Merging Technologies

This is an idea that was brought up in conversation with a colleague...

Suppose you are editing a multitrack piano recording done with 2 pairs of microphones (1 pair close and 1 pair far). In order to preserve transients you would ideally like edits to occur right before the attack in both the close and far microphones. As your 2nd pair of microphones is 12 feet away, the attack is captured approximately 12 ms later. Without sliding tracks around in the timeline you would like all the crossfades on the distant pair to occur 12 ms later than the closer spot microphones.

Would it be possible to add a feature in the fade editor that would allow you to assign + or - offsets for crossfades on each track in relation to the master or main pair?

In practice I've never really had a problem while applying fades across all tracks, but it's the type of feature that could make edits that much more transparent (and Pyramix's fade editor that much more advanced!). I imagine that it could be quite useful when editing drums.

Thoughts?

Jeremy Tusz
Diapason

In the example you're giving - the transients are preserved anyway as the edit on the distant mics would be happening in the decay of the previous note not across the transient of the attack.

It's an interesting idea, however I think like all editing it comes down to what you're hearing. If the edits sound good it doesn't make sense to move them back to compensate for the delay just for the sake of it. If there is a problem related to the distant mics now and then it is of course fairly easy in the fade editor to adjust the fades on each track separately.

A couple of things to consider - (btw I don't think this is a bad idea, just I don't think it makes sense to just decide what the delay and make it automatic assuming that things will be better).

1) When we edit stereo and multichannel mixes - that many times can come from even as many as 48+ microphones - all of these delays are already in the composite mix we're editing.

2) There are certainly times when I and others I know do adjust the timing on edits on different tracks (specifically talking about orchestral recordings, drums, etc... not talking about overdubbed multitracking), however it is not needed that often at all, and I think applying a default delay for certain could give a false sense of improvement and security.

3) While your example is fairly simple - in order for this to be a feature on pyramix it would have to be assignable for all tracks differently within the group. This could easily get messy while moving around between groups with different numbers of tracks and delays.

4) Places where this is usually needed (eg: audience mics 50-75'+ from the stage at a rock concert) you're going to need to predelay those channels anyway to avoid having a mix that sounds like molasses.

5) Drums - the distance between say snare mic and overheads is maybe 4' on the far side (as a rough average) - this is ~4ms (most fades are going to be longer) - and even if you have distant room mics on your drums - those fades in the decay are going to happen at the same time your drummer smacks his drums so will never be heard. And again in the rare instance it is audible you can make an adjustment easily enough.

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Mark S. Willsher
Music Production
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www.pin3hot.com

In practice I've never run into any problems or shortcomings with the tools Pyramix provides, but I am usually editing classical chamber or orchestral music.

My colleague described a specific editing scenario where he found himself offsetting crossfades in a very algorithmic way on a bunch of drum tracks he recorded (mainly the room mics). He wondered if it would be any easier in Pyramix than Logic.

I think it could be an interesting feature, but there are certainly ways of achieving the same result by globally nudging the distant tracks and then applying the opposite delay. On second thought, that could get very messy

Jeremy Tusz
Diapason