greetings everyone, now THIS is strange indeed. i'm working on a song that has (without the drums) right now 6 tracks, 2 guitar, 4 vox tracks. when i mute everything except one of the guitar i hear very faintly vocals. i know t recorded no vox on that track because it was direct. i have looked everywhere i could think of to find it. where oh where could it be?
i know there are no take lanes, just the parent track.
i remember in the olden days i had a teac portastudio, yes, i'm that old. i had the same thing happen, however, comparing sonar to a portastudio is like a biplane to a rocket ship.
has anyone know what i'm talking about?
thanks

For Portastudio, Google 'Print through'.
 
For SONAR check for pre-fader sends to an FX bus from the vocal track.
 
 

I was going to suggest a "Sends" issue as Brundlefly did but if you have not recorded ANY vocal tracks into this project and there is no vocal track at all... then this is rather strange indeed.
 
There is no possibility of ghost track tape type bleed in the digital realm AFAIK.
 
So... what I am thinking is this is your rig picking up radio transmissions somehow.
 
Is it ALWAYS the same vocal, always at the same points (as in if you hear a faint vocal saying "Hi, I'm a ghost vocal" and it says the exact same thing every time at the exact same spot as if there were a track somewhere). If so then that's kind of... impossible. BUT maybe you have hidden a track using the Track Manager that is still active and just forgot you recorded a vocal.
 
That is unlikely but the only way that could happen (I think).
 
For the radio interference stuff then the vocal would change all the time (so you're picking up a radio station or something due to bad grounding). Are you using monitors or does this occur through your headphones as well?
 
If it's through the monitors check on your headphones to see if it's there as well. Monitors may pickup signals on their own (maybe) but I don't think headphones through an interface could (or maybe the interference is COMING from the interface).
 
To me though for such interference the most likely culprit could be through your guitar and guitar amp. Do you have the Input Echo engaged on a track that has your amp mic'd up to or is accepting a live feed from your amp? Find out and turn off the input echo or just turn off the guitar amp to see if that gets rid of it.
 
Sometimes mixer's and PA's can do the same thing. If you have those things hooked up try turning them off or mucking around with them.
 
Alternatively... maybe someone is simply playing music in the next room or outside or in your building.
 
And I hesitate to say this because it might be mildly offensive but are you sure it's not in your head? Sometimes when we focus too hard on the physically audible those little melodies and what nots that rattle around in our brains get mixed in. That's actually how I write is by trying to "hear" those sounds and they generally stay in my head (and if they don't I know they aren't actually there... I hope lol) but altered states can blur that distinction and all of a sudden we are thinking we are hearing things that our ears truly are not.
 
On the bright side maybe you subconsciously wrote a vocal part and are willing it into existence. lol
 
I'd be quite interested to hear what the answer is.
 
Cheers.

Try not only muting the non-guitar tracks, but also soloing the guitar track. Send the guitar directly to the master bus or even directly to the output.

Also, there is that "exclusive solo" and "dim solo mode" business that you can set using the <s> and dim buttons on the toolbar. I have never used "dim solo mode" in a project, but it allows tracks to be heard at a lower level when another track is soloed...or some such thing. Maybe take a look at that, too.

"4 vox tracks."
 
How the hell did I miss that?
 
I was operating on the assumption NO vox had been recorded into the project.
 
Sorry about that.
 
Yeah... you have bus bleed going on. It's annoying but manageable. Listen to the other posters.
 
I will now go be stupid somewhere else.
 
lol

OP does not say what audio interface is being used. I know some interfaces have a reputation for having poor isolation between analog output and input sections such that even a headphone-monitored output can bleed into the input. This often manifests as hearing a faint metronome click in the recorded audio. IIRC, Ni's Komplete Audio 6 was one of them.
 
If OP didn't mention an interface because he's using onboard audio, this is more than possible.

brundlefly
OP does not say what audio interface is being used. I know some interfaces have a reputation for having poor isolation between analog output and input sections such that even a headphone-monitored output can bleed into the input. This often manifests as hearing a faint metronome click in the recorded audio. IIRC, Ni's Komplete Audio 6 was one of them.
 
If OP didn't mention an interface because he's using onboard audio, this is more than possible.

I made an error (or maybe Joey edited the OP and the forum now doesn't show it?). This is likely just a sends/bus thing as you originally diagnosed.
 
I went WAY out into left field with that "troubleshooting". If there are vox tracks present in the project Occam's Razor suggests a bus is still letting some signal through. I deal with this far too often (as soon as I add any reverb or parallel compression busses) and have not fully sorted a good workflow to deal with it. I should probably get on that. lol

Yeah I could see how you would misinterpret "i know t recorded no vox on that track because it was direct." He meant no vox could be recorded on the guitar track because it was D.I., but there are vox recorded in the project.
 
Chances are good it's a send issue, but after reading your post, it did occur to me that the might be interface issue causing playback tracks to get re-recorded, including possibly having onboard audio recording "What U Hear' or 'Stereo Mix' as input. but then they wouldn't be "faint", and the drums would also be present.
 
So long as sends aren't Pre-fader - which they usually don't need to be - they should obey mute/solo.

My first thought was interface cross-talk, especially after Craig Anderton discussed it last year with respect to interfaces evaluations.