Punching a track

One track on a good side came out dirty — a skip, a click, a passage the stylus fought. Re-record that one track and swap it into the library, leaving everything else alone.

What you need

A record that has been cut and imported. The punch is fitted against the saved cut, so without one there is nothing to fit against; the panel says so.

Doing it

1. Select the record in the header, then open the Punch panel.
2. Pick the Track. Entries that cannot be punched say why — no side audio or not in library.
3. Press Record punch. Drop the needle a few seconds before the track and lift it after it ends. The fit needs music on both sides of the track.
4. Stop & encode ends the capture, as with any other.
5. Press Find the track.

The fit

The boundaries are not typed in, they are found. The saved cut already says where the track starts and ends on the side; that is mapped onto the new capture, so the replacement begins and ends exactly where the original did.

The result shows the fitted Start, End and Length. You can adjust the start and end by hand.

Hear this cut plays what would be written, so you can check the ends before committing.

Replacing

Replace in the library swaps the file.

The tags come from the file being replaced — not from the catalogue and not from the plan — cover art included, so the replacement carries exactly what the original carried.

Nothing is deleted. The old library file and the punch capture both move to archive/<album>/_punched/, so a take that turns out worse is recoverable.

Discard punch throws away the capture without applying it.

One device at a time

Recording a punch and ripping a side use the same sound card, so only one can run. Record punch is disabled while a rip is running, and the other way round.