Hi, guys. Happy Monday.

So here's the situation. I live in an entirely different city than my band and I want to put an album together. I own the Production Suite and am already starting to lay down bed tracks. I want to send the band bundled project files so they can track their parts and send them back to me for mixing. I know they're probably not gonna want to spend a ton of money so I'm trying to get them to buy one of the lesser packages like Essentials or Studio but I'm not sure what is going to be necessary. Here is some more info:

I would be doing drum bed tracks with Session Drummer or BFD Eco to show the drummer how everything is supposed to be played so then he can do his magic based on that. However I see Essentials doesn't include SD3. I'm guessing I could just bounce to audio to solve those issues. Correct? The drums will likely be fully mic'd so I'd be looking at 6-8 tracks there.

There will be about 3-5 other tracks that may have multiple takes of each so I can pick out the best stuff and use it on the final track. So I'm guessing with the drums I'd be looking at about 16 tracks plus whatever I have sent them (probably about 4-5). I doubt any track count limitations will effect this but I just want to know if they may run into problems with this amount of tracks.

I want to keep the projects in 24 Bit 96k right up until the final mixdown. Are there any limitations in the lesser versions in this regard?


And that's basically it as far as the actual tracking. So what would be the most appropriate and cost effective option here? Also I was just looking around the Cake store to give them an idea of price but I can't seem to find any FULL versions for download. Just upgrades. Am I missing something here? I bought my version in the box from a retailer so I didn't deal with that myself. Seems a little odd to me.

Anyway, that's all I can think of at the moment but if anyone can shed a little light on this or give me a heads up on stuff I should be careful of it would very much be appreciated. I will update this if I think of anything else. Thanks guys and have a great day.

Oh yeah... I forgot to ask if the demo might work for this stuff. I'd really rather not do it that way but it might be a work around until they or I have the cash to buy a full version. Cheers.

Essentials should be fine for everyone doing a single track at a time. You can send CWB, pass them around with no problems. Save as CWB with a different name than the one you are working with. Freeze your vst tracks like dimension or SD3 and move them to "audio" tracks. Delete the VST's and save again. Pass them around. Let each member add their tracks. Bring their tracks into you parent project and edit to your heart's content. http://www.cakewalk.com/P...R-X1-Comparison-Chart-

Thanks, Travis. But you don't mean literally one track at a time, right? Because the drums will certainly be more than one track as will a couple other part (acoustic instruments). Actually I just realized something. I'm gonna have to ask them if they have an interface with enough inputs to capture the drums. Hmmm... I hope I don't have to send the drummer to a studio.

Bundle files are huge and somewhat unreliable. You would have to burn them to a DVD and mail them on DVDs because most internet services don't allow you to send files over 1 GB. 

Also, if everyone doesn't have the same exact plug-ins as you, they may have problems opening the bundle files. I would suggest that you send them a WAV or MP3 of your drum track or a click track and have them record and send you separate WAV files of their parts. You would then import them into the master project in Sonar and mix them into the final product. 

By the way 24/96 is way overkill unless you're recording an orchestra. Just go with 24/44.1K. The files will be much smaller and you won't be wasting a lot of resources for little or no noticeable gain. 

I want to keep the projects in 24 Bit 96k right up until the final mixdown. Are there any limitations in the lesser versions in this regard? 

The major limiting factor here is going to be your interface, not Sonar. 
Essential only gives you 64 audio tracks, which might or might not be enough.
Essential also only gives you the 32 bit engine, not the 64 bit one.






Why 96k? 

@daveny... Hi there. Hope you've been well. I'm going for 96 because it's all acoustic instruments and this is going to be a full production for release. I'll probably even be sending it to a mastering house when it's all done. I figure I'd keep the quality as high as possible because of this. As far as sending the files back and forth I may try out the paid version of dropbox but I think even the free version allows 2.5 GB. However you are right in the sense it may not be trustworthy. I was also considering getting a couple of those crazy tough steel Corsair 32 GB flash drives or as you said using DVDs. Cheers.

Hi, Jonesey. I'm using 64 bit but I think I was told to only use the 64 bit for dithering in the final mixdown. I still have much to learn about that but do you think this will cause a problem bouncing back and forth between 64 and 32 bit versions? Thanks. Hope you've been well.

You could have everyone use Essentials, and you could make the starting point, EXPORT it to a single track...compress it to MP3... send it to your band mates. They can import that track into a project and let them record as desired. Then they can EXPORT the tracks they create as individual tracks and send it to you for you to put together.

Your file transfer method and file size will be your biggest hindrance.