
once you slide a region, the crossfade disappears and turns into a plain ol fade, you have to delete it, and then you have to redo the crossfade.
big ol PITA.

also, the scissor tool in cubase is WAY faster for slicing up audio then in protools clicking followed by a key command for EVERY slice you make.

Also dont forget real time bounce in Pro tools. it SUCKS.
if you need to make a quick edit of a crossfade after the fact or fix somethin you hear later, you can rebounce in cubase/nuendo in under 30 seconds.

if the track is 6 mins, u have to wait 6 mins in PT.

[charles maynes]

a couple of things regarding the last posts-

realtime bouncing-
Using the Audiosuite duplicate function will do a fast consolidate of the regions if that is what you need for your bounce- (no automation / insert fx present)- I still am perplexed how faster than realtime bouncing can work with outboard fx....

bin management-
using the different view filters can really help soften the lack of bins- I love using "view by modification date to find fx that get added in editorial- Also, if you are using Soundminer for effects, you can add information to the file names when they are added to PT- like prefixing all of your car effects with CAR - <your fx name here>

its not perfect, but it allows you to do a find and have all of the appropriate pulls turn up in the results.

[postprosound]

It's about the operator, not the tools. It wasn't that long ago, that editors worked on mag, Moviola's, and their ears. Dialog editing is an art. Most of the top tier dialog editors, and foley editors for that matter, cut their teeth with splice tape. They took this art with them when things moved to non-linear editors.

Honestly, considering that probably 98% of all dialog is cut on Pro Tools, I'd stay there.

But, in the end, it's about the skills. Read this book.

[apple-q]

Originally Posted by jonnymac

if the track is 6 mins, u have to wait 6 mins in PT.

Some people call it "waiting" others use the time to actually LISTEN to what you are doing. Do you always "blindly" do non-real-time bounces and never review to check if everything´s allright?


I would NEVER do a non-real-time bounce and hand that out for delivery without listening to the result. So in the end it would make no difference. Non-real-time always means you can´t listen to what is being bounced.

But that´s a question of taste and personal workflow.

When you bounce AND listen you are done and can be sure that the result can be trusted or hear things you might want to adjust on the fly.

[audiopablo]

Reason to like Cubase/Nuendo for editing:

Right Click or double click to get to an editor or do effects in line - super easy, and I like the GUI of the editor more, but...

In Pro Tools:

Strip Silence is great.

Command+E or Ctrl+E to make a new region while the portion of audio is selected.

Double click to rename a region (in bin or on disk, too!)

The Audio Suite FX window can stay open so that you can do the same effect or treatment to multiple audio clips by just clicking to select them (i.e. you don't have to open up the same window all the time for a repetitive task).

If you just want to output the new regions of files, do just that. You don't have to wait for a real time bounce on this (unless you've inserts or busses on). Just click the region, it lights up in the bin, and hit export on the menu on top of the bin.

Smart tool really is smart.

Audio Suite edits show up as new regions in the bin with access to the old regions, too.

Duplicating/copying and using playlists gives you easy way to have a few edit schemes for the same pass of audio. (I'm sure you could do this in Nuendo, though, I haven't been on it in a while.

Although I did love the per clip trim in Cubendo, click on volume automation in PT and using the smart tool gives you a de facto solution.

I used to be one of the Pro Tools haters. I still don't prefer it for electronic music production (other DAWs not to be named in this thread) by any stretch, but the more I learned it (especially for audio to visual), the more I was impressed by it. I think its simple interface is not indicative of a lack of power, but more a lack of confusion.

That said, I did use Cubase to do the sound design for a cinematic for one game and it was a breeze. No voices, though.

If it is just VO, wouldn't a dedicated editor be fast and efficient for what you want to do? Most of the new incarnations will let you put plug-ins on "mastering chain style" (Wavelab, Audition). I think if I was going to work with one voice at a time, no mixing, just cleaning up, I'd prefer to have the speed of an editor - especially one that offers spectral frequency editing.


Just my 2 overvalued cents...

[Geert van den Berg]

Originally Posted by charles maynes

bin management-
using the different view filters can really help soften the lack of bins- I love using "view by modification date to find fx that get added in editorial- Also, if you are using Soundminer for effects, you can add information to the file names when they are added to PT- like prefixing all of your car effects with CAR - <your fx name here>
.

And I would like to add to this: shift-command-F, you can filter the region bin by this search function.

[Big_Bang]

About those Cubase macro's... anyone care to share the magic?

[Jorn Lavoll]

yes, very curious now. post your top 5 (or 3... or 10) macros that you use lots