Problems editing a classical violin recording

[rossmaninov]

I am an amateur and still learning about recording. I have recently recorded a violin player doing a solo piece. It is a 5 min piece and the violinist played it through many times. I let her listen to all the recorded takes, she chose which ones are best and then I edited it together in Cubase. The problem is that the violin player has listened to my editing and says that she can clearly hear all the cuts. So I would like to get some other opinions to see if other people can also hear the cuts. I have attached the first 1 min 30 of this piece (which probably contains 20 cuts) so please tell me if they are obvious.
Also, I will be really grateful to know what software programs people use for doing detailed editing and any techniques/tips that I should know about to give me the best results.

many thanks

[rumleymusic]

20 cuts in a minute and a half. You should tell the musician instead of worrying about your cuts they should worry about their practicing.

There were a couple parts where I thought the violin came in a little too abruptly. Sounded like an edit. I would check your edits after a pause to be sure there is enough breathing room.

[Larry Elliott]

Of course the player will be able to "hear" all the edits - she chose the bits she wanted edited.

One of the "tricks" that will assist is using an editor that enables you to tweak the crossfade at the edit point.

Larry

[d_fu]

Could she identify your edits points correctly? Was she referring to technical or musical faults in the edits? I just listened quickly, and there wasn't anything that immediately jumped at me.
I'd agree, though, that 20 edits in 90 seconds is a bit much, maybe...

BTW, how was this recorded?

[rossmaninov]

The recording location was a bit small (I won't specify about it exactly now!). But I used two Oktava mics about 1 metre in front of the violin.

It is interesting because the violin player has emailed me explaining exactly where she can hear the edits in this mp3. I have checked in Cubase and she is totally correct, there are edits at all the places she is noticing. It is very strange because I cannot actually hear the edits myself. I would try to improve the edits if I could hear that they are bad, but they just sound smooth - as if there are no edits there at all. So I don't know how to proceed. I told her that I will get more opinions to see if others can hear these edits as well as her.

[Ken K]

I only heard one spot (around :19) that sounded like an edit. It sounded like a cut on a breath but I could be wrong. Maybe a couple of places where volumes vary from one take to the next. Nothing obvious to me.

Just because she knows where the edits are doesn't mean you did a bad job. Some edits just don't work even if you want them to. Sometimes the performances don't match volume, speed, tone, etc. That might be a case where you adjust the edit point to a place that does work or you just have to sit the player down and show them it doesn't work and come up with plan B. If the 2 pieces in an edit don't work together that's not necessarily your fault. Pauses are another issue.

In classical stuff I've run into where the performer knows they want to do a pickup on a phrase so they just play up to a point and stop and then just start on the new section. Then you're stuck because you don't know where the cut to the new phrase is supposed to be. Try to get the player to at least start the section they want to replace just for timing. Also there may be some sound they make in a performance (like a breath or fingers) that they wouldn't do on a new start that would make it sound like a performance.

Is it that kind of stuff she's hearing. There have been times where I've had to manufacture breaths because it sounds weird without it.

Maybe just sit down with her and go through each edit and try to figure out what the issue is that you need to address.

[Ken K]

I just saw your last post. It sounds more like she's not happy about the way the takes fit together. If they don't match they don't match. I mean what are you supposed to do?

[audio ergo sum]

listening once over the laptop I think I hear possible edits at:
seconds 18, 20, 23, 25, 33, 51, 54, 1:00, 1:07, 1:20, 1:34

But nothing obvious to me. There are things only the player himself could notice (technicalities he could not have played that way). Other things only string musicians could notice (impossible bowing etc.)

sounds overedited musically. Fear not to be perfect is the adversary to music.

[drundall]

Then there is the ever delicious "how's it going to sound live?"

The best you can do is as mentioned above look for musical and natural edit points. As a player shifts, the tone will often shift, so editing can be difficult. Explain this to her and maybe you can sit down together and fine tune the edit points or even remove some edits.

Good luck.

