martinv
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My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
This was my first "Live Band" recording with SONAR (X2). I have 2 sound modules and had about 15 simultaneous audio tracks recording on each song.
ISSUE 1. Before hand I created and saved a Project template for the project to use for each song.
The big issue with this is as I dialed things in I had to resave the template so I could use these same changes in the next song.
An even bigger issue was after we went back and added 3 new vocal tracks. I had to then save a track template and import this for every remaining song. (i'm used to my previous analog board setup wich doesn't change when you go to the next song:) I'm learning there were some real advantages to that.
This brings up a question. Should record the entire project as 1 file? One song after the other. Then when it comes time to mixing, perhaps break it into 1 file per song for easier automation and better computer performance? This way the client wouldn't have to wait while I close the current song file and create a new file (during which the their headphones mute and they can't even reherse as they are in seperate rooms
ISSUE 2. SOLO buttons. While recording I wanted to solo some tracks in the control room, but when I did this everyones headphone mix also soloed the track!. I had 3 headphone mixes on sends (1-3) going to the band members and I had the main out mix in the control room. Is there a setting that allows soloing without affecting the sends?
ISSUE 3. (Software BUG) While trying to setup 4 headphone mixes + a reverb send on every channel I discovered the the assignments get completely messed up. I would try to change send 5 to a send called "Mon D" and it would change send 1 to "MON D" instead. Then changing send 1 back to MON A, and it would reassign some other send to MON A!.
What worked:
1. ~15 simultaneous tracks recording worked with not a single glitch or lag.
2. My talk back mic and home made switch routed through a channel on SONAR worked great.
3. Still Completed inital tracking of 11 songs of Drums, bass, guitar, keys, vocals, in 6.5 hours.
4. Sound quality beats my old analog board with 75lbs of patch bays and cables connecting everything.
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Bristol_Jonesey
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Re:My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
2012/11/19 04:35:04
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The one huge disadvantage of recording it in separate projects is that you'll find it extremely difficult to replicate the same settings & Fx for your drums, guitars, vocals, sends, pans etc. Having it all inside the one project means this isn't an issue.
This does mean you're going to end up extensively automating the project because obviously what works for one song might not work for the next without a bit of tweaking, but nearly everything in X2 can be automated, so you have no worries there.
You can also easily export a single song just by doing a timeline selection, this way the client can have a copy of it as soon as you've finished mixing it.
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jstoecker
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Re:My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
2012/11/19 10:17:25
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(Hmmm. All my line breaks are being stripped out of my reply, so it appears as one long blah blah blah. :( oh, well. )
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jstoecker
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Re:My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
2012/11/19 10:21:37
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Re: record it all into one versus seperate: I've done something similar, many times: record stuff on an HD24 (just roll it and let it rip the whole time), then bring it into Sonar. So everything started out as one ginormous project. But what I found was that over time, as each mix evolved, it became easier to have each in their own projects (even though at first, having them all in one was convenient for rough mixes). What Jonesey says is right: you'll end up needing to automate a ton of stuff if the mixes vary from one song to the next. So I found it easier to break up the big recording into individual projects - I still had automation, but not nearly as much. If you do end up with separate projects, you can enable the feature to open more than one project at once, and copy effects and such from one project to another (which is what I ended up doing when I had parts of an older version of a mix that I liked better, and needed to back out subsequent changes to that part). (I save each "version" of a mix in its own new project, and work from that latest project. That way, if something gets glitched or I start going down a trail that doesn't work, I have more than one copy of the project to fall back on - besides backups). Sonar is pretty flexible, so you can keep working in a particular way; they all have trade-offs.
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Bristol_Jonesey
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Re:My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
2012/11/19 10:30:48
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Another way to go, seeing as the number of tracks is more or less fixed is to save them as individual projects, then mix one of them.
When one is completed, delete all the audio, save it as a template and use this as a starting point for all the other songs - Fx, levels, pan, sends, bus structure etc will have good starting point
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FastBikerBoy
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Re:My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
2012/11/19 11:15:01
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ISSUE 2. SOLO buttons. While recording I wanted to solo some tracks in the control room, but when I did this everyones headphone mix also soloed the track!. I had 3 headphone mixes on sends (1-3) going to the band members and I had the main out mix in the control room. Is there a setting that allows soloing without affecting the sends?
Change all the sends to the headphone mix buss to pre-fader, that'll sort that as well as allow a different mix to that in the control room. ISSUE 3. (Software BUG) While trying to setup 4 headphone mixes + a reverb send on every channel I discovered the the assignments get completely messed up. I would try to change send 5 to a send called "Mon D" and it would change send 1 to "MON D" instead. Then changing send 1 back to MON A, and it would reassign some other send to MON A!.
Can't say I've seen that. Where are you making the changes. Console, track header or inspector or doesn't it matter?
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gswitz
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Re:My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
2012/11/19 20:27:03
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I almost always make the full recording in one project. I ctrl+s a few times during the recording.
After the recording, I sometimes copy sections into smaller projects but not so often.
Working in 1 big projects
- I usually make markers before the beginning and end of each tune and then bounce between the markers.
- I use envelopes for pan and volume.
