Sound check please

[Billy's Little Trip]

I'm always trying to nail down my mixing techniques. If you wouldn't mind listening to the following three guitar clips and tell which mix down method is best to your ears.
When I record my rhythm guitar, I record once on one track, then once on a second track, as many do. But for CPU reasons, I mix and export tracks with their plugins, etc, then bring them back to the mix so that I can turn off my plugins, etc. [Fluffy]how quaint[/Fluffy]

1. This one is the right and left tracks exported at the same time in stereo, brought back to a single stereo track, then mixed down with multi band EQ and compression on the main and exported stereo.

2. This one is the right and left tracks exported at the same time in mono, brought back, then mixed down with multi band EQ and compression on the main and exported stereo.

3. This one is the right and left tracks exported one track at a time, brought back as two separate tracks, right and left, then mixed down with multi band EQ and compression on the main and exported in stereo.

It may be a preference thing. I like the sound of 1 and 3 best. 1 is the best for me because the stereo track only uses one track where 3 uses two tracks.

Thoughts?

[Rabid Garfunkel]

The weird harmonics sound more bell-like and interesting in 2, but 1 & 3 have a cleaner, crisper feel overall.

Might help some if we knew what sort of sound you were looking for, eh?

[Billy's Little Trip]

Crap Rabz, I thought you could read my mind.
What I want to know is if the sound suffers from exporting two tracks with plugins and bringing them back to the project in process. Then turning off the CPU hungry plugins.

IE:
1. Rhythm guitar played and panned 64% to the left.
2. Rhythm guitar played a second time keeping perfect time with the first and panned 64% to the right.
3. Ambiance added to each track, a little EQing, warm tube...ahh, nice.
4. NOW, I need to cut down my CPU usage. So I am going to export each of the two tracks with their ambiance, EQing and warm tubes.
5. Here is where I ask the question of which way to export the tracks is best. (my original post and sound clips)
6. Is my exporting technique hurting the original sound? Is it bad to export a right and a left track to a single stereo track? and then add it back to a project in which I will be later mixing down and exporting as a stereo finished song?

I apologize if I'm talking in another dimension, but I just found out yesterday from Roymond that I might be an autistic woman, and these heels are killing me.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

If you're complaining about the heels, you're an amateur transvestite... an autistic woman would be going on about the bite of the underwires (constantly).

From what I heard (run through the monitors that you commented on, in the "Show me your"whatever-the-fuck-it-was thread, driven by a late '60s/early '70s Marantz stereo receiver) 1 & 3 were damned near identical in radio-quality guitaredness. Example #2 was... muted and bad (in the same radio-quality cleanliness) but far more interesting... having character, if you will.

The sound in #2 suffers the most, but it's also the most entertaining of the three examples (the harmonics, those keyboard-like tones on the and of two that throb out, that are most decidedly not your standard fare in what's heard regularly).

But then, I'm sorta a queer duck when in comes to entertainment appreciation.

All these numbers! I'd say, if you're going to bounce effected tracks to disk for reinsertion later, that you keep a mixing notebook for the settings you've used on each written track for final mixdown continuity. Otherwise, you'll be frustrated as hell when it comes to reproducing the sound come days/weeks/months/years later.

Or buy a newer, mas macho deck, send one business-related email from it and write that bitch off come April 15, 2009.

But to answer your question again, 1 & 3 were identical to my ears, though I liked track 2 better because of the bits of character that were accentuated by whatever the hell you did to it.

Brought to you by the "shoulda posted in fdrink thread" heh

[signboy]

dude... what are you using for a daw? I (used to) have a shyte computer as well, and here's what I found to get around the cpu blues.

Instead of having two guitar tracks, each with their own effects, (the plugins are the same on each guitar track, right?) route the two guitars tracks to a GROUP track. That's what it's called in Nuendo. Whatever you're using probably has something similar. Make the group track a stereo job, and you can keep your panning. Then add the effects in the group track. This way, the ambiance, eq and warm tube all take up three effects worth of cpu instead of six.

