Tracking cartoon voices

[Cosmic Pig]

I got a gig tracking the voices for a cartoon. The editor wants a single sentence per wav file. So each short wav has to have a different name.

Any suggestions how I might do that? Should I put each sentence on individual tracks then render the stems? I'm thinking that way I could go through and name all the sentences first and then rename them all individually in the file folder after it's finished. Reaper automatically tags the time stamp on the end of files so thats why I'd have to rename everything... I think.

Or... I could track each voice to a single track then render the time selection?

Any ideas and keyboard shortcuts much appreciated.

Cos.

[shemp]

hmm there is a few ways. I think I would record as normal, on a single track, then, when finished, split manually around each sentence. Then select all split items and right click>apply track FX to items as new take. I say this method because it will render each split item with a file name as such: <track name> render 001.wav, <track name> render 002.wav, etc. Then all your wavs will be labeled per track name and numbered in order.

And you don't need any FX on the track for it to work even though you are applying FX.

[airon]

There is the Autorender feature of the SWS extension, which will render regions.

I use this a lot for my field recordings, rendering out even complex edits, complete with any processing.

The older Autorender program is a standalone application by Shane for Windows only. The new one that's part of the SWS extension is geared towards the v4 alphas, which work very well I might add, and is available for both Windows and OSX.

Check out the pre-release forum to get the SWS 2.0 extension, if you'd like to render out regions. Name them, render them in one swoop.

[TimOBrien]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Pig

I could track each voice to a single track then render the time selection?

That's what I just did.

I recently shot and narrated an industrial video using that technique.
I did the entire session as one long reaper track, repeating each section several times then selecting and rendering each final choice to a numbered file to be imported into my video editor.

If I was going to do a multiple-person, longer project I'd be real tempted to define a naming convention first:
<person name/number>_<scene number>_<sentence number>_<description>
or such. Getting a file naming system down before you start will be a big help to keeping track of everything.

[Cosmic Pig]

Thanks guys, you've helped clarify some stuff for me for sure.

[Cosmic Pig]

So near as I can figure it, the best way is to name the items individually when the save, rename, or delete window comes up on record stop. Then after editing highlight them all and render as a new take, or apply ex as a new take. I'm leaving the tracks raw for the editor so render to a new take is the same dealio for me.

That way the individually named item is called "blah blah render 001". Then I can copy them all to an export folder and rename them all individually again because I don't want the "render 001" on the end.

The SWS autorender is cool but seems to add the step of having to create a region for each item, plus it would still have to be renamed.

This all sound reasonable to you guys? I could well be missing something.

Thanks again for the help.

Cos.

[GregHolmes]

If you're using Windows, the following batch file (call it norender.bat) will remove the " render 001" from the file names:

@echo off

for %%f in (*.wav) do call :DOIT %%f
goto END

:DOIT
set name=%*
set name=%name: render 001=%
ren "%*" "%name%"
goto :eof

:END

Create a new text file in the folder with the WAV files, then paste the code above into the text file, save it, then rename it to norender.bat.

[Cosmic Pig]

Lol Greg, a very cool trick. Works great! Is there a way to get it to dump render 002 or 003 as well? I tried copying and pasting set name=%name: render 001=% and changing the 001 to a 002 but it wouldn't work.

Cool nonetheless! I don't imagine I'll have too many render 002's anyway.

Cos.

[GregHolmes]

You're doing almost the right thing by copy/pasting and changing the "001" to "002", but the problem is that the root name (the part without " render NNN") is not unique, so the rename does not work.

Example: Suppose that you have two versions of the file, like this:

filename render 001.wav
filename render 002.wav

The batch file will rename the first one to "filename.wav", and then it will try to rename the second one to "filename.wav" - but that will fail, since there is already a file by that name.

So you could try this:

set name=%name: render 001=_1%
set name=%name: render 002=_2%

This will convert "filename render 001.wav" into "filename_1.wav" and "filename render 002.wav" into "filename_2.wav".

If you want "003" and more, you'll need to add them in as well.

But maybe this would work for you:

:DOIT
set name=%*
set name=%name: render 00=_%
ren "%*" "%name%"
goto :eof

That will give you the "filename_X.wav" result, for X = 1 to 9.

[Cosmic Pig]

Awesome Greg, thanks. Handy to have for sure.

I've also been getting into the SWS stuff. Great stuff in there too.

Cos.