applying mix settings to different projects

Hi
It depends what you mean by "Mix Settings"
If you are using the Pro-Channel to apply the "Mix Settings" you can save each of these per Track \ Instrument and recall them in the other projects.
 
Gary

Thanks for the replies, Anderton & Gary!  Much appreciated!
 
You're right, Anderton: I do mean all the console and processor settings.  And yes, Gary: I've already gone through the painful process of saving 'pro-channel' settings individually: trying to find a quicker workaround.  
 
In the past, I've recorded entire sessions in the one project file which saves me having to do this, but it makes the work flow clunky, especially if there are 3 hours worth of 24 tracks!  Your answer, Anderton, is something I've done before, but again, a pretty clunky way of going about things, but better than nothing!  I just wish there was a way to recall the entire console and processor settings from a previous session and import them into another project.  
 
Anyway, better get back to it!  Thanks again, guys!  :)

Hmm.  I am wondering if I can use the track preset technique for a different purpose.
 
Sometimes I would like to have alternate mixes of a project for comparison (or for live backing v CD).  It is easy enough to copy the project, but that burns up a lot of disk space.  On old automated consoles, you could just save the mix (fader moves, EQ, mutes, etc) to a disk and you could have various versions.
 
I have often wished I had a Sonar button that saved the mix but not all the audio, midi, and plugs.  In other words, I would like to mix a song a couple of different ways and thenh spend some time comparing them in different listening environments.  Saving the whole project kills my hard drive.  In fact, since I save interim versions for safety, one album folder can end up being 200-300 GBs or more.
 
(I'm getting way off topic, but it also annoys me that 1-you can't drag a folder of Sonar projects because the path to the audio folder doesn't upate and 2-you can't easily delete a project off your drive because you have to track down all the audio files and triple check that you aren't deleting audio that you need for the new or final versions.)

konradh
Sometimes I would like to have alternate mixes of a project for comparison (or for live backing v CD).  It is easy enough to copy the project, but that burns up a lot of disk space.  On old automated consoles, you could just save the mix (fader moves, EQ, mutes, etc) to a disk and you could have various versions.
 
I have often wished I had a Sonar button that saved the mix but not all the audio, midi, and plugs.  In other words, I would like to mix a song a couple of different ways and thenh spend some time comparing them in different listening environments. 

 
I agree that would be a great feature for Sonar. Have you put in a feature request?
 
Also, scook is 100% right about the the "save as" and "per-project folder" thing. You can do what you want to do in that respect with the existing Sonar tools.

Sanderxpander
I don't even understand why you would ever NOT want per project audio folders. Is this just a remnant of old times?

Backwards compatibility probably.

Actually I think there are two separate issues being discussed which appear similar, but would require different implementations.
 
1) Working within a project and being able to try out different mixes within that project, like different levels of tracks, different solos and mutes, vocals up or down, remixes, etc. (Of the two options, this is the feature that I would be able to use the most.)
 
2) Being able to apply one project's mixer settings to a separate project.
 
Bearing in mind that I know nothing about coding, it seems (2) would be difficult to do unless all projects had the same basic "structure" of channels, processors, etc. Otherwise a project might try to apply parameters to something that doesn't exist. I suppose the copy could just ignore a target destination it doesn't see, but the setups would still have to be quite similar for this option to be of any benefit.
 
The reason mix recalls could transfer from one project to another with hardware is that the the setup was fixed. You always had a certain number of channels, buses, etc. The processors were always in the same place on the channel strip. With a virtual mixer, the setup is anything but fixed.
 
It seems the best workaround for (2) would be to create track templates that you could load into a project. For example, if you have 12 mics set up on a drum kit that doesn't vary, once you get that tweaked up exactly as you wanted you would save it without the data as a template to bring into your next project. If you had to apply those settings after the fact to a project where 12 mics had already been set up and did their recording. then the workaround (although I guess it's not too painful) would be to export the 12 tracks, bring in the track template, then import the 12 tracks. With the "export tracks as individual files" option, that wouldn't be too difficult or time-consuming.

