Flex "gargling" sound and can't reset to default

[Danny Wyatt]

I have this long vocal take. I want to cut a section and process it with Flex separately from the rest, on a different track.
When I put that section on a track that already has another section with Flex on, I get this really weird sound at the beginning, as if the person is "gargling". Is there a way to completely remove any Flex information just from that audio region?

Here's what's weird: when that section is still on the original track, uncut, with Flex turned on, it sounds good. As soon as I cut it using the marquee, the "gargling" starts.

Also, when I double click the audio and go to the editor, clicking Reset All (right-click) keeps extending the region over and over again. The more I reset, the longer it gets. Original:

 

After 5 times hitting Reset All:

 

 

Edited June 24, 2022 by Danny Wyatt

[Atlas007]

I wonder if snap to zero crossing is at stake here?

I would try to duplicate the audio file and work with that duplicata on the second track. That might be useful to also remove the tempo data from that duplicata as well…

[Mania]

How exactly do you duplicate so you protect the original file? Bounce?

[Atlas007]

6 hours ago, Mania said:

How exactly do you duplicate so you protect the original file? Bounce?

Possibly, if you don't have any plugin and that your level is at 0db.

Personally I find the following method more convenient:

In the Audio File editor's Audio File local menu choose Save A Copy Of Audio File As...

That would create a copy of the original audio file with selectable specs (format, bit depth, etc) which you would of course name as desired and that will conveniently be added to your project's audio browser (automatically by default) or not (by unticking that option).

[David Nahmani]

On 6/24/2022 at 10:52 PM, Danny Wyatt said:

when I double click the audio and go to the editor, clicking Reset All (right-click) keeps extending the region over and over again. The more I reset, the longer it gets. 

That's definitely not normal behavior! I can't reproduce this here. I wonder if your issues are triggered by having the wrong tempo information embedded in that audio file perhaps? Did you record that audio file in that same project, and the current tempo, then turned on Flex? 

On 6/24/2022 at 10:52 PM, Danny Wyatt said:

When I put that section on a track that already has another section with Flex on

While I haven't experimented extensively with this, I don't believe that's a proper workflow, and I don't recommend it. Much better to record audio in a track then turn Flex on on that track. 

[Danny Wyatt]

5 hours ago, David Nahmani said:

Did you record that audio file in that same project, and the current tempo, then turned on Flex

Yes, all the same project.

 

5 hours ago, David Nahmani said:

That's definitely not normal behavior

Maybe just a glitch

 

5 hours ago, David Nahmani said:

While I haven't experimented extensively with this, I don't believe that's a proper workflow, and I don't recommend it. Much better to record audio in a track then turn Flex on on that track

Yeah, this is a test project. I was just recording some test vocals and then decided to mess with Flex just for "fun", then I experienced this. Maybe the best option is to leave the original track alone then the sections I want to fix, move them to a new track and turn Flex on.

Now my question is: let's say I have a track with 3 regions and I turned Flex on, so now I have my original track (no Flex), and the Flex track with the 3 regions. If I find something else on the original track that I want to fix, should I create another track and turn Flex on? Because apparently when I move a region to a track with Flex already turned on, I get this result. What would you recommend?

[David Nahmani]

19 minutes ago, Danny Wyatt said:

Now my question is: let's say I have a track with 3 regions and I turned Flex on, so now I have my original track (no Flex), and the Flex track with the 3 regions. If I find something else on the original track that I want to fix, should I create another track and turn Flex on? Because apparently when I move a region to a track with Flex already turned on, I get this result. What would you recommend?

It's a bit challenging for me to answer this because that's not my typical workflow so I haven't experimented with that enough to be certain of the reliability of one method or another. My personal workflow would be to turn Flex on on the original track, and either mute or delete (or move to another track) what I don't want. 

If you really want the capability of moving things in and out of the Flexed track then here's what I would suggest:

1. Select the original track and choose Track > Other > New Track With Same Channel,
2. Move unwanted regions to the new track. 
3. Turn Flex on on the original track (will turn it on for both tracks). 
4. Mute the regions on the second track (click track header to select all and press Control-M).

[Danny Wyatt]

9 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

My personal workflow would be to turn Flex on on the original track, and either mute or delete (or move to another track) what I don't want

I'm a bit confused by this approach... So if you have a vocal track, you turn Flex ON and then delete/mute/move the parts you don't want? What do you mean by "don't want"? You don't want to hear? Don't want to Flex?

Let's say you have 1 track with the final vocals. Now you find 3 sentences that you want to fix. You turn Flex on that track and fix those without moving them to another track? I'm not sure what you mean by delete/move/mute?

I read somewhere that sometimes it's better to just cut the sections we want and fix those separately from the rest.

14 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

• Select the original track and choose Track > Other > New Track With Same Channel,
• Move unwanted regions to the new track. 
• Turn Flex on on the original track (will turn it on for both tracks). 
• Mute the regions on the second track (click track header to select all and press Control-M).

This seems to be similar to what I just said, but my question is: when you turn Flex ON for a particular track, even if you create a duplicate using the same channel, as you suggest, doesn't the Flex information be the same? I'm not sure how Flex really works when it comes to that info. Is it track-based? Region-based? I rarely use Flex, so that's what I'm trying to understand so I can get the best results

[David Nahmani]

29 minutes ago, Danny Wyatt said:

I'm a bit confused by this approach... So if you have a vocal track, you turn Flex ON and then delete/mute/move the parts you don't want?

Correct. I delete them if I know I'll never want them again. I mute them if I feel like I may want to unmute them and finally use them at some point. I move them to another track if it's bothering me visually to have all those muted regions in between my active regions on the track. 

30 minutes ago, Danny Wyatt said:

You don't want to hear? Don't want to Flex?

I don't want to hear. If I don't want to flex something but want to hear it then I keep the region on the main track and set its Flex parameter to Off in the Region inspector. 

31 minutes ago, Danny Wyatt said:

Let's say you have 1 track with the final vocals. Now you find 3 sentences that you want to fix. You turn Flex on that track and fix those without moving them to another track?

Correct. 

31 minutes ago, Danny Wyatt said:

I read somewhere that sometimes it's better to just cut the sections we want and fix those separately from the rest.

I'm not sure why you'd want to do that. 

32 minutes ago, Danny Wyatt said:

This seems to be similar to what I just said

Not exactly: the audio regions I want to hear and Flex stay where they were recorded (or imported), they never move to another track. 

33 minutes ago, Danny Wyatt said:

when you turn Flex ON for a particular track, even if you create a duplicate using the same channel, as you suggest, doesn't the Flex information be the same?

Yes, it stays the same, you're moving it to another track only for organization purposes if it bothers you to see all the regions on the same track. That was only if you're going to mute some of the regions if you don't want to hear them. If you want to hear them but you don't want to perform any Flex edits, just leave them where they are on the original track, and don't perform any Flex edits. 

35 minutes ago, Danny Wyatt said:

I'm not sure how Flex really works when it comes to that info. Is it track-based? Region-based?

You turn Flex on for the track which automatically turns Flex on for all regions on the track. However as long as you don't perform any Flex edits on a region, it will still playback exactly as it did before you turned Flex on for the track (assuming the regions have the correct tempo data embedded). If you want, you can turn Flex on for specific regions (in the Region inspector), but that's unnecessary unless you've performed some Flex editing on them and you no longer want to hear the Flex editing on them.