I’m using Ardour in a workflow to edit voice data. Sometimes when a person stumbles over their words and repeats a sentence, neither sample is particularly good, but parts of each are great. So imagine a person says:
“And that’s why we mustard… excuse me that’s why we must do something.”
So now the sample I want is “And that’s why we must do something”
You’ll see there is overlap between the two samples. Now I cut out the middle and the question is where is the ideal point of merging the two samples so that it is almost inaudible in the final product. Experience has taught me that “s”-sounds are great for this (muSt) but finding the exact point always involves making the format sample a bit longer, trying out, then making the latter sample a bit longer/shorter, retrying and so on.
Is there an easier way of doing this? I imagine a plugin (?) or something where I can easily merge two adjacent samples , possibly playing it back in an infinite loop for instant feedback and allowing me to nudge the merging points. How are you solving this issue?
So, Ima explain what I prefer on my workflow, but want to preface that with the fact that mixing different takes like that for podcasts, audiobooks or film is kinda the worst situation you can have. You should always try to get a great take. Or replace with a whole secondary take to keep it sounding natural.
That being said, It’s always a better practice not to directly juxtapose things and use a cross-fade between the two regions. Also, in the example you provided, I would look for a repeated word, which hopefully has the same cadence and intention when enunciated. So, I would probably look to replace the first “why” with the second one and carry on from there, or maybe do that with the “that’s”. But these things vary on a case to case basis.
Now, say those easier and more natural cuts where you just slip a whole word over another and cross-fade the end and beginning don’t work. Then, you could try certain rushed cross-fades over letters, such as “S”. but me personally, I would try the “Ms” in “must” and “mustard” first.
If all those don’t work, and I have no way of getting a replacement take, then I’d start time stretching a bit, equalizing and compressing to get both regions I’m stitching to work as together as best I can make them work.