This post may sound like "Mr. Obvious" to most folks, but I just thought I'd provide some feedback about my use of mix scenes. I know it has been out there quite awhile now, but it is the kind of thing that has slowly crept into my workflow, as opposed to being a instant, dramatic change.
I think the original motivation was to do A/B tests. That is great, but there is so much more that it can do. Initially I found mix scenes a little buggy and unstable, so I avoided it. But these days, it seems to be rock solid and surprisingly fast in switching scenes. Here are some things I have done recently:
I recorded a live big band show with 14 channels. This had the 5 saxes individually mic'ed, direct lines on bass and piano, mic on guitar, kick and overhead, 2 area mics covering trumpets/trombones together, a separate solo mic for the brass players, and 2 vocal mics. We had a total of 6 singers who had widely ranging timbre and technique, and the 26 songs covered a wide range of moods.
I got a "foundation mix" that sounded good for the instrumentals and saved that as my primary scene. Then I created minor variations for single singers, duet singers and brass solos, saving each of those as scenes. And a couple of quiet balled needed yet another mix scene. That was so easy. The upshot is that I have the entire show in one Sonar project (actually one project per set), and if I want to do further refinements to the mix later, I can easily get back to the mix I used on each tune. That is a lot easier to manage than having a separate project file for each song.
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Now for a second example. I have been working on a project that has a concert band playing a new composition march that uses a men's chorus. We tracked the concert band in the field last November. That all was easy. Last night I had the male quartet to my house to capture the vocals. I used the scenes a little bit for A/B, but that wasn't really needed. Here's where the scenes will be awesome:
We expect this piece will be performed later this year by a different group of singers. Coming from the Barbershop tradition, they typically learn their music by rote and repetition, not by reading music. So the composer is requesting 4 edits:
#1 - The band and baritone, lead, and tenor in the left ear and the bass part in the right ear
#2 - The band and bass, lead, and tenor in the left ear and the baritone part in the right ear
etc. I.E. a different edit for each of the quartet to learn his own part.
The scenes will be perfect for this. I can keep the same single Sonar file and create 4 new scenes per the above, yet instantly go back to my "real" mix at any time. I know there are other workflows to get to the same result, but this is pretty cool. I don't think this great feature gets the applause it deserves.