Hi...had a bit of a search but couldn't find what I was looking for...
 
Can anyone help me with a few suggestions about setting up a headphone mix in Sonar 8?
 
Usually I don't do any headphone mix...just play or sing with headphones off my ear a bit...but lately I have heard about setting up a bus called headphone mix so that you can send whatever levels required...say you want the drums lower or whatever.
 
So...does anyone have any suggestions?
 
Also...on another note...does anyone know how I can loop record and hear the previous takes I recorded while I continue to loop record? I have 'sound on sound' selected in  the Transport menu.
 
Anyway...the headphone mix...how do you do it?
 
thanks a lot

Well pretty straight forward really. Create a new buss and call it Headphones. The main concern is routing the outputs of that new buss to perhaps a spare set of analog outs so you can and then you can patch those into some sort of headphone amp. Or another option is to route the new buss to your main outs and stop everything else from going to your main outs. (during tracking only of course)

Now you can create sends on all of your tracks (at once too) and send them to your new buss. Don't forget any busses you may have set up eg drum buss or guitar buss etc can also send to your new buss. And even your main masterbuss can go there too if you want.

A few tips:

Spend time getting a nice headphone mix. Musicians will love you for it (or you) and it just makes everyone (or you) play better, period. This is often rushed during a session. Slow down and get it right.

Don't be afraid to use the panning in your headphone buss. If you have got two guitars say pan them a bit to the left and right. It helps to distinguish them easier.

When tracking vocals dont let the bass get lost, keep it well up. It helps vocalists to pitch better.

Avoid heaps of reverb. It hides things and makes singers sound better than they are. You are better off keeping it a bit dry. It is hard but they will pitch a bit better as a result.

Don't have too much stuff happening in the phones when tracking. Keep it minimal. It helps you hear what you are tracking at the time better.

Often the drum overheads are enough to keep them in time maybe with a little kick and snare. Don't waste time trying to get all the toms in there as well. Not necessary.

You can create more than one headphone buss and create different mixes for people. But then you will need multiple analog outs in order to feed the diffeent headphone amp inputs etc..I have often found that one decent mix can do it most of the time!

Use decent headphones if you can and if you are listening in as well make sure you have got the same headphones that everybody else has. That way you are hearing exactly what they are hearing.

Hope that helps.

Where are you in Australia?

Thanks a lot for those great tips. I think what I should do is route the headphone bus to outputs 3/4. That way I can mute the monitors when recording. Oh...I'm in Brisbane by the way. I'm back in Oz for a year before going back to HK.

Another thing I do when routing monitoring through SONAR is that I send my main mix to the Master and then the Master to a headphone bus... and the headphone bus is my temporary "master"

That way I can split an overdub track directly to the headphones and make it loud and I can have The Master as a  bus on the mix so I can turn down the whole mix to easily reveal the track of who ever is doing overdubs without messing up the mix.

After the overdubs I can quickly fold the new tracks into the mix by making my Master the actual Master again.

It sounds wordy but it is simple... and helpful (at least to me). :-)



best regards,
mike

Thanks Mike This is an excellent tip. I was going to say something in my post with the headphone tips about the Masterbuss and how once you set up a mix on that it is a good buss to send to the headphone buss as well. But this is a fantastic way to keep the mix intact but just lower it and send some of the overdub track to the headphones as well making it louder.

This all depends on low latency monitoring being achieved through your DAW of course. In my case I use a digital mixer and create the headphone mix from there. I do something similar. I send the ouput from my main DAW back to the digital mixer and then that can be sent to the phones. What I am usually overdubbing is also connecetd to that same digital mixer (and sent to the DAW) and can also be sent to the phones as well and I can turn it up there and the mix down a little. This all happens with zero latency of course. And you have to not monitor the overdub track through the DAW as well naturally otherwise you might hear that twice. (delayed)

But Mike's approach is doing it all elegantly through the DAW instead.

Good explanation, Jeff. And neat trick, Mike, keeping true to the KISS principle.

to the OP - some interfaces will let you do a mix within hardware, too.  Zero latency mixing.  That way you skip having to go through SONAR and any inherent delay.  Depending upon your interface and its mixer, you do enough there sometimes.

@

Thanks for the good advice everyone...I'll be trying everything out in time.

Hi guys, I have a Berhinger 1204USB mixing desk and would like to route a headphone mix from the alt 3/4 outputs into my headphone amp, I've been playing around with buses in MC6 and have no idea what to do
 
Thanks

You'll have to set up an aux bus and route all the tracks you want to monitor into it. Send the output of that bus to two inputs on the mixer, then route those two channels (using the mixer's controls) to the 3/4 outs. Use the mixer's faders to adjust the overall volume of the headphone mix, and use the individual tracks' aux sends to balance the headphone mix.

mike_mccue
Another thing I do when routing monitoring through SONAR is that I send my main mix to the Master and then the Master to a headphone bus... and the headphone bus is my temporary "master"

That way I can split an overdub track directly to the headphones and make it loud and I can have The Master as a  bus on the mix so I can turn down the whole mix to easily reveal the track of who ever is doing overdubs without messing up the mix.

After the overdubs I can quickly fold the new tracks into the mix by making my Master the actual Master again.

Mike, that's brilliant. I am going to steal this trick. Thanks.