How to correctly edit recorded guitar that’s ahead of the beat in reaper?

[vejichan]

I have a guitar part in a song I am working on.. the issue the guitar is ahead of the drums. How can I edit and fix this correctly? Here is what I am doing i go to the wave/note and before the note I click S on the keyboard and after the note note I click s and just drag the note to the grid/line. I had to do this for each note.. the problem now the edited guitar part sounds too robotic/mechanical and loses the feeling? How can I fix this? Am I doing something wrong? any advice? thank you

[grinder]

This is my take on it
If this is rhythm guitar
Have a listen to the start of the rhythm guitar hit
this I place before the bass first sounds where the rhythm guitar
blossoms is where the juice of the swing is and that is with the
rest of the instruments.
I am at this time working with a lot of rhythm guitar and
it is surprising how far away (early) that rhythm guitar hit can be
from strict time and still where you achieve that beautiful rhythmic beat.
When you record your rhythm guitar go for sound first and you will
have that correct position. Strict time is useful for crescendos, endings or where staccato is needed.
In essence it sounds like you are already doing this?
Rhythm guitar a lot of the time is in effect an FX!

Grinder

[foxAsteria]

If it's all ahead of the beat, just select the whole thing, zoom out to where you can see a handful of big transients that should be on the grid. Hold ctrl+alt and drag until they are reasonably close to the grid.

Editing helps when necessary, but if you rely on it for the majority of your hits, it will quickly become lifeless, just like all the perfectly homogenized pop we hear today. If you need to edit timing, use stretch markers instead of splitting the item at every transient: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rid4NpN8mqY

If I have to do a lot of correction, I usually just go back and re-record. It helps my abilities and sounds more natural.

If you're encountering this issue regularly (recordings ahead of the beat), try turning on the Preserve PDC option (right click arm button). This ensures that if you are playing early to compensate for some digital latency (happens unconsciously), the end result will be closer to what you heard during recording.

[Credge]

Originally Posted by vejichan

I have a guitar part in a song I am working on.. the issue the guitar is ahead of the drums. How can I edit and fix this correctly? Here is what I am doing i go to the wave/note and before the note I click S on the keyboard and after the note note I click s and just drag the note to the grid/line. I had to do this for each note.. the problem now the edited guitar part sounds too robotic/mechanical and loses the feeling? How can I fix this? Am I doing something wrong? any advice? thank you

After slicing each section, alt+m1 drag to get the timing right. From there, join up each section by having them fade in to one another slightly. You can do this trick with just about any sound as the attack of the next hit blends in to the end of the previous hit and it sounds natural instead of robotic.

[d. gauss]

insert the "js time delay" on the guitar channel and adjust til it feels good

[Judders]

Record it again.

How are you recording the guitar? Through REAPER, or direct monitoring? If you are monitoring through REAPER, what is your audio buffer (block size) set to?

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by vejichan

I have a guitar part in a song I am working on.. the issue the guitar is ahead of the drums. How can I edit and fix this correctly? Here is what I am doing i go to the wave/note and before the note I click S on the keyboard and after the note note I click s and just drag the note to the grid/line. I had to do this for each note.. the problem now the edited guitar part sounds too robotic/mechanical and loses the feeling? How can I fix this? Am I doing something wrong? any advice? thank you

dont edit on the note, edit on the phrase then align the first beat. See how that sounds, you might have to stretch the tail of the last beat or so to keep continuity into the next phrase - depends on the material. Basically what feels okay is okay but if you want to keep the feel/groove then keep those elements intact and align at the start of each feel/groove element

[Credge]

Originally Posted by Eddy

dont edit on the note, edit on the phrase then align the first beat. See how that sounds, you might have to stretch the tail of the last beat or so to keep continuity into the next phrase - depends on the material. Basically what feels okay is okay but if you want to keep the feel/groove then keep those elements intact and align at the start of each feel/groove element

This! If you find a phrase too short you can extend the length without adjusting the pitch quite a ways before it begins to sound odd. I've gotten away with a second of stretch on a cymbals before it started to sound goofy.

[foxAsteria]

Any reason why you guys are suggesting to split the items? This is more difficult, more work and doesn't have any advantages over stretch markers that I'm aware of...Basically an obsolete way of correcting timing issues AFAIK.

Stretch markers can be set to optimize for transients.

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by foxAsteria

Any reason why you guys are suggesting to split the items? This is more difficult, more work and doesn't have any advantages over stretch markers that I'm aware of...Basically an obsolete way of correcting timing issues AFAIK.

Stretch markers can be set to optimize for transients.

Stretching a phrase is not the same as shifting it and not stretching - how could it be?

[foxAsteria]

Originally Posted by Eddy

Stretching a phrase is not the same as shifting it and not stretching - how could it be?

A non-answer... They're both about correcting timing. Your way just has the distinct disadvantage of forcing one to manually create and/or examine every single crossfade to avoid phasey double-transients. Sounds fun...

In either case, too much editing will destroy the groove and stretch markers are easy to remove upon reaching that point. Hundreds of moved and crossfaded items? Not so much.

[d. gauss]

read post #5 again.
rushing and dragging has been helped this way for decades.

[grinder]

I am with Judders on this ultimately rhythm guitar and even lead
but in this case rhythm you should play and record until there is a knitting of the sounds and the wave files will not line up on dots.
I made the mistake when I first got a DAW of lining up the wave files...

Grinder

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by foxAsteria

A non-answer... They're both about correcting timing. Your way just has the distinct disadvantage of forcing one to manually create and/or examine every single crossfade to avoid phasey double-transients. Sounds fun...

In either case, too much editing will destroy the groove and stretch markers are easy to remove upon reaching that point. Hundreds of moved and crossfaded items? Not so much.

You dont understand what i wrote

[foxAsteria]

Oh I see. Glad that's all cleared up.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by grinder

I am with Judders on this ultimately rhythm guitar and even lead
but in this case rhythm you should play and record until there is a knitting of the sounds and the wave files will not line up on dots.
I made the mistake when I first got a DAW of lining up the wave files...

Grinder

Definitely. Nothing kills a groove quite like quantize.

The reason I asked about latency was that if I play with a large buffer, the audio always ends up ahead of the beat, beyond how I actually played it.

[Eddy]

another useful method to give the impression of tight timing when the timing is loose is to precisely sync a few drum or cymbal taps (smaples) to a phrase. Maybe just three in a row perfectly synced. Gives the impression that the loose timing is deliberate as you are showing you can be hyper precise when needed. it is done in live jazz quite a bit - the surprise sudden tightly synced riff across all instruments

[Sinner]

Originally Posted by grinder

This is my take on it
I am at this time working with a lot of rhythm guitar and
it is surprising how far away (early) that rhythm guitar hit can be
from strict time and still where you achieve that beautiful rhythmic beat.
When you record your rhythm guitar go for sound first and you will
have that correct position. Strict time is useful for crescendos, endings or where staccato is needed.
In essence it sounds like you are already doing this?
Rhythm guitar a lot of the time is in effect an FX!

Grinder

My thoughts too. Does it really sound off? Many instrument will have a little lick of some string or hand noise before the real note rings out. You see this in the wave form but it isn't what you should base an edit on.