[BrianHanke]

It sounds to me like the edits were done well, technically speaking. The problem is that the violinist was not in the same exact spot from take to take and thus the perspective shifts a bit. There's nothing to be done about that after the fact.

In my view the only solution is to have the violinist record longer takes that she is happy with and that won't require so many splices.

[rossmaninov]

Sorry, I have made a mistake with my numbers. In the whole piece (which is over 5 mins long) there is over 20 edits. In the first 1 min 40 secs (which I posted hear) there is about 6 edits.
I actually think that the job I have done with editing is fine but I also know that it is possible to hear things a bit differently - perhaps on different audio equipment. I want to tell the violin player that the edits I have done aren't noticeable and that maybe she is hearing them just because she knows that they are there. I think the situation that both her and I will be fearing is that some people will listen to this recording on CD and hear that there are obvious edits in this. Similar to hearing mistakes or glitches etc.

In reply to audio ergo sum, I think you have heard some of the edits that are actually there but also some that aren't there.

So far my reaction to the replies here are: the edits I have done are not as noticeable as my violin player thinks they are. As I said above, I can't hear the edits - I know they are there from looking at them in Cubase - but when listening to it, my ears are just not picking up on anything that sounds like an obvious edit. I will also add that my violin player has probably got very good hearing, better than mine.

So please keep the comments coming. If you hear no edits at all or some of the edits then please let me know as it will help me make a conclusion on this.

thanks

[JonesH]

I woke my girlfriend with this vln recording (in Sweden it's midnight now), and she sends her regards... @JonesH

I just had time to listen to maybe half the piece (which sounds nice btw), and I thought I heard two technical edits and one thing that was just musically debatable.

[7rojo7]

I've done extensive editing for opera, which have been taken from multiple performances and general rehearsals.
The number of edits is normal for live performance
In the studio (or non 'live' without public) though, you need someone to keep track of the good bits, to stop the performance a recommence at the right tempo, volume etc... this means that someone who knows what music is and the piece involved etc...
I can't image a nightmare deeper than to record a nervous violinist without direction
The begining of this could be Glenn Gould, perfectionist, rightly so, but he had direction.
If you cannot give direction, ask the artist to bring someone trustworthy who can, someone who know music and the music with all of its implications, stylistic and historic, to lend a hand at choosing the pickup points and helping give rhythm
in the old days I used to run a 2mix (even cassette) in parallel with the multitrack or other 2 mix, this would give tempo and dynamic cues. Now I keep 2 tracks with the inputs set to 1-2 and do a quick bounce that I can move where I want to do pickups

[fifthcircle]

Not knowing the piece, it is a bit difficult to know for sure, but there were a couple places that sounded a bit odd-where there were some breaths that didn't sound natural and a couple notes that didn't seem to fit.

Overall, though, I've heard far, far worse. It really isn't bad.

Editing can be a rather unforgiving thing. When I edit, the crossfade editor is king. I use Sequoia here because of the flexibility it gives in fade editing. I could probably get similar results on SADiE or Pyramix as they have a similar amount of control over edits.

In general, use equal power curvers. Make sure that the content is the same on both sides of the edit. Faster transient music uses shorter curves, slower music uses longer curves. My fades generally run from 40 or 50 ms in length to 300-500 ms in length depending on what I'm editing. Don't ever count on reverb to cover edits- make sure it sounds perfect when you're editing dry. Also, with some instruments, watch for doubling sounds in the notes. If the note is even a bit out of tune or the vibrato is different, then you can have a strange sound over your edit.

--Ben

[audio ergo sum]

Originally Posted by rossmaninov

...
In reply to audio ergo sum, I think you have heard some of the edits that are actually there but also some that aren't there.
...

Which tells you that technically your edits are mostly good and defintiely not obvious. If she really hears the edits so clearly, make it an opportunity for you to learn. Have a correction session with her and make her talk about what exactly it is that she hears. You could be in for a great lesson on string instrument technicalities.

You said she made the edit plan? Did she already decide on paper (!), where she exactly wants the edits to be? Because that would explain both that she can "hear" the edits, and why some of them might indeed slightly be audible.

