meh
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Production Process Question
Just wondering what the "correct" process should be. After recording tracks, adding soft synths etc. Should the soft synths be bounced to tracks and then deleted before exporting to wav's? What are the ups or downs of leaving the soft synths and not bouncing them to a track? Is there some better documentation on the "mechanical" process of production using Sonar? tia meh
post edited by meh - 2013/06/09 11:05:10
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Spencer
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/09 11:03:43
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Few things... obviously you save computer processing headroom by not having a bunch of live synths and effects running... also some synths may have dynamic elements in the patches, meaning you get a more "stable" version of the track once it's bounced to audio, which can help in the mixdown stage.
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Beepster
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/09 11:26:25
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You probably don't want to delete the original tracks after bouncing in case you want to go back and change something or the bounce captured a bad version of the MIDI performance. Just freeze and mute those tracks before export.
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scook
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/09 11:27:01
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☄ Helpfulby meh 2013/06/10 08:43:18
There is no correct "production process" hence it is not documented. There is no reason to delete the synth and it might be a bad idea since deleted synth tracks are difficult to get back, just like any destructive edit. Bouncing tracks is the old method of printing the audio from a softsynth. Freezing has pretty much replaced bouncing. Freezing synths (not the track) during the mixing process allows one to work with a fixed set of audio tracks. Freezing a synth still affords the flexibility to unfreeze and modify the synth settings. Freezing also frees up computer resources.
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Beepster
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/09 11:36:51
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I wasn't sure about the freeze vs. bounce thing because there seems to be so much differentiation in tuts/discussions on the topic. If the result is the same that is good to know. Keeps the track count down and is less of a pain in the arse. Cheers.
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scook
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/09 11:45:21
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☄ Helpfulby meh 2013/06/10 08:43:03
Yes, freeze was introduced as a new feature some time ago with SONAR. Prior to freeze, all we had was bounce. Freeze functionally works like a bounce+archive frozen plug-ins. Freeze can work on synth audio only or entire audio tracks. Freezing a synth still allows the effects on the track to be modified. Freezing a track prints everything in the track. Whatever is frozen is removed from memory and is no longer processed by the CPU. Drag a frozen clip to a new track for an instant bounce.
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groovey1
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/09 14:30:05
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scook
... Drag a frozen clip to a new track for an instant bounce.
Now that's a cool tip that I never knew about ... thanks, I'll be using that!
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robert_e_bone
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/09 15:17:46
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+1 on the instant bounce tip. Thanks - I have a pretty high-end computer and so far have not run into memory or CPU issues, but I will definitely tuck this tip away in a little folder I keep with these kinds of tips in it. I just save them in text files or Word docs, grouped by functional area.
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Beepster
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/09 15:21:21
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Yeah, me too, Bob. My elaborate notes ended up solving a massive problem I've been having lately. Gotta remember to actually look at the darned things. I wrote them for a reason. lol
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konradh
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/09 15:55:02
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If you don't freeze or bounce, you can still export to WAV or mp3 by checking the box called "Live Input." You have to uncheck Fast Bounce to get that option.
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meh
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/10 00:06:55
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My Current process is something like this... Every time I am going to edit a project I.. - Save As...
- Create a folder
- Name it the same as the project and then a number (i.e Project Name 1, 2 etc)
- Save the cwp file into the folder and use the same name (i.e Project Name 2). This way a new audio folder is built for the new project
- As I finish any soft synths I follow the same process as above, and freeze or bounce to audio and then delete the soft synth.
I continue this until all tracks are audio and this is what I Master with. This way I can go back and work on the soft synth as needed and copy the audio file forward. I thought maybe by doing this I would keep the files as small as possible and keep out all possibilities of noise...artifacts that may be introduced. I was hoping this would contribute to cleaner and purer audio files. Are these steps unnecessary? tia meh
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hellogoodbye
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/10 04:50:34
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☄ Helpfulby meh 2013/06/10 08:42:03
All those steps don't seem necessary to me... I never get noise or artifacts with softsynths and I don't expect cleaner and purer audio files... The files certainly won't get smaller because obviously a softsynth tracks takes up very little space while a freezed one results in a big audio file...!
I seldom freeze a synth and I never ever bounce one. I ONLY freeze a synth in two situations:
1. when the synth has a setting that randomly changes over time or if it has random effects that are different every time: in some cases I don't like certain sounds or effects to be different everytime so in that case I freeze the synth (sometimes two times or three times until I like the placement of the random changes or effects) so I know when certain effects or sounds are there and they won't surprise me after exporting the track.
2. I have a softsynth that sometimes skips notes during export so in that case I also freeze it to make sure every note is there.
But other then that I never freeze synths: I never get into trouble due to having to many synths loaded so I feel no need to do so to save recourses. As I said this only results in a lot of Mb's of wavs and it's harder to quickly change something.
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Kev999
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/10 05:28:23
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☼ Best Answerby meh 2013/06/10 08:43:47
meh
Save As...
Create a folder
Name it the same as the project and then a number (i.e Project Name 1, 2 etc)
Save the cwp file into the folder and use the same name (i.e Project Name 2). This way a new audio folder is built for the new project
As I finish any soft synths I follow the same process as above, and freeze or bounce to audio and then delete the soft synth. For me it's similar but slightly different. I retain the midi & softsynths for the instruments that I want to continue tweaking (especially drums), but bounce any others that I consider to be "finished". Before I bounce a softsynth, I "Save As..." the project under a name like <projectname>_piano, but keep it in the same folder as the main project (allowing it to share the same Audio folder). I export the audio, then go back into the main project, delete the softsynth and associated tracks, then import the bounced audio. This means that if necessary I can easily go back to the midi if I decide to modify it later, but otherwise can just ignore it. As Scook said, there's no correct way. It's just personal preference.
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Guitarhacker
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Re: Production Process Question
2013/06/10 08:52:39
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I like to work with audio tracks in the mix down.
So, I will bounce the synths to audio at some point after I have that track sounding like I want for the song.
If you are concerned that you might wish to go back and work on a certain synth track simply archive and hide that track.
Archiving shuts off the synth so it doesn't affect the processing. Then, hide the track freeing up desktop real estate in the views. A simple click to unhide and then unarchive if you ever need to work on it again. Synths and midi tracks are very small so there is not a big issue with storing them in an archived and hidden condition.
This is simply one more way to do things.
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