I do like that idea but the problem is mixing in a DAW is done with so much automation and so many different plugins, a new song version just makes sense. It would be pretty much impossible to decide which parts are part of a mix and which are not. Different volumes, sure, but now I need EQ. A different send level for the vocal reverb. A different reverb, which requires different automation. I want to compare a drum mix with vastly different plugin chains. Etc etc.

I understand but again, this really wouldn't work. You can already easily drag audio clips from one project to another, if you want to keep the exact same order of tracks and the exact same mix settings. Just grab the audio from the "unmixed" project and drop it into the "mixed" project later in the time line.

The problem described here I think is not so much having the same mix for multiple songs but having multiple mixes for one song, and I maintain that too much goes into that to expect a simple "A/B" procedure from Sonar. Just save different versions of the song, and have them open side by side if you must.

FWIW, I mostly do per song stuff but I've done a bunch of live band recordings and while you might expect to be able to use just one mix, but really that's just never the case. Inevitably, the drummer will have hit his kick harder near the end of the session, or the mic moved a little, or the guitars and keyboard sounds are completely different, etc etc. I do usually stick with the "single project" layout but am always staggered by the amount of automation and track splitting necessary to get a good sound on every song.

EDIT: actually, you're right, I'm not responding to the OP so much as to where the discussion went after that. For the OP I would say the easiest way is to drag the audio into an existing mixed project.

Anderton

sock monkey
Mr Anderton's idea of deleting song one tracks and dropping in the tracks from song two would be faster, but that sort of scares me for some reason timing wise..

 
If you export tracks individually, they will all start at the same time.
 
Also, you can create broadcast wav files that are time-stamped and know where to go.

This has been part of my work flow for years. I track to an Alesis HD24 XR. At mix time I open a project template and import the files. The files line up fine provided I import them at the same start time. I like the idea of mix scenes. It would come in handy if you track a live show and want to mix each song in a separate project. Lots of good ideas and feature requests in this thread.
 
Rocky

sock monkey
Sonar is a great DAW for songwritting but lacks to many features for full on studio tracking. Like internal wave editing. 

I'm curious what you find you can't do. I do most of my wave editing in Sonar, although to do restoration like crackle fixes I need to use third-party plug-ins. But for gain changes, normalization, editing out clicks by zooming down to single samples, format conversion, etc. Sonar's DSP does the job. 
 
With 8.5 and its customizable menus and such, I did a version of Sonar that was just like Sound Forge - even had the menus in the same places and the same layout. I kind of did it for a lark, but then I just ended up using it 
 

I have used a digital mixer and I know exactly what you mean. While I agree that such a feature would "in theory" be nice, as soon as you start to think about it it becomes practically impossible. How do you decide which features are part of a "mix"? Just the fader settings? How about panning? EQ? Compression? Bus routing? Reverb? Other plugins? Automation?

This only really works if the hardware is fixed. I suppose Sonar could do it by giving you the same material as a digital mixer - like, EQ and basic dynamics on every channel, and a multi effect or two. But my guess is nobody would actually end up mixing that way because everybody wants to use his favorite plug ins and so on.



To me this explains the benefits of having mix scenes. You could have a "save as mix scene" command that brings up a dialog box that lets you choose what to save as part of a scene and what to leave "as is" ( Pro Channel, effects bins, sends, busses, etc. ) Almost like a project template but a more on the fly approach. Project templates could have default scenes that they open with on new projects and then be saved with the project.
You could have several alternative mixes, save them as a scenes and always be able to revert to any previous version with one mouse click without leaving the project.
As it is "save as" is cool and you can keep alternative mixes in the original project folder and share the same audio folder but scenes seem like a cool idea to me. Just some food for thought.
 
Rocky

So this thread has given me an idea...making a normal template that's a complete 48-track digital mixer with dedicated tracks, plug-ins, instruments, meters set up the way I like, everything...but that loads with most of the tracks archived and hidden. When hidden, track numbers that are shown retain their track numbers instead of rearranging themselves, which could be convenient. Tracks load with their colors, too...
 
I dunno, maybe this has possibilities.