Splicing a track is used a lot in modern recording. Some people cut multiple times and paste together all the best takes to make one perfect take. Personally, I try to record a take and play it well the whole way through so I don’t have to cut and glue from other takes because I think it captures the soul of the performance, but sometimes it makes more sense to cut and glue Ex:
-Say you lay down a face melting guitar solo, but just after you came back into the verse you drop your pick. All hope is lost right? Well, not really because you can cut that solo and paste it into another track.
Here’s the problem. When the audio waves are cut and pasted together they don’t always sound natural because of their different wavelengths. The result is a clicking or ticking sound when the curser rolls over the spliced audio.
Sometimes the splice is clean and nobody will ever know the difference, but sometimes it is not. When more detailed work has to be put into the spliced sound wave, it is very easy to completely destroy the natural effect of the recording. Beyond that, you may often think that there is no hope for splicing at all and spend hours if not days trying to get that one golden take, which may never come. The last thing you want is to show off a new song and have an obvious cut. This isn’t amateur hour.
I’m not advocating pasting everything together, but touching up tracks is something nice about modern recording. It’s an advantage, so why not use it?
The way around the really obvious crackle in your recording is this…
Turn a compressor on and set it how you normally would for the track. Then turn down the attack and release way down (see compression post). This may not completely remove that crackle but it will definitely soften it up. Chances are your track can probably live without a set attack and release. Once it’s softened it is much easier to fix in the mix.
I’m sure there are some other techniques out there that help with this editing issue, and I would love to know them so please share.