Instruction Manual

387
Quantizing Audio Clips
AudioSnap
Quantizing Audio Clips
The Process-Quantize and Process-Groove Quantize commands both
work on AudioSnap-enabled audio clips. The AudioSnap palette has
buttons to issue both commands.
The Quantize dialog has a couple of AudioSnap options that are mutually
exclusive: the AudioSnap Beats option, and the Audio Clip Start Times
option. If the beats in the audio clip you’re quantizing are located a relatively
large distance from the grid that you are quantizing them to, you may find
that the beats have to be stretched so far from their original location that the
sound quality suffers. Instead of quantizing a whole clip, you can split the
clip into smaller pieces by using the Edit-Split command, or into beat-
length pieces by using the Split Beats Into Clips button in the AudioSnap
palette. Once you have smaller pieces to work with, you can quantize the
clip by using the Audio Clip Start Times quantize option to get the start of
the clip or start of each beat aligned with the grid without actually stretching
any audio. If the succeeding beats in your clip don’t line up with your grid,
you can then quantize the clip by using the AudioSnap Beats option, which
will line up the beats in the clip with the grid. This technique works well with
percussive sounds. For some kinds of material, you may want to use cross-
fades on clips that overlap.
When quantizing instruments that were recorded with multiple microphones
(for instance, individual drums on different tracks), phasing problems can
occur when stretching/quantizing beats by various amounts—especially if
there is a lot of microphone bleed. Moving a hi-hat beat can cause problems
if the hi-hat was also picked up by the snare microphone, etc. To avoid this
problem, the Quantize/Groove Quantize command will basically move the
earliest transient within the window to the grid, and all other transients will
be moved to the grid PLUS their offset from the earliest transient. In other
words, all transients that fall within the window size will retain the original
distance between the transients.
To Quantize Audio
1. Select the AudioSnap-enabled clips that you want to quantize.
2. In the AudioSnap palette, click the Quantize radio button, which
displays the Quantize button.
3. Click the Quantize button to open the Quantize dialog.
4. In the Resolution section, choose the duration that you want to quantize
to.