Jeff Evans


Hi Johnny. The command Process>Apply Effect>Gain is destructive. ie It is like Audio Suite in Pro Tools. Any changes here are permanent. You only have one level of undo and that is immediately afterwards. Once you save the session I don't think you can go back in Sonar and undo these commands.
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Hi Jeff, yup if I go overboard with it I undo before anything else. This works really good but, like you said, it's destructive. I watch all these videos where these guys are using clip gain (Most of them useing PT) and look forward to a time us Sonar users will be able to also. It's no deal breaker for me at all and I can get around it by using the Process>Apply Effect>Gain or splitting the clips, putting them on seperate tracks and rising or lowering the clip gain.
Thanks for replying

watch all these videos where these guys are using clip gain (Most of them useing PT) and look forward to a time us Sonar users will be able to also. It's no deal breaker for me at all and I can get around it by using the Process>Apply Effect>Gain or splitting the clips, putting them on seperate tracks and rising or lowering the clip gain.

 
Clip gain *is* available in SONAR.  Just Ctrl+Drag in the upper portion of a clip, or change the track's Edit Filter to Clip Gain - that red envelope is for clip gain.   What we don't have (yet) is a visual representation of that clip gain's net effect.
 

Jeff Evans


I am not talking about fade in or fade out waveforms here but back to clip gain. While the waveform drawing is not ultra accurate it is certainly good enough if you are lucky enough to have a DAW that displays changes in clip gain.

After doing a vocal or solo comp etc you enlarge the track height so it is quite visible and is reasonably large. Any inaccuracies due to waveform drawing are not an issue now.

The trick is to not get too concerned about the height of the transient at the start of a waveform but rather the average height of the body of the waveform. Once you get these to a similar height by eye, as I said in an earlier post the VU meters perfectly over these changes and the volume is nice and even according to the ears too. Sometimes when you match the body of the waveform the change in clip gain can sound unnatural. Your ears will tell you pretty fast if that is the case. It is easy to reset it back to 0dB as well in Studio One. A one click operation.

Yes it works and it is a great feature. Once you have it you will wonder how you ever did without it. It is fast and very effective. You can come up with all the reasons as to why you don't need it or why it may not work but the truth is it does work well, it's fast  and it is a great feature. Most DAW's do it so it can't be bad.

The weird thing is that if Cakewalk implements this in a future version of Sonar the sceptics here will all be singing its praises. 

It can certainly give your compressors a lot less work to do, which in itself is a bonus

stickman393

MarioD

californiamusic


Hmm I have "Display Clip Fade Attenuation" selected and my wave does not respond visually when drawing a volume envelope.  What am I missing here??!  ; )

Same here.  Stickman393 would you please enlighten us?

It only works for when you grab an end of the clip and apply a fade in or fade out to the clip - normal envelope automation isn't respected. 
I apologize if I mislead anyone on this.

Thanx for the explanation. It is much appreciated.

I do a step even before any clip gain changes. And that is to clone the track and bring it into Adobe Audition and even up things by eye there too and check metering over certain areas. For a vocal track I often aim for nice even VU response where all the vocal phrases just peak up to 0dB VU. You can do all this without tampering with the vocal dynamics as well.

Then after that I get it into the arrangement and it is usually very close there. But some minor cuts and clip gain changes can be just the ticket for fixing up a few areas here and there. By eye as well. Now you have got a nice even vocal track without any compressors running over them. 

I often place a limiter first just catching very high out of context peaks and taming them back a little. I send this now to the vocal buss and put its compression on there. Now that compressor can be a much lower ratio and it is working nice and evenly all the time with little actual gain reduction. This compressor just tightens and evens things out a little more. The low ratio ensures a big sound. It has a relaxed job now and sounds better for it too. And it does not have to dive on loud bits here and there either.

You now have a fantastic vocal sound, even, loud and powerful. You can afford to turn it down now. Minimum voltage max illusion that sort of thing.

Extra Tip: Reason why it is good to put your main vocal compressor on the vocal buss rather than the vocal track. You can manually ride vocals on mixdown at track level. Sometimes there is no better sound than this. It requires you to learn the song vocally. You are then pushing into the vocal compressor because it is later in the chain ie after the fader. It will be getting a more even signal if you manually ride it.

Also you can send the vocal reverb from the track which is before the main vocal compressor. This sends a more dynamic vocal signal to the VOX reverb. The VOX reverb gets louder on the louder parts of the vocal line will quieten down on the softer bits. This sounds very nice and cool in certain situations. The vocal reverb ends up with its own life and dynamic. All automatically and this saves you doing it later with automation. It sounds more natural too. You are hearing natural reverb decays rather than your automation false decays.

"MusicRoom".. those technics are for moving the volume envelope.  What I am talking about here (If you check out the video I linked in the original post) is the actual waveform changing in realtime.  We do not have the ability to do that
Im sure they will add it to a future update (Right??!)  ; )

when Sonar does implement the (clip gain)feature the user base is going to wonder "where has this feature been my whole DAW life" it is crazy useful. and i think Jeff had tried to explain how you just duplicate a track, and just edit the duplicate, where it is totally non-destructive. clip gain allows alot of dynamic control without compression, tedious mouse node and automation writes. which is a super time saver and workflow plus. the just click and drag and visual aspects in real time is pretty accurate, you can even things out fast. it gives a db numeric value during the edit. com'on man total dynamic control that you can see and hear, and you can correct on 1 or 2 playbacks is simple in concept to a pro, but a revolution to a fanboy home user like me.. Mix as you go lives!!

the user base has spoken.. Sonar needs visual Clip Gain.

aleef


when Sonar does implement the (clip gain)feature the user base is going to wonder "where has this feature been my whole DAW life" it is crazy useful. and i think Jeff had tried to explain how you just duplicate a track, and just edit the duplicate, where it is totally non-destructive. clip gain allows alot of dynamic control without compression, tedious mouse node and automation writes. which is a super time saver and workflow plus. the just click and drag and visual aspects in real time is pretty accurate, you can even things out fast. it gives a db numeric value during the edit. com'on man total dynamic control that you can see and hear, and you can correct on 1 or 2 playbacks is simple in concept to a pro, but a revolution to a fanboy home user like me.. Mix as you go lives!!

the user base has spoken.. Sonar needs visual Clip Gain.

I'm not understanding this. How are you controlling dynamics using clip gain? 

Those sound like cool methods. I'll have to give these a try. Thanks Jeff!

I'm not understanding this. How are you controlling dynamics using clip gain? 

please !! Sir!! anytime you have a feature that can increase or decrease loud and soft passages  or what have you!! is a certain DYNAMIC CONTROL..


and John I"m not going to get into it with you today man...you know deep down you want that feature man...