Was wondering if anybody out in Sonarland has any tricks for grouping faders in the console? More specifically, for recalling those fader groups ... This seems like exactly the type of thing a computer should do well, and yet, as of now, I have no idea how to do this. Nothing in the Sonar documentation as far as I can tell ...
 
What happens is ... I'm mixing my tune and all of sudden I realize that pretty much everything needs to be turned down to keep me from digitally sauteing the mix. At this point I have, maybe 20 tracks? So, what I do is go into the console view and group all my faders into, for example, Group X. This lets me scale down the gain proportionally for the entire mix to stay out of the dreaded digital red.
 
But if you get so excited that you forget to "Clear Group" after you are done correcting the gain issues, the very next time you try to tweak a single fader by itself, they all obviously move along and throw everything off. Or, if you anticipate this by doing a "Clear Group", then you have to painstakingly click on each fader to set up your Group X once again. It can really take you out of the creative flow ...
 
What would fix this, and what I'm trying to figure out, is if there is a way to save fader groups to be recalled later? This way I could "Clear Group" when I need to tweak individual faders, but then still be able to do group adjustments if the meters start twitchin' once again.
 
https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR%20X2&language=3&help=Mixing.52.html
https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR%20X2&language=3&help=Mixing.53.html#1098271
 
Quick groups (from second link) don't seem feasible either because I use MIDI instruments in my mixes, and you generally only adjust the volume on the audio track's fader. So, a wholesale selection of, say, all volume sliders doesn't help unless I then go back and reset the MIDI faders to 100%.
 
Just would be nice if I could set a custom fader grouping, call it something meaningful, like "overall gain", and then be able to recall that at a later time.
 
Or maybe that's just me ...

After the group settings are made, hold the CTRL key when changing a single control. This will prevent the other controls in the group from moving.

If you think you need to change the group multiple times you can send those tracks to a bus or move the tracks so that you easily can swipe and quickgroup them.

Hi. If you Ctrl+click and drag, you will adjust all tracks / buses in CV. Tracks and buses adjusts separately.
All the best.

Ida_Mikke
If you think you need to change the group multiple times you can send those tracks to a bus or move the tracks so that you easily can swipe and quickgroup them.

This is a good point.
 
To the OP, I rarely if ever use groups anymore because quick grouping has become a big part of my workflow.
With that said, You will benefit greatly from sending your tracks to Buses.
All my instrument buses are broken up in to different groups
Example: all my guitars are feed to a Guitar bus / All my drums are feed to a Drums bus. exc, exc..
It almost works like a VCA group in a way where one fader controls everything being feed in to it.
 
when it comes time to mix and get correct gain staging there will always be time where you need to lower your tracks volume level and lowering a bus wont cut it. But grouping is as easy as swiping the track numbers in console view, then holding down CNTRL and all faders move.

Yeah scook, I'd never trust myself to, in the heat of the moment, remember to CTR-Click the fader I'd like to adjust. What will happen is I will just forget about my fader group and directly tweak the volume of one track inadvertently adjusting all the faders in the process. Then I will wonder what happened to my nice mix? Lol. I space out that way ...
 
But I like the bus idea ... not really sure why I didn't think of this ...
 
Just seems, since, you know, all of this is being done inside a computer, that it should be a no-brainer to have fader presets. We have presets for everything else. It would be handy to have three or four different fader groups all saved actually. You just make active the one you want to tweak and then disable it quickly before you forget and geek your mix.
 
I can see where maybe I might try a process where I quick select all volume faders and then do a CTRL-Click to eliminate only the faders of the MIDI source tracks (you know, drums, keyboards, et al). This would be quicker than what I was doing, which was just going through the console each time and selecting all my audio tracks one by one and then grouping them when I'd like an overall volume reduction.
 
Might save a good, honest five minutes there. Lol.
 

I used to group all my tracks years ago (started doing it in pro audio 9.)
but since the quick grouping option, I don't anymore. Groups still have places for me in controlling other groups, but not for volume or pan. Its a working habit. some are hard to change but in the long run it will allow you to work faster.

You can always save a mix scene as well. That will save your current fader positions and will let you at least get back to a known point if you accidentally move a group. In addition you can right click the fader, or a selected group of faders by holding ctrl, and set its default, or snap position to the current position.

scottcmusic
What happens is ... I'm mixing my tune and all of sudden I realize that pretty much everything needs to be turned down to keep me from digitally sauteing the mix. At this point I have, maybe 20 tracks? So, what I do is go into the console view and group all my faders into, for example, Group X. This lets me scale down the gain proportionally for the entire mix to stay out of the dreaded digital red.

 

Quick groups (from second link) don't seem feasible either because I use MIDI instruments in my mixes, and you generally only adjust the volume on the audio track's fader. So, a wholesale selection of, say, all volume sliders doesn't help unless I then go back and reset the MIDI faders to 100%.

 

1. Go into console view, hit 'h', click the icon labelled Midi, followed by the Spacebar. This will hide all Midi tracks
2. Now you can use quick grouping: click on the track number at the far left and drag/sweep across all of your audio tracks. Press the control key and make a change to any of the track faders. They will all move proportionally up/down.

Tip: right clicking any volume fader gives to the ability to revert to the last value. (there are other tricks as well such as setting a default value to which the fader will snap to when double clicked)
 

Nice. Will try that.