Another semi advanced question I guess.
 
I'm in the early stages of putting together an album from some old live sessions. All the beds are essentially the same across all the songs (just the songs are different).
 
I've created a rough mix of one of the songs using the original beds (set of 9 tracks, no cloning or additional wackiness... just the raw files mixed).
 
I have created some group busses to run things through (actual busses... not Aux tracks).
 
I've restrained myself to only Prochannel modules on all tracks and busses EXCEPT for one bus the only has rhythm guitar going through where I used Channel Tools as "Mid Side" to yank out the middle and push it to the edges (so one actual plugin on one bus... everything else is Prochannel and fader level mixing).
 
I want to take this EXACT mix and all its routing and apply it to all the other songs/projects in the simplest way possible.
 
Difficulty: All the other songs are already set up in their own projects and need to remain that way (tempo stuff). So I just want to get the mix over to these other projects that are, for all intents and purposes, identical (track setup, routing, busses, etc).
 
How would you guys approach this?
 
I don't know if Project Templates would help (and don't know much about them/how to apply a template to an existing project).
 
I was going to simply create Prochannel presets and apply those manually to each track in each project one at a time but that's a lot of work and would require me to reset my general track settings anyway (like volume fader and pan).
 
So... the tl;dr is how would you create a consistent sounding album mix across multiple tunes/projects?
 
Hopefully that makes sense.
 
Thanks.

Beeps, if someone give you the magic formula, I'd love to know about it. There is so much after the fact stuff going on if I understand it, that I would be flummoxed too.
 

bapu
Beeps, if someone give you the magic formula, I'd love to know about it. There is so much after the fact stuff going on if I understand it, that I would be flummoxed too.
 

Ya, bud. Totes and will do.
 
Thing is when it comes down to "final" mix time I'll likely set up a "blank" project with the best overall mix and import the files into that (creating "Save As" of each as I go) the doing the finicky, project specific stuff based on that rough mix.
 
Since I am so early on in the album project though and am still doing tempo stuff (only two songs in) I just want a quick fix so I can export versions of each to practice to. As in import these mixes to each tune and do exports I can track to.
 
It's kind of my usual crazy nonsense... lol.
 
I'm sure someone SMRT will come along and point me in the right direction.
 
Hope you've been well, dood.
 
Cheers.

This is were when I switched from using my Yamaha 01V to Sonar I immediately was disappointed.  I do a lot of live recordings and as you have said, once you've dialed in the first song the rest will follow suit.
On the 01V this was so simple. Get that first song sounding good and then let it roll through each song and apply small changes and save a scene for each song. This also gives the finished album continuity.
 
The only solution I have found was to totally pre meditate a template BEFORE you record. Then all the plug ins have the pre set save function. You get the first song right, save a pre set for each plug in and then re load it in each song.
 
Other than that your faced with getting the first song perfect. Erase the audio data from the tracks and "save as" a blank project.
 
Now just drag and drop the audio from the other songs to their respective tracks. 
I'm not sure what your talking about tempo ?? live recordings are not normally done to a tempo unless you actually used the projects as backing tracks too.
 

Hi, Johnny. Thanks.
 
The Tempo aspect is I'm doing a bunch of time correction and tempo map fiddling on the tunes. Essentially the original tracks weren't recorded to any click but lag and speed up in an undesirable way so I'm trying to tighten that up BUT I'm still trying to let it all breathe a bit too. So it's not a static tempo throughout (and some of the tunes have natural speed up/slow down sections).
 
Essentialy I'm doing some REALLY fiddly hard time correction with some tempo map adjustments where needed that need to follow the songs until the final mix (as in once everything is corrected and retracked I don't have to worry about tempo maps and whatnot and can use an overall "mix" project template).
 
There is a LOT of work that needs to be done before then though as I do all that and track the overdubs so getting the rough mix over to all the projects in progress in a simple way would be great.
 
Sadly I think you're right... it ain't gonna be so easy and I guess this is one of the areas where digital outboard gear (or even just an analog mixer set and left be) beats out in the box stuff.
 
At least in Sonar. Not sure if things like "Sub Projects" in other programs handles this but I prefer using Prochannel (and SOnar in general) for mixing tasks so that wouldn't help anyway. lol
 
Cheers and thanks again.

This is really, really easy to do.  Just set up a track template that includes all the tracks, effects and buses needed called "Consistent track mix" or whatever you want to call it.  Then just insert the track template it into every song, beneath the original stems that you have in the project.  Then just drag the audio from the original stem tracks onto the appropriate track within the track template......eg kick dragged to kick basic mix or whatever.  Obviously make sure snap is on, but takes seconds.  then just delete the original stem tracks and you have a clean project that uses the same mix basics as the other songs.  It works a treat I use it all the time and then use the mix recall function within each project to test my mix modifications as I go along

Track Templates are a real friend when you get to know them properly

That's pretty clever!   The added comment about Mix Recall is the icing on the cake.

P-Theory
This is really, really easy to do.  Just set up a track template that includes all the tracks, effects and buses needed called "Consistent track mix" or whatever you want to call it.  Then just insert the track template it into every song, beneath the original stems that you have in the project.  Then just drag the audio from the original stem tracks onto the appropriate track within the track template......eg kick dragged to kick basic mix or whatever.  Obviously make sure snap is on, but takes seconds.  then just delete the original stem tracks and you have a clean project that uses the same mix basics as the other songs.  It works a treat I use it all the time and then use the mix recall function within each project to test my mix modifications as I go along

Thanks. I had actually been concocting a similar scenario in my mushy little brain noodle but although I've used Track Templates before never with the busses attached.
 
So what happens with the original busses in the project when I load the template? They will be the same name and routing so I am unsure whether the template hunts down similar busses and takes them over or if it creates new ones?
 
The mention if Mix Scenes (although you aren't referencing them in this context) makes me wonder if I can copy a Mix Scene from another identical project (track/bus/routing) and load it into another project.
 
Like copy it from the Mix Scenes folder of the mixed project and slap it into the target project.
 
Now THAT would be crazy useful (and likely would fail miserably) but since we now have the Mix Recall scheme maybe the Bakers could do some tweaks or some brainiac can figure out a hack to make that possible.
 
hmmm...
 
But yeah... I'm gonna test your method because that is likely as good as it's gonna get.
 
Thanks, dood.

OK, if it is all audio then here is what I would do.
 
Setup the same track layout and bus layout in the (three so far?) projects. This is crucial. Even if one song has an extra track all three songs should have that extra track in the position in the of the TV.
 
Now think of Project 1 as the Album. So the song ends at (example) 4:30. Set a new marker at 5:00. Open song two. Select all tracks and use copy special and select everything. Go back to song 1 and position now time to 5:00 (or closest beat 1 of that measure). Select track 1 and Paste Special insuring that you select everything. Rinse and repeat for Song three.
 
Copy and paste special will copy and paste tempo, markers and automation etc.
 
Now you have to options. 
 
1. Do all the songs in the project
2. Do save copy as (naming each song) and then stripping out song two and three for song 1, strip song 1 and three from song 2 and strip song 1 and 2 from song 3.
 
Then as you work on the next song go back to 5:00 and import tracks one at a time to the relevant traks. Save copy as, strip out first song from song 4 and song 4 from song 1. Rinse and repeat. Or alternative now save the project as template and from song 4 on just import track respectively.
 
If it all audio and the audio is contiguous delete measures should work fine for the first two steps.