It would also be well worth checking around for a "freeze" function, which basically does the exporting without exporting. It records your sound to the audio pool, so that the vst's etc. don't have to be processed realtime.

I just went back and I see now that you are running Cubase. In that case, the track you want IS called a group track, and the button you're looking for is actually called "freeze". Maybe not. I just looked up a tutorial, and it looks like cubase sx only allows you to freeze your vsti's. I did find a cool thing here

[Billy's Little Trip]

Rabz, I never write anything down and I'll probably regret it someday. Thanks for the input.

SB, I have still not used the freeze nor the pool yet. I guess it's high time I get to know those features. It seems that when I'm in the middle of recording, I don't want to spend the time learning new stuff because it throws a wrench in my gears.

[ken]

This might be a good time to mention that in Cubase your pool also contains all the takes you don't use. It saves them just in case. You should periodically bring up your pool, move the unused media to the trash and delete the trash. It will save you a ton of hardrive space.

Ken

[Billy's Little Trip]

Thanks Ken. I did finally start playing with the pool, freeze and some other features. I did check out all of the deleted stuff in the trash and the pool. All of those wav files can really build up. I don't do any clean up until my song is complete, mixed down and put in my finished music folder. I made the mistake of trashing files I was still using once, and had to re-record them.
I did remove a guitar track that I decided the next day that I wanted to keep. I found it in the trash, yippeee for trash.

I still don't get how to freeze or lock or do anything to save a track with the plugins, etc. Although I did figure out something cool, yesterday. When I export a track, I can check the box that says "import to: Audio track and pool" so it automatically puts it back in the project. The only tiny gripe is that it makes a new track. But it can also be a good thing, because I can just turn everything off in the original track, and X it off. That way I can go back to it later to remember my setting, plugins, etc. But I'm using up a lot of tracks.

[ken]

You might try "disable" track instead. I think this will let you keep all your plug ins and setting on the track, but not use any of them.

Ken

[Billy's Little Trip]

Ok, just tried disable. That works, but I still had to manually turn off the plugins. No big deal. But disable is better than X-ing off the track because it puts a red line around the track to indicate it's disabled and can't accidentally get turned back on while I'm soloing and muting tracks when I'm mixing.

Will disabled or X'd off tracks still add weight to my CPU? Do the more tracks you add, even with no plugins, cause CPU issues?

[jast]

Will disabled or X'd off tracks still add weight to my CPU? Do the more tracks you add, even with no plugins, cause CPU issues?

No. You'd have to mess up badly to produce software that burns any noteworthy amount of CPU time for unused tracks. Muted and disabled tracks in particular should be pretty easy for the software to skip.

(If you disable a track the plugins should be invisibly turned off too. If you want to know all the details, most DAW programs have a CPU monitor tool to see which tracks use how much CPU.)

[Billy's Little Trip]

Yeah, I do have a meter and every time a plugin is turned off, the meter drops. It has an icon of a computer chip on the top meter bar and what looks like 3 coins on the bottom meter bar. Turning off plugin makes the top bar go down, but I've noticed that the more tracks I add, the bottom bar comes on when I stop and start the play back when I'm mixing, etc.
But so far, everything is doing pretty good using the new technique of track audio mix down with importing it to the project and pool. Nice.
My old method was basically the same, except it saved the mixed down track to a folder, then I had to import it back to the project, which means it takes longer and I have the same wav file in both my folder and in my project using up twice the space.

[Billy's Little Trip]

One more thing.

Is there an easy way to burn all of my individual tracks to a CD after I am done with a song? I know I can export one track at a time, then burn them all to a CD. But is there a faster way to do this straight from my project?

[ken]

Well, if you want the raw tracks, just clean out your pool, and then copy the "audio" folder from your project folder to a CD. If you want them print with effects, you'll have to export them. You should always bounce your tracks so they all start at zero with no breaks or spaces.

