Re-use entire mix
Hi folks,
A while ago I posted the same question, but, from the answers, it appeared that most folk entirely misunderstood what I was asking.
I chatted to a friend of mine who also uses X1, and he also misunderstood me entirely. Then, after quite a long conversation, we landed on the same page. For this reason, I would like to re-state the issue, and attempt to explain better, as it seems that the combination of my poor formulation of my explanation, and the "normal" expected "solution" to a problem which is quite similar to mine, has caused misunderstanding. So...here goes:
I've completed recording the pilot tracks for 14 songs. Pilots are obviously a click, a pad/piano of some type, and a vocal.
Drummer is booked for a few sessions, to complete his/her takes. Keep in mind, I already have templates setup for the songs with routings and aux sends (busses for headphones/reverbs etc).
We start on the first song, and, as we go, the drummer asks for more kick in their ears, thus, I lift the level of the pre-fade aux-send bus which goes to their ears. They want less overheads, so I lower those (again, the level of the pre-fade aux-send bus which goes to their cans). They want more vocal, so I lift that, and less pads, so I drop that. Snare is ok, toms are ok.
Thus, if all of you reading this are following me now, we have 14 songs which have levels to aux-sends setup at 0db, but ONE of these 14 (this first one) now has more kick, less overheads, more vocal and less pads.
So, the drummer completes the song. I close it, and open the next song. HERE IS WHERE MY PROBLEM ARISES!
*****
I cannot save the previous song as a template, and thus have it's mix changes available for these next 13 songs, because, then all thirteen songs will have the audio from the template, and thus "loose" their already recorded pilots etc. Thus, the four or five mix changes that I made to the aux sends for the drummer now needs to be RE-DONE on ALL 13 SONGS. Every time!
I cannot save each of those tracks as a track-template, because, when I load the track templates, I'll have to move all the already recorded audio over to the new tracks, delete the old tracks etc.
Sure, if it's just the drummer, we could simply move the eight tracks, plus the pads & vocal pilots...BUT, when bassist arrives, same story will repeat, then acoustic guitarist, electric guitarist, keyboardist, saxophonist, violinists, backing vocalists and finally lead vocalist.
Surely there MUST be a way in SONAR to re-use a mix? This was one of the most simple and basic functions in SawStudio (which I stopped using, moved to SONAR, because of rewire and vsti implementations that were not up to par - in fact, it has NO rewire support at all)
What I am thus asking for is not a song template (which only is functional when initially starting the song, in my case. Nor am I looking at track templates, because, again, they are awesome BEFORE any recording is done, but, once recordings have started, and mix changes have been applied to tracks where audio is already present from previous artists/performers, the track template becomes a very schleppy process.
Surely one is able to simply "load" and entire track's setup "over" the current settings? Obviously first prize would be to do this in bulk.
Allow me to illustrate the process as I used to do it in SawStudio, and maybe this will clarify further:
Let's say I'm at point ***** earlier in this mail, thus, now I'm going to song 2 of 14, while using SawStudio. I would obviously have used my pre-setup templates for each song, making sure that the track names which I use accross songs, are the same. Thus, Kick drum will always be BD, snare will be SD, etc etc etc.
After completing song 1, I would, in one single command, save all track mix settings to files. They would be stored under their track name. I then open the next song. Now I would simply go to a menu in SS (SawStudio) and request to load the mixes back into the different tracks. Audio on the tracks would remain intact, but all the mix changes (eq setups, sends/return levels, faders, input routing, you name it! - everything that is related to that track and it's mix parameters) would be loaded, and, the drummer may immediately start running through the song, without having to repeat their requirements for their headphone mix, and wasting time on re-doing something that was already done.
So, I hope this clarifies enough what my question is?
Please help if you know the solution/method.
Thanks all.