Creating Regions Automatically

Tools Menu

The Auto Region dialog allows you to automatically create regions in a sound file for the Regions List and Playlist. To display this dialog, choose Auto Region from the Tools menu.

Regions can be defined according to fast sound attacks (such as drum beats or words) or according to the Beats per minute value specified in the Edit Tempo dialog.

What do you want to do?

Create regions based on fast attacks

  1. From the Tools menu, choose Auto Region.

  1. Drag the Attack sensitivity slider to determine how sensitive the attack-detection algorithm is to fast increases in volume.

    With a high setting, regions are created when the sound level increases by very small amounts, and more regions are created. With a low setting, the sound level must increase by a large amount before a new region is created, and fewer regions are created.

  2. Drag the Release sensitivity slider to determine the minimum decrease in sound level that must occur before a region end is created.

    With a high setting, regions are created when the sound level decreases by very small amounts, and more regions are created. With a low setting, the sound level must decrease by a large amount before a new region is created, and fewer regions are created. A low setting is useful if you want regions to be created after quiet breaks.

  3. Drag the Minimum level fader to determine the threshold sound level that must be found before a new region is created.

    With a high setting, only high-level sounds will trigger the creation of a new region. This is useful if you want loud instrument attacks in a song (such as the bass drum) to mark the beginning of a region, since they often correspond to the beginning of a measure or beat. Low threshold settings will also allow low-level sound attacks to create new regions.

  4. In the Minimum beat duration box, specify the minimum length that must elapse before a new region can be created.

    A low setting will allow very short regions to be created if sound attacks occur in fast succession. This is useful for fast tempo music. A higher setting will prevent quick sound attacks from being separated into different regions.

  5. Select the Use release point for end of region check box to end a region when the sound level drops by a factor determined by the Release sensitivity. This is useful if you don’t want the silence in between sounds or phrases to be included in the regions.

    When this check box is cleared, region ends are only created when attacks are detected.

  6. Click the OK button.

Create regions based on a musical time interval

  1. From the Tools menu, choose Auto Region.

  2. Select the Build regions using the current tempo check box.

  3. Use the Measures and Beats boxes to specify the interval between regions.

  4. For example, if you want a region to be created at every beat, set Beats to 1 and Measures to 0. To create a region at every measure, set Measures to 1 and Beats to 0.

For more information about using processing dialog controls, click here.