Editing at the Take Level

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Lily recently wrote a song, and I’ve been helping them record it. I got us set up to record four tracks (vocals, drums, keyboard x2) and we did a bunch of takes:

Most of the takes are full-length, but after we got a really nice version of the end we did some rounds with just the beginning because there was a part where we weren’t quite together on a transition.

What I’d like to do now is edit this into a single composition, after which we’ll probably do some overdubbing. The problem is everything I can find assumes your takes are already time-aligned because you recorded to either a click or a scratch track. The ideal flow for what I have would be:

  • Treat each take as a single unit, like a section of multi-track tape.

  • Edit together pieces from different takes into a approximately right overall piece.

  • Tweak the placement of cuts so that different tracks can switch between takes at slightly different places, based on what each instrument is doing at the time.

Is there good tooling for this? I’m using Reaper for my DAW, but could consider using something else if it made this flow better.

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