Musicians don't know how to edit. That's why it is the job of a good recording producer with experience, to decide which edit for technical reasons could be done without compromising musicality and sonics and which not.

[Roland]

A couple of quick pieces of advice, one technical and one musical. For starters, editing classical pieces like this, use the right tools. as pointed out above, programs like Sequoia, Pyramix and Sadie, come with dedicated fade editors that make this work a whole lot easier as you can do more finite adjustments, as far as I am aware this isn't a facility that Cubase offers as it is more geared towards Midi and pop/rock production.

Secondly, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Just listening to 20 takes and picking the best sections from each do not guarantee that it's all going to work together. You should listen for the best overall take and then fix only what doesn't work as well and only if you have better takes, (this is where real production experience counts as you cover problem areas until you get them right!).

All the above being said, the clip you submitted doesn't sound all that bad to me, a couple of timing issues, that I suspect may be partially down to editing and possibly partially down to playing.

To save your proverbial "ass" on this, I would suggest that you get her back in and choose the very best take you can as a basis and then go through it, bit by bit, replacing problem areas as you come to them, getting them right and moving on to the next one, time consumming, but better than getting a breakdown in the relationship with the artist.

Always remember that the more you edit the more you destroy the flow, so it's a trade off all the time between the flow and the correctness of the piece.

Regards


Roland

[ohmoka]

The overall is ok.
It is hard to tell because it is not bad... difficult to spot the editing points.
It feels like some crossfades were a bit long.
After doing long time editing session sometimes I think I have heard an editing point but there is actually nothing!, it could be a little noise or soemthing else.... weird! Time for a break.

If (16-17) and (51-52) are editing points it is pretty easy to fix them. thumbsup

[rossmaninov]

I will explain more about the recording procedure:
The violinist played this piece through entirely once, which I recorded to computer with Soundforge as an audio file (wav). I then recorded her playing lots of sections of this piece, for example: she played the first 5 bars about 10 times and I recorded all these takes as another audio file. Then she played bars 5-10 about 10 times and so on. Once she finished this I put all these audio files on to a disc. After a few days she listened to the disc at home and selected which bits were the best. I then received from her a list of her choices with relevant timings eg. 'for the opening of this piece, please use audio file 5, 33 secs - 42 secs, then use audio file 7, 44 secs - 49 secs' etc etc. She made sure that the timings she had selected all had natural silence where I could make an edit ie. they were at the end of a short phrase. This makes it easy for me to make the necessary cuts, although sometimes this silence is very short - less than half a second.


So I went through all these selected audio files in Soundforge, copied all the bits she had chosen and put them into Cubase where I could arrange them all together into one long audio file (which I have posted part of here).
So in Cubase I have carefully made sure that every audio file goes smoothly from one to another so that the edits cannot be heard. Also I have tried the crossfade function in Cubase, which is designed for joining two audio files together. However I cannot tell if it has improved the join between the two audio files because I could not hear any problems with the joins previously. To my ears this whole audio file sounds completely smooth with no obvious sounds of joining/cutting at all.
But the violin player insists she can hear all the cuts.

My conclusion at the moment is that she has extraordinarily good hearing and can detect things that I certainly can’t.
Also I am going to try and convince her that when other people come to listen to this recording then they will not hear or know that there are any cuts in this.

So I would like to know what other people would do if they were in my situation. Would they continue to try and improve any edit sounds even if they cannot hear the problems, or would they try and convince the musician that the edits are fine as they are?

[krs]

Sorry to say it but some of this editing is very obvious and needs work. When done correctly it should be **completely** inaudible. Automation is your friend. It's really important to work from the score to make sure you understand the piece and how the player is shaping it.

Originally Posted by Roland

Secondly, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Just listening to 20 takes and picking the best sections from each do not guarantee that it's all going to work together. You should listen for the best overall take and then fix only what doesn't work as well and only if you have better takes, (this is where real production experience counts as you cover problem areas until you get them right!).