Ken

[Billy's Little Trip]

In the past, I've been exporting all of my tracks, then starting a new project just for mixing. Partly for the CPU issues, but also to reduce tracks, which was kind of the reason for my original post here.
It's not uncommon for me to have 12 to 14 drum tracks because of duplicating the snare for different EQing in parts, separate crashes for more power in parts, etc. So in the past I've been taking all 14 drum tracks, after I get them just how I want them, and exporting them as one stereo track with no plugins on the master. Then starting a new "mix tracks" project. This has been turning 40 tracks into less than 15 in most cases. Then on that mix down, I add my master compression and EQing.

The only problem is that I have a feeling I'm losing something by doing that. I may be wrong. Theoretically, it should be exactly the same as the original tracks. But I fear that it's killing the separation of the instruments (for lack of a better word) from doing this.

Example of why I think this:
1. I get all of my music done and mixed just the way I want it and export it with no vocals.
2. Now I can work on my chops listening to the instrumental while driving, etc.
3. I record my vocals and get the tracks exported for the "mix tracks"
4. Get it all mixed down with master compression and EQing.
5. Run it through Gold Wave to clean up the ends and set the volume and save it, still in wav format at this point.
6. Convert to MP3 to send it off.

When I listen to the finished wav file compared to the one with no vocals, it seems less lively, less separation of the instruments. It bugs the crap out of me.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Well, I just hit a new road block that has never happened before.
I had all of my music done, tracks saved with plugins, etc, low CPU usage. Then, as I added three more tracks, it started getting heavy and the bottom meter, which I'm guessing is the HD indicator, started running almost to the 90% mark. Then froze and Cubase turned off.
Now I can't open my Paper This project. It opens, but freezes immediately and shuts down. Too many tracks? I have 43 tracks at this point.
How can I get into my project in safe mode or something. I think I need to turn off the master plugins which were on, and I had the plugins on for the three new tracks because I was dialing them in. I need a quad core machine with maxed out everything!

[ken]

Maybe you can turn off some of the other processes your computer is running to free up enough processor power to get in there and finish up your project? Turn off your virus scan, any other open programs, things running in the background etc. Open up your task manager and see what you have going on.

Is your Hard drive full? Maybe you don't have enough space there anymore?

Ken

[Billy's Little Trip]

No, my HD is around 80% free. I'll try turning off background stuff and see what's up.

I can get to all of the audio files, so if worse comes to worse, I can start a new project and import the files over. What a pain.

[blue]

In the past, I've been exporting all of my tracks, then starting a new project just for mixing. Partly for the CPU issues, but also to reduce tracks, which was kind of the reason for my original post here.
It's not uncommon for me to have 12 to 14 drum tracks because of duplicating the snare for different EQing in parts, separate crashes for more power in parts, etc. So in the past I've been taking all 14 drum tracks, after I get them just how I want them, and exporting them as one stereo track with no plugins on the master. Then starting a new "mix tracks" project. This has been turning 40 tracks into less than 15 in most cases. Then on that mix down, I add my master compression and EQing.

The only problem is that I have a feeling I'm losing something by doing that. I may be wrong. Theoretically, it should be exactly the same as the original tracks. But I fear that it's killing the separation of the instruments (for lack of a better word) from doing this.

Example of why I think this:
1. I get all of my music done and mixed just the way I want it and export it with no vocals.
2. Now I can work on my chops listening to the instrumental while driving, etc.
3. I record my vocals and get the tracks exported for the "mix tracks"
4. Get it all mixed down with master compression and EQing.
5. Run it through Gold Wave to clean up the ends and set the volume and save it, still in wav format at this point.
6. Convert to MP3 to send it off.

When I listen to the finished wav file compared to the one with no vocals, it seems less lively, less separation of the instruments. It bugs the crap out of me.

you're f'n craZy in the head.

[Billy's Little Trip]

[blue]

whatever happened to smalltown mike? that dude seemed to get the exact sound your going for.. maybe pm him and see what his gig is.

[Billy's Little Trip]

I like mike's sound, but that's not what I'm going for. I'm trying for a dirty studio sound. Not quite live and not quite studio. Seems like it would be a lot easier than it actually is turning out to be. Sometimes I think I should just hang 1 mic from the center of the ceiling and we all just stand around it like a floating mic shaped campfire.
.....oh wait, Booty already patented that idea.