- Between each song, I select all tracks, select a small area of the timeline, and add nodes at selection. This adds nodes between the two songs isolating the one from the other so I can move the position of waves within the stereo field without impacting the other songs or change volumes.
- I sometimes make a folder for Pro Channel setting for the different settings on different songs. That way, if I return to re-mix a particular song, I can recall the PC settings I used when I mixed that tune.
For me, given the amount of time I'm willing to spend on each song and the likelihood of me returning to remix a song after I'm done, mixing everything in a single project works best for me.
If I cared more, I probably would create templates as I go and copy sections into fresh copies of the template each time I mixed the next song. I would still make the recording all at once in a single project, but I would make it easier to revisit a previous mixed song in the exact state that I originally mixed it by keeping it in a separate project. (I hope this makes sense).
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martinv
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Re:My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
2012/11/19 23:52:04
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FastBikerBoy
ISSUE 2. SOLO buttons. While recording I wanted to solo some tracks in the control room, but when I did this everyones headphone mix also soloed the track!. I had 3 headphone mixes on sends (1-3) going to the band members and I had the main out mix in the control room. Is there a setting that allows soloing without affecting the sends?
Change all the sends to the headphone mix buss to pre-fader, that'll sort that as well as allow a different mix to that in the control room.
ISSUE 3. (Software BUG) While trying to setup 4 headphone mixes + a reverb send on every channel I discovered the the assignments get completely messed up. I would try to change send 5 to a send called "Mon D" and it would change send 1 to "MON D" instead. Then changing send 1 back to MON A, and it would reassign some other send to MON A!.
Can't say I've seen that. Where are you making the changes. Console, track header or inspector or doesn't it matter?
Re Issue 2: I did have all my monitor sends already set to Pre-Fader. I need to investigate this further and listen to the montor mixes myself. After the musicians said the sound cut out I stopped hitting SOLO the rest of the session. Before I upgraded to X2 from X1, I had changed this setting in the AUD.ini file: LinkPFSendMute=1, Chaging the value to 1 will causes the mute to mute aux sends even if pre fader. I will look for a similar option for the solo button. Re Issue 3: This issue occurred in both track view and console view. I will try this again with a fresh project and see if it is repeatable, then submit a bug report to SONAR.
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martinv
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Re:My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
2012/11/20 00:27:55
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Thanks for all the good ideas. I'm thinking in future projects, I will keep all songs in 1 project during initial tracking especially when it involves a 4+ piece band.
Another option for creating a seperate project file for each song i'm wondering about is the following (Maybe already described above by Jonesey):
Instead of saving an updated project template after each song, could I:
1. save the current song as a project (.cwp),
2. then delete the audio and resave the .cwp as the name of the song (Eg: song2.cwp). This will act as a template but is a .cwp instead of a template file.
This would mean all audio for all songs will be in the same Audio folder.
Is there any down sides to doing this aside from more confusion if I need to look in the Audio to find some file?
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Rob[at]Sound-Rehab
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Re:My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
2012/11/20 01:20:49
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martinv
ISSUE 2. SOLO buttons. While recording I wanted to solo some tracks in the control room, but when I did this everyones headphone mix also soloed the track!. I had 3 headphone mixes on sends (1-3) going to the band members and I had the main out mix in the control room. Is there a setting that allows soloing without affecting the sends?
What kind of interfaces did you use? If you list your hardware, we might be able to give more detailed suggestions. I'm actually thinking in terms of using headphone mix capabilities of some interfaces but don't know which one you got ...
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FastBikerBoy
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Re:My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
2012/11/20 02:50:39
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I think the solo button issue may well depend on how you are routing headphone mixes.
If I'm tracking a band/artist I usually have a couple of different headphone (cue) mixes. Each track within Sonar has a pre-fader send on it one to Cue Mix A, another to Cue Mix B.
Cue Mix A & Cue Mix B are two Sonar busses that have their output set to two different stereo pairs on my mixer (a ZED-R16). That in turn has each channels two pre-fader aux sends assigned to the ZEDs pair of studio outs which each feed a separate channel on the headphone amp.
That way each set of headphones can be assigned to either mix, and each mix can be a mix of tracks coming back from Sonar and any live tracking tracks. It's not really possible to set up a cue mix without additional outputs on your interface.
In the scenario above soloing instruments within Sonar does not affect the cue mixes at all.
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Bristol_Jonesey
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Re:My First Live Studio Band, SONAR tracking session complete and I have questions.
2012/11/20 04:33:47
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martinv
Thanks for all the good ideas. I'm thinking in future projects, I will keep all songs in 1 project during initial tracking especially when it involves a 4+ piece band.
Another option for creating a seperate project file for each song i'm wondering about is the following (Maybe already described above by Jonesey):
Instead of saving an updated project template after each song, could I:
1. save the current song as a project (.cwp),
2. then delete the audio and resave the .cwp as the name of the song (Eg: song2.cwp). This will act as a template but is a .cwp instead of a template file.
This would mean all audio for all songs will be in the same Audio folder.
Is there any down sides to doing this aside from more confusion if I need to look in the Audio to find some file?
No, this should work fine
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