How to punch in?

abrassell wrote on 10/27/2002, 10:09 AM

I am fairly familiar with Vegas Video 3.0 as I have been recording MIDI
generated tracks and voiceovers for some time. The aforementioned tracks
were recorded straight through and needed no punch in. Today a customer was
in that needed some punch in recording and I discovered that I did not know
how to do it.

He needs to play a guitar track and sing a vocal track (separate tracks) and
then go back and punch in retakes where he flubbed his singing and guitar
playing. I am doing what I think the manual is telling me but its not
happening the way it did in my analog tape days. I'm using an external mixer
and the on-mic person needs to hear what he's already played (without
recording over it) and then at a certain bar the recording should kick in.

If someone could give me a quick step by step I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Al

Comments

Rednroll wrote on 10/27/2002, 10:37 AM

Here's how to do it, but you have to think outside the analog days and be willing to work another way. It's actually easier and safer than the analog method, and once you get the concept you'll start to see the advantages.

I'll give you a step-by-step using your guitar track.

1. Goto the previously recorded guitar track and locate to the point you want to punch-in at.
2. Hit the "s" key for "split" at that point.
3. Now locate to the point on the guitar track that you want to punch-out at.
4. Hit the "s" key again to do a "split" at that point.
5. Now select that event that you just created (ie the punch area) and hit delete.

At this point you've effectively made what is referred to as a "donut". Makes since? Hole in the middle between the good stuff :-)

6. Now locate to the point you want to start a pre-roll at
7. Create a new blank audio track above the previously recorded guitar track.
8. Arm that blank track for record.
9. Hit the Record button.
10. Continue to record on the new blank audio track until you get the keeper take.
11. Once you get the keeper take locate to the edges of the previously recorded guitar track and hit "s" of the edges of the new guitar track.
12. Use the numeric "2" key to drop the event from the new recorded track to the previously recorded track.

For monitoring you will be feeding the output of the previously recorded track and the input channel of your mixing board to the Mix buss and the headphone cues. Thus you get the same effect of a punch-in for monitoring, because the audio is not present anylonger where you want to punch-in at and your punch points are always exact because you've effectively programmed (by editing) punch-in and punch-out points.

I don't think this punch-in method is outlined in the manual, but then again I didn't write the manual and no one at sonic foundry worked at a commercial production studio where this technique is used nationally by a lot of engineers with various hard disk editors/recorders. This method might seem like a lot of steps at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's really a more effecient way to work and has a lot of benefits.

abrassell wrote on 10/27/2002, 2:36 PM

Rednroll,

Thanks man. This advice worked quite well. You explained it in a way that the manual failed to do. As you can probably tell I'm a throwback to analog tape days but I really want to get my digital chops up to where my analog chops once were.

If you wouldn't mind another small question? I am using a Delta 1010 recording device whose breakout box is interfaced with a Tascam mixer. Of course Vegas 3.0 is my recording software. Whenever I try to record with Vegas's built in metronome it gets recorded to the track I am recording. How can I record a guitar track while hearing the metronome but only the guitar gets recorded?

In case you need to see it, I have a diagram of my setup at:
http://www.brassellgroup.com/daw

Thanks,
Al Brassell

trwk504 wrote on 10/27/2002, 3:52 PM

This may seem obvious, but i've done it before too:
Make sure on play back you turn the metronome off. i don't think you're recording the metronome, but if you are you may want to turn down the level in the headphones of the guitarist, you could be experiencing some bleed through. But like i said, don't confuse the metronome being turned "on" and it being recorded.
Hope that helps.
Tim

PipelineAudio wrote on 10/28/2002, 12:51 AM

right click the mixer screen to show the preview fader tooI think thats the buss the metronome is on

Foreverain4 wrote on 10/29/2002, 9:38 AM

you can also, after you have made your punch in and out splits, double click on the "bad stuff" event. this will set your looping points. move the loop to the left and right of the "bad stuff" event to create the amount of post and pre roll you desire. hit record, and vegas will automatically start and stop where you have set your post and pre roll with the loop tool. this way, you can keep your punches on the same track as the original. you can do multiple takes and scroll through them by hitting "t" .