Audio Bend is similar to Elastic Audio in Pro Tools or Audio Warp in Cubase: it’s a way of bending, stretching and molding audio around in time without affecting the pitch. It is very useful for manipulating an out-of-time performance or can be used creatively to achieve brand new sounds.
First, click the Audio Bend icon to show the AB toolbar
Select an audio clip (by clicking on it), then click the eye symbol to show bend markers
Then select the bend tool from the tool selection bar. You should have these three buttons selected:
You can now use the bend tool to create and manipulate bend markers.
Once a bend marker is in place, it will not move unless you move it. It acts like an anchor for that point in the audio. Therefore, if you want to bend a small portion of audio while leaving the rest unaffected, create two bend markers to the left and right of where you would like to apply the bend. Then you can use AB to mold the audio inside the two bend markers safe in the knowledge that audio outside them won’t be affected.
Depending on what you are applying AB to, you will want to use an appropriate timestretch algorithm to make sure the result distorts the audio as little as possible.
There are four algorithms you can select:
- Drums (Transient)- best for drums or other audio files containing numerous transients
- Sound (Polyphonic) – best for polyphonic audio such as guitar, piano, or whole songs
- Solo (Formant) – best for preserving the fidelity of a singers performance
- Audio Bend – a general, all-purpose algorithm
If you need to, you can remove bend markers by selecting one and pressing delete. You can also remove all bend markers at once by right-clicking the audio and clicking “Audio” –> “Remove Bend Markers”
