Joe Lonsdale Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Hi. I have never found Flex very good at fixing the timing multitrack drum sessions: the Slicing / Quantise thing always seems to leave artefacts. However, I had found a method I liked by using "Slice at Transient Markers" then quantising the resultant regions in the Event list and manually cleaning up afterwards. However, Logic 10.7.9 seems to be reading the markers late, resulting in this slice that has obviously misread the transient position of a very well recorded kick drum track horribly! It seems okay with the snare drum track. Now my method has returned to the dark ages and I am sad ;( Thoughts anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 In your Snap pop-up menu, do you have "Snap Edits to Zero Crossings" disabled? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Lonsdale Posted September 13, 2023 Author Share Posted September 13, 2023 (edited) Hi David, yes I do. See attached: And you see by this Snare drum track that it has no problem there! Edited September 13, 2023 by Joe Lonsdale Missed information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Actually it's enabled on your screenshot. Try to disable it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Lonsdale Posted September 13, 2023 Author Share Posted September 13, 2023 I've tried both options... Exactly same behaviour. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Ah ok... Well then my next course of action would be to check the position of that transient marker in the Audio File editor, in Transient editing mode, see if the transient marker is really at that position (where the cut was made)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Lonsdale Posted September 13, 2023 Author Share Posted September 13, 2023 The Transient Marker is wrong in the Audio Window too: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Lonsdale Posted September 13, 2023 Author Share Posted September 13, 2023 I am also getting weird behaviour when I manually cut the region or use Split at Playhead, it doesn't keep my position: And places the resultant cut to the left of where I placed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 2 minutes ago, Joe Lonsdale said: The Transient Marker is wrong in the Audio Window too: I see. Then I'm afraid your only solution is to manually fix the position of the transient markers first in the Audio File editor, before you slice the region. Unfortunately transient detection isn't perfect and sometimes transient markers aren't placed where you'd expect them to be. Here's a thread where I addressed that: 1 minute ago, Joe Lonsdale said: And places the resultant cut to the left of where I placed it. Even with "Snap to Zero Crossing" unchecked? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Lonsdale Posted September 13, 2023 Author Share Posted September 13, 2023 Oh, that's my bad, I left it checked... I only seem to be able to fix SOME of the transient markers manually, many remain stubbornly unable to recognise the transient and simply move to estimated transients around the one I want. I cannot seem to manually pencil one in either. I'll continue to experiment and update the thread if I find a solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 3 minutes ago, Joe Lonsdale said: many remain stubbornly unable to recognise the transient and simply move to estimated transients around the one I want. Here again, Control-click the waveform in the Audio File editor and deselect "Toggle Snap Edits to Zero Crossing". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Lonsdale Posted September 13, 2023 Author Share Posted September 13, 2023 I'll experiment with that tomorrow, I've had a very long day editing drums and am cross eyed now! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 59 minutes ago, Joe Lonsdale said: I'll experiment with that tomorrow, I've had a very long day editing drums and am cross eyed now! Yes, take your needed rest. 🙂 And for the sake of precision, that last setting I mentioned is independent from the Snap to Zero Crossing in the Tracks area, you get to it by control-clicking the waveform in the Audio File editor: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Lonsdale Posted September 14, 2023 Author Share Posted September 14, 2023 (edited) Okay, this is day-2 of fixing a live drum performance (admittedly it's a complex 6-minute prog thing). It should have been a 3-hour job, but my new version of Logic (10.7.9) just won't play ball and I am back to manual editing like it's the year 2000 again. 1) The transient detection function is simply broken: it misses each kick hits by a predictable millisecond or two and I have to manually go in and move each detection. It recognises the snare transients much better but not perfectly and I still need to go through and check/correct each transient. Either way, it is easier to just manually cut each transient myself directly on the region, like in the "old days". 2) If I do correct the transient recognition, I cannot right-click and select Slice-At-Transient-Marker without selecting Flex & Follow on the track inspector: I do not want this option selected as the tempo changes on this project are complex and this function seems to visually move the audio files around making it hard to tell what I am actually cutting (I also think changing this setting is responsible for issue 3, below). 3) After finally getting some sort of workflow going yesterday, I noticed Logic had inserted hundreds of cuts in the edited regions that I had to manually fix-up (3-hours): these cuts didn't fall on a transient but weren't totally random either, they seemed to appear somewhat near every edit and were not time-aligned aligned across the regions, despite the regions being grouped and Edit/Quantize-Locked together. It would have been easier to just start again, but the drums are a complex comp and I no longer am able to find out where each part is from, which is my bad, I will have to build this safety net back into my workflow. (image above, this is after manually correcting the transient-detections on the kick and snare, engaging Flex & Follow to reveal the Slice At Transient function and then letting Logic do just that: luckily I have undo). 4) Forward playhead to next transient doesn't work - it just send me to another part of the song. I have been working in Logic FOREVER and whilst I won't pretend I am an expert on Flex, it has always been helpful in identifying transients and cutting the regions on those transients, allowing me to quantize the regions from the Event List and then quickly deal with the gaps and overlaps. I have never liked the sound of Flex's own quantize-audio function and can always hear it working, although I do occasionally try it again incase the algorithm has improved. A lot of my projects involve drums being added LAST in the process, which is super-common these days and Flex should make this simple, but it doesn't seem to be helping me at all at the moment, in fact quite the opposite. Has something about Flex substantially changed since my old Logic system 10.3 (which worked perfectly for my workflow)? I will have to spend time finding a new workflow which is frustrating, but it would be DOUBLE frustrating if this is actually a bug in the software version and is fixed in a future release. Oh, the snap-to-zero thing (above) does now mean I can manually move transient detection lines around, thanks! I wonder if this being a project started on Logic 10.3 and continued in 10.7 has anything to do with it? I will create fresh 10.7.9 projects for my drum recording sessions next week. Rant complete. Back to drum editing 😉 Edited September 14, 2023 by Joe Lonsdale Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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