Copy stretch marker metadata to other files???? -ACID Product Family

Subject:Copy stretch marker metadata to other files???? Posted by: MusicTECH Date:11/23/2008 11:19:36 AM Anybody know of a program that can extract the metadata from one file and copy it to another file? I'm getting ready to edit a huge amount of files for an upcoming loop product, and am thinking about making the individual tracks available to the end user to mix in however they want. We recorded a horn section with 11 different microphones around a really great sounding room, and want to have the close mike files and room mike files be separate, but with the same ACID stretch metadata so that they will stretch in exactly the same way. It would save HUGE amounts of time if we didn't have to try editing all the stretch markers for every set of microphones manually! So, anybody know of a utility that will allow you to copy and paste metadata from one wave file to another? It doesn't even matter if the utility recognizes that type of metadata, as long as it allows you to copy the raw data chunks from one file to another one.
Subject:RE: Copy stretch marker metadata to other files???? Reply by: Iacobus Date:11/24/2008 11:28:28 AM Mmm...as I understand it, key and tempo data is what's included in the ACIDization metadata. I really don't know of a way to copy this metadata from one file to another but I do know there are batch utilities out there (ACIDizer? Can't remember the name) that will apply ACIDization to files that did not formally have the data. Iacobus
Subject:RE: Copy stretch marker metadata to other files???? Reply by: MusicTECH Date:11/24/2008 11:55:34 AM Thanks for the reply. Actually, there is more to proper ACIDizing than just entering the number of beats and the root key (which you can also do in Sound Forge). To get the best possible sound when stretching a loop you need to go in and manually edit the transient/stretch markers within ACID for each loop (I think Cakewalk's SONAR is the only other program where you can actually edit the transient markers). If you don't edit those correctly, the range of tempos that you can stretch a loop without sounding horrible is greatly restricted. This is the most tedious and time consuming part of releasing a professional ACID loop library. Magazine reviewers, like Craig Anderton, are especially picky about making sure the loops have been properly edited with correct positioning of the transient/stretch markers. ACID will try to autodetect the transients, and has gotten much better at it with each version, but it still requires quite a bit of editing to get them just right. The only thing I could find so far that could find these ACID data chunks in files, and looks like I may be able to copy and paste using it, is a hexidecimal file editor that also tries to decode the meanings of data chunks in various file formats, and has templates for a wide variety of file types. While it doesn't have templates for decoding ACIDized wave files, it does have a template for standard wave files which then identifies two "unknown" data chunks at the end of the files, which appear to be where ACID stores the two types of ACID data needed for each file (one chunk is for the number of beats and root key, and the other chunk is for the transient/stretch markers). Thankfully Sony (Sonic Foundry) labeled these chunks with descriptive names, so it was relatively easy for me to find them. I just now need to see if I can copy and paste from one wave file to another these chunks without screwing things up (there may be some additional info in the file header that also needs to be changed to reflect the change in file size when adding these extra data chunks). Just found the program late last night and need to get it to the studio to try out before deciding if it's worth purchasing or not.

Subject:Copy stretch marker metadata to other files????

Posted by: MusicTECH

Date:11/23/2008 11:19:36 AM

Anybody know of a program that can extract the metadata from one file and copy it to another file?

I'm getting ready to edit a huge amount of files for an upcoming loop product, and am thinking about making the individual tracks available to the end user to mix in however they want. We recorded a horn section with 11 different microphones around a really great sounding room, and want to have the close mike files and room mike files be separate, but with the same ACID stretch metadata so that they will stretch in exactly the same way.

It would save HUGE amounts of time if we didn't have to try editing all the stretch markers for every set of microphones manually!

So, anybody know of a utility that will allow you to copy and paste metadata from one wave file to another? It doesn't even matter if the utility recognizes that type of metadata, as long as it allows you to copy the raw data chunks from one file to another one.

Subject:RE: Copy stretch marker metadata to other files????

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:11/24/2008 11:28:28 AM

Mmm...as I understand it, key and tempo data is what's included in the ACIDization metadata. I really don't know of a way to copy this metadata from one file to another but I do know there are batch utilities out there (ACIDizer? Can't remember the name) that will apply ACIDization to files that did not formally have the data.

Iacobus

Subject:RE: Copy stretch marker metadata to other files????

Reply by: MusicTECH

Date:11/24/2008 11:55:34 AM

Thanks for the reply.

Actually, there is more to proper ACIDizing than just entering the number of beats and the root key (which you can also do in Sound Forge). To get the best possible sound when stretching a loop you need to go in and manually edit the transient/stretch markers within ACID for each loop (I think Cakewalk's SONAR is the only other program where you can actually edit the transient markers). If you don't edit those correctly, the range of tempos that you can stretch a loop without sounding horrible is greatly restricted.

This is the most tedious and time consuming part of releasing a professional ACID loop library. Magazine reviewers, like Craig Anderton, are especially picky about making sure the loops have been properly edited with correct positioning of the transient/stretch markers. ACID will try to autodetect the transients, and has gotten much better at it with each version, but it still requires quite a bit of editing to get them just right.

The only thing I could find so far that could find these ACID data chunks in files, and looks like I may be able to copy and paste using it, is a hexidecimal file editor that also tries to decode the meanings of data chunks in various file formats, and has templates for a wide variety of file types. While it doesn't have templates for decoding ACIDized wave files, it does have a template for standard wave files which then identifies two "unknown" data chunks at the end of the files, which appear to be where ACID stores the two types of ACID data needed for each file (one chunk is for the number of beats and root key, and the other chunk is for the transient/stretch markers). Thankfully Sony (Sonic Foundry) labeled these chunks with descriptive names, so it was relatively easy for me to find them. I just now need to see if I can copy and paste from one wave file to another these chunks without screwing things up (there may be some additional info in the file header that also needs to be changed to reflect the change in file size when adding these extra data chunks). Just found the program late last night and need to get it to the studio to try out before deciding if it's worth purchasing or not.