+1 Decide which is the one, and then get to work on that, dropping in as required

[krs]

Originally Posted by rossmaninov

I will explain more about the recording procedure:
The violinist played this piece through entirely once, which I recorded to computer with Soundforge as an audio file (wav). I then recorded her playing lots of sections of this piece, for example: she played the first 5 bars about 10 times and I recorded all these takes as another audio file. Then she played bars 5-10 about 10 times and so on. Once she finished this I put all these audio files on to a disc.

This is insane and explains all of your difficulties

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by rumleymusic

20 cuts in a minute and a half. You should tell the musician instead of worrying about your cuts they should worry about their practicing.

I don't think this is a good idea at all as a producer, I guess you are joking?

[rossmaninov]

krs, are you able to tell me please where you hear the obvious edits (in minutes and seconds)?

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by rossmaninov

I am an amateur and still learning about recording. I have recently recorded a violin player doing a solo piece. It is a 5 min piece and the violinist played it through many times. I let her listen to all the recorded takes, she chose which ones are best and then I edited it together in Cubase. The problem is that the violin player has listened to my editing and says that she can clearly hear all the cuts. So I would like to get some other opinions to see if other people can also hear the cuts. I have attached the first 1 min 30 of this piece (which probably contains 20 cuts) so please tell me if they are obvious.
Also, I will be really grateful to know what software programs people use for doing detailed editing and any techniques/tips that I should know about to give me the best results.

many thanks

Hi rossmaninov,
Sorry to say but I do hear some edits. If I where you I will consider using another piece of software which will open a handfull of editing tweaking options, like Sequoia or Pyramix. I hear diferences in volume, violin jumping upfront and not so very smooth tails.

It is also a produtcion problem since the musician, my guess, was not asked to correct small details during the recording process.

Cheers,
Pupo

[krs]

:17 and 1:03 are the ouchiest (just listening on a laptop)

You shouldn't need exotic tools to get this right. I don't know Cubase at all, but this can be managed deftly in PT.

Good luck -

[faramita]

I listened on my laptop, I can hear 6 edits clearly. There are little glitches audible. I use Logic and to get rid of these make tiny crossfades in those places and move the crossfades until glitches are inaudible. I am sure there is a similar way of doing in all DAWs.

I play violin (and other strings) myself, and yes get my own stuff recorded in one take, if takes me a couple of days I look at it as a detailed practice. This of course not practicable recording other people.

[Roland]

With the greatest respect to some of the posters above, Logic and Pro Tools are just not going to cut it for classical editing, far too slow and cumbersome. I'm not dissing them as programs, (I own Pro Tools), but when dealing with classical productions you need a system with a dedicated fade editor that provides real time, non destructive editing. There are no better systems for this than the three (Pyramix, Sadie and Sequioa) I mentioned above. You could add Sonic solutions to this list, but I feel that there products are quite a bit behind the others. Programs that lack dedicated fade editors require much more trial and error, particularly on difficult edits, being able to slip and listen and tweek saves a lot of time.

I, for many years used other systems that didn't have fade editors and although I was always able to get the result it was without doubt much more work.

Regards


Roland

[rossmaninov]

Many thanks for all the comments here.

I am going to look at a couple of the programs that have been mentioned. I did look at the website for Sequioa and read about the audio editing/crossfade feature that it has. I have to say that Cubase's audio editing feature looks similar although I am now keen to try Sequioa to see for sure. I have attached an image of the audio editing I am doing for this recording within Cubase. As you will see from this image, I am not doing crossfades, but after reading comments here then I think I need to be doing crossfades maybe on all the edits, and see what my violin player thinks of the result.

[rossmaninov]

image attached

[mathieujm]

ok, you only edited on silences. For this you don't need a sophisticated crossfade editor, but only if you want to edit in the notes.

Sequoia is very good for that but... a little expensive. You could try for nothing Samplitude whose crossfade editor is very usefull for classical editing. And you should be able to do everything with one tool from recording to mastering and burning CD.

JMM

[rossmaninov]

Thanks JMM
Can you listen to the file as well please and tell me if you hear obvious edits?

thanks