Guitar & Bass Guitar Editing Techniques (Cubase)

This tutorial covers four common editing techniques for getting your guitar riffs tight and punchy, as fast as possible. I always like to make sure that auto-fading and crossfading is enabled. This is used simply to eliminate any clicks or pops that may result from hard edits of audio events. The default fade settings work fine, but sometimes a quicker or longer fade period can be useful depending on the speed of the song you’re working with.

There are four ways that I like to approach this, and to be fair each method is a viable way to efficiently and accurately edit guitars. Which method you use is really up to your preference and what kind of source material you’re working with. These techniques work best with guitar and bass DI’s.

Technique #1 (Audio Warp - Sample Editor):

The first and most simple method involves using warp tabs.

- Double click on your guitar track to bring up the sample editor.

- Under the audio warp tab click on free warp. This will allow you create warp markers to correct the timing of your DI’s.

- Start punching in markers at each transient that is off the grid, I like to place the marker just before the large spike, as the picking sound actually starts slightly before it.

- Once you have inserted all of your markers, start shifting them into place. You can toggle snapping on or off to help in doing this.

- Once you have time corrected your tracks, use the selection tool to remove any silence in between noise. This will help significantly in achieving a clean mix.

Technique #2 (Split & Time Stretch):

The second method that I like to use involves manually cutting and placing the notes.

- Expand your guitar track so you can really see the waveforms, I also like to use the waveform view boost to really see the tail end of the notes. All major DAW’s have this functionality.

- Like in the first tip we want to start slicing the notes, again slightly before the main transient occurs. In Cubase you can hold down the alt or option button to temporarily switch to the scissor tool. This technique will require that all notes are sliced into separate events, regardless if they are on or off time.

- Once you have them cut up, use the quantize command to lock them to the nearest grid point, or use the iterative quantize function to do a percentage quantize, this is useful for retaining the element of human error in the playing.

**Note that you may need to adjust your quantize resolution to match the lengths of the notes being played. I have my quantize lengths setup with their own key commands to speed up the process of changing the resolution.

- Now that you have them locked into place, select all notes in between the first and last note that you want to remove the silence from, and use the close gaps (time stretch) function, located in the audio > advanced drop down menu to close any audio events that are too short or too long.

**Note: the reason why the first note is not selected is because doing this function replaces the audio as a new event, and you cannot adjust the handles. I like to leave a bit of audio lead in before the bar to make the transition sound more natural. And if you have the last note selected it will bridge the gap in between the next section of notes, which usually isn't what is wanted.

Technique #3 (Split & Crossfade):

The third method is exactly the same as the second method, though a crossfade is used instead of an audio warp to close the gaps. This helps to reduce unwated artifacts and clicks and pops that may result from the hard cuts. This method is far more tedious, but will often provide much better results.

When crossfading you want to watch out for what I call ghosting, or in other words when an edit is shifted forward and crossfaded this can cause the following note to be played twice. To remedy this you will need to slice out the false note, and copy another section of the same note to bridge the silence. Think of it like guitar grafting.

Technique #4 (Slip):

The fourth method is known as slip editing, and I think that this method strikes the best balance between editing speed, control, and quality.

- Zoom in on your guitar track and again start making edits at each note that is off the grid. Only this time make sure that the edit is done before the bar where you want your note to be placed, though I find somewhere in between the notes works best.

- Once your notes are sliced, hold down ctrl and alt at the same time, now click and drag the audio into place. Do this for each note that you want to time correct. And that’s all there is to it!

**Note: if your tool tip did not change to the slip tool when holding down ctrl and alt, you may need to setup your modifier keys under preferences > tool modifiers > select tool.

Also when using this method it is generally advised to split your notes at both the transient and tail, that way when you click and drag you aren’t affecting the timing of all of the following notes.

These are my four favorite editing techniques for locking guitars in the mix. I hope that you can find use in them as well! Happy editing.