Hi all,
 
I'm new to SONAR, but, this question is probably more suited for this forum that for the getting started forum.
 
So, say I'm recording a country-rock album.  Loaded my template (which is setup with drums and pilot piano track and pilot vocal track already going to the cans, so that the drummer can hear and record along.  We do all the drum tracks for all the songs over the next several sessions, awesome.
Bassist comes in, and he wants less pilot vocals, more pilot piano and more bass.  So, I setup the mix to his cans to accommodate this on the first song.  Now I load the second song...WHOOPSY!  I have to RE-SETUP all of that for him - again, and....thirteen more times for the next thirteen songs.
 
But wait...lol...that's not all, now the acoustic guitarist comes to record the fifteen tracks...whoopteedoo...he wants less bass, more vocals, less piano.  Set it up for him - great, he's happy.  Next song (oops...and oops for the next 14 songs...because) I have to setup this for him each time again.
 
Here comes the guitarist - same story, and then the keyboardist, and now the vocalists, of which there are going to be four different individuals.  You get the picture!?!?
 
I've gone through the manual, and asked a buddy who also uses X1 Producer - no joy!  Surely there must be a way to simply "load" a specific mix setup for a series of channels into a current song?  This would obviously make my nightmare a dream :-)  In the previous software that I used (which I turned away from due to the fact that it did not support Re-Wire, was still 32bit - NOT because of functionality issues), I could simply save all channel setups to file (in one go - all of them), then, when I load a new song, I could very easily "mark" the channels for which I wanted to load file-saved-mixes, and say "LOAD".  The software would then load the saved channel mix (eq, all fx units, routing - the works) to the corresponding marked channels.
 
I am aware that one can load one channel at a time, but still, seriously, then I have to (after each artist has "setup" their first song), remember to save each affected channel, and then load each individual affected channel in the next song, which could be anything from two to fourteen, depending on where in the recording we are.
 
I'm convinced that I'm just missing something here, so, please folks...if anyone could advise, please let me know how to achieve this functionality?
 
Thanks all
 
Cheers

rianneloff - you may receive a variety of approaches since Sonar is very flexible.

My suggestion off the top is to mix through sub busses (or stems as some people say). It's convenient to accentuate what you mentioned per participant that way.

The new audio interface introduced in Brandon Ryan's Roland/Sonar live recording webinar would also possibly be a good solution. That video link is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3D6js9Pzqs

For a Sonar only approach I recently posted on how I set up my sub busses and this approach at least for me is working well. That post is here :

http://forum.cakewalk.com...echnique-m2870816.aspx

Yeah, just use submixes.  Basically, what you need to do is create a "custom" mix for whoever is recording at that moment.  Here's how I'd do it (someone correct me if I'm saying it wrong):
 
Let's say you have:  Vocals, guitar, bass, keys, drums
 
Now, let's say the singer is coming in to do the final lead vocal tracks.  To give him or her a "custom" mix (and be able to SAVE it in your template), you'd simply route the audio from each instrument to a bus.... then, route each of THOSE buses to a grouped bus with all the instruments called a "HEADPHONE MIX BUS."  This way, you can control the individual volume of EACH instrument for the person recording and also raise or lower the volume collectively, but not affect the overall mix (i.e., the "real" mix).
 
The ONLY thing that might get tricky is... if you use buses already for effects.  Like, if you have two rhythm guitars going to a single bus because you are using a single instance of reverb or delay or multiple vocal tracks going to a single bus, etc. 
 
Then, the routing would be a little more complicated. 
 
 

Hey folks, thanks for the responses!
 
Now, either I'm just sooooo new to SONAR that I'm missing what you're explaining here, or, I didn't convey my issue correctly.  :-)
 
I get the impression that folk may be thinking I'm asking "HOW" to give the artist a "custom" mix in the headphones.  :-)  Being in the recording industry for about 20 years now, and having worked with software recording for about 15 of those, I am quite comfortable with the principle.  My issue is not so much giving a custom mix to the artist.  My issue is:  when artist two comes along, and they want a different mix, I can do that too - no problem...problem is...I don't want to manually "reset" to artist two's mix MANUALLY on every one of the next 15 songs.  I simply want to load the song, paste artist two's adapted mix OVER the song, and go.
 
When I open song 1, I setup a monitor mix for the acoustic guitarist as example (be it via the busses or be it via simple sends), now, when I go to song two, I want to re-use that exact setup (ie, I want the kick drum to be as loud as it was in the previous song, on my fader, and I want tom 1 panned left as in the previous song, this all for main mix, but I also want the snare to go to the headphones as loud as it did in the previous song, and panned as it was in the previous song.).  How do I simply "load" that previous setup into the new song?
 
I want to avoid having to go to each channel, and set everything up as in the previous song, channel by channel, setting by setting.
 
I'm not sure if I'm making more sense now?

Track templates.  Create and save your custom track templates.
 
In Sonar you can import your track template(s), which will also include busses and routing.  The only shortcoming is, unlike ProTools, where you can import session data and essentially merge your existing tracks into the template, Sonar will import the template, but you have to manually move each clip to the appropriate track within the template.
 
I hope that made sense
 

Hi Mike, 
Yes, thanks, I hear what you're saying.  Could one import a group of track templates, or does it need to be one at a time?
 
The copying of the clips is obviously a frustration, but, my thought is:  it's a single "select" and then drag-drop all once, so it's not too hectic.  My bigger frustration would be having to import every track template individually :-)

Project template for each type of mix?

Bibs

So, I would use my interface for this. I would send every track to the interface and make the discardable mix in the interface.

In each project send all the tracks to unique outputs. Mix in the interface for the temporary purpose.

I would also group the enable buttons for all those sends so that I could flip them off easily.

riaaneloff
Hi Mike, 
Yes, thanks, I hear what you're saying.  Could one import a group of track templates, or does it need to be one at a time?
 
The copying of the clips is obviously a frustration, but, my thought is:  it's a single "select" and then drag-drop all once, so it's not too hectic.  My bigger frustration would be having to import every track template individually :-)

You can make a track template to include as many, or as little tracks/send/effects as you want. 

What you want is something X2 can't do. Hopefully future "mix scenes" will be a part of the program.
 
The workarounds here are good ones. And... since they all include some type of copying or importing of tracks if you don't use stems, there is also the old "project save-as" for each category and then when you're done recording the particular artist's track(s), import those tracks into you main session project.