using Superior Drummer

bats, I'm just curious why you feel the need to export the audio like that? Did you know you could route Superior right into Sonar's tracks (without physical audio, yet it would show up like audio was there and you could engage waveform preview and see waves) and treat it exactly the way you are with the wave files?
 
If by chance you'd like me to explain it in depth with pics or a quick vid, I have no problem putting it together for you as it would take me like 5 minutes. If I'm reading you correctly, you're basically setting up your kit, then exporting each piece and then importing the wave files back in to where it looks like you recorded each track, correct?
 
If I'm right, the only reason you'd do that would be if your pc is super slow. You can do all of that in real time in Sonar's mixer. You don't have to use Superior's mixer or their effects if you don't want to. We can virtually hook up each kit piece to a track in Sonar in real time and you could process it any way you like. The only thing that would be missing would be the wave file data...as it wouldn't be needed unless you have a specific need for that.
 
When running Superior "virtually" it is the exact same thing you're doing minus wave files. So we'd take the mixer outs of each drum in the Superior mixer (This is the only time you will have to mess with the Superior little mixer.) and set them for an individual out. You know how they all come in at like channel 1 in the Superior mixer? We'd bring Superior in using synth rack and then change the mixer outs in Superior to read a different channel other than all reading "channel 1". So for example....
 
kick on 1
snare top on 2
snare bottom on 2 (or 3 if you want)
hats on 4 etc...
 
Once you're all done, when Sonar brought Superior in through synth rack, it also created virtual tracks all down the side. So you have all these blank tracks that were created. You'd take the inputs of those tracks and point them to the correct Superior outs you created in the Superior mixing board. For example...
 
We did kick on one. So you'd go to the blank kick drum track that was created and set the input for 1. When you press the kick drum in Superior, you'll see signal coming out of the virtual track that Sonar created. When you get done setting up all the rest of the in's, when your midi plays into Superior, all the drum sounds will come out of each Sonar track that was created just like what you're doing with all those wave files only no wave files will be present because you don't really need them, understand?
 
We can do everything you've done in seconds instead of exporting and importing like you're doing now. The only drawback to what I'm talking about would be if you had a slow cpu. I run all my drum modules the way I told you above. The thing that sucks is setting up the ins and outs for the first time. But all you have to do is do that once and save it as a template and you will never have to do it again. So the first time you do it (if I do a vid for it and show you, you'll get it in seconds) it may take 20 minutes. Once you do it and save it, you're looking at the time it takes to load what you saved and you're good to go.
 
Let me know if you're interested and I'll make something for you. Honest when I tell ya man, if I'm understanding you correctly, we can do everything you're doing in real time without exporting your current kit and then importing your wave files. You can process in the Sonar tracks just like you recorded the drums....just the wave files will not be there because they are not needed. Let me know, ok?
 
If I've totally misunderstood you, please disregard this and forgive me.
 
-Danny

danny-
 
some more reply:
 
if i update my machine, i'll move back to doing it exactly as you suggest.
 
but i do believe, that the 24 bit samples, sound better as wav files, than running thru the SD's mixer.
 
and routing them (the individual drum tracks) to their individual channels, and routing them inside sonar's layout instead of the SD's mixer, is much more intuitive to me anyway.
 
 
 

what I hear... between 16 bit and 24 bit...
 
it's hard to describe....
 
but it's more "3-D"
 
i hear more......depth.
 
maybe it doesn't translate to everybody.
and lord knows, my ears are partially shot, and i have tinitus pretty bad...
 
but i still can hear an obvious difference in the quality of the sound.
 
it's almost like i can hear the  room dimensions in the 24 bit files, and lose some of that depth going to 16 bit.
 
 
or i'm nuts.

3-D does make sense actually. I'm going to try and listen for that now that you told me what to listen for. Maybe that's where I was missing the boat. I definitely don't think you're nuts. There has to be a reason the drum program manufacturers gave us 16 and 24 bit samples and they must make some sort of difference in sound.
 
I guess I was thinking I'd hear the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit like I do when I record at those bit rates. I notice that 24 bit is a bit bigger in sound size to my ears and of course is a bit clearer. Like if you were to record a mono guitar at 16/44 and pan the guitar all the way to the left and listen to it, then do the same thing at 24/48....the 24/48 seems to have more sound size to me on my stuff...if that makes any sense? I don't know if that's due to 24 bit or 48k sample rate to be honest....but something literally makes the size of the sound a little bigger. I guess I was hoping to hear that kind of difference in the drum modules, but they sound the same to me at 16 as they do 24.
 
I'm starting to wonder if all of it isn't hype anymore, bats. LOL! If we got decent ears, decent gear and get good sounds and deliver good material, nothing else matters really. I remember talking to a guy (I think it was bitflipper) years ago about dithering and he told me that he doesn't worry about it and doesn't notice a difference. He would even down sample without using any dither.
 
I happened to try it in a Sonar project that was recorded at 24/48. I set the export options to 16/44 without using dither...and honest, I couldn't hear anything that sounded wrong to me. When people ask me why I dither, I try to be honest and say "I do it because I've been taught to." When I am BRUTALLY honest with them and get asked that question, I simply say "I really don't know and hear no audible difference in spite of what the math may tell me." I'm not ashamed of being clueless or not being able to hear math. :)
 
-Danny

danny
yea, dither is another mind tweak.
LOL
 
 
markno999
yep, i saw that vid very early on, and didn't pay enough attention to it!
LOL
 
i've got two projects i'm experimenting on now...
the TABRIZ song (in song forum) and another, similar setup...
so, i'm doing the bounce with bleed on on one of them, and the bleed off on the other..
i'll play with both mixes, and eventually decide which one makes more sense for me, and use that as my template for future projects.
 
 
this is the vid i watched to learn how to do it most recently...
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWTsHB7RaZk

I meant to mention before bats....ARC is pretty killer isn't it? I know we have to be careful talking about it as people seem to want to fight all the time. LOL! I'm just glad you picked it up and it's working for you. Though it's not the be all end all solutions...man it sure does help immensely on my end and makes things that took days/weeks a few hours now with no second guessing or throwing CDR's out the window. LOL! You did great stuff without it...but if it allows you to do more at a faster pace, that means more music for you to share with us more often....so I say it's a win/win! Hahaha! :)
 
-Danny

follow-up
 
new mix
 
Road to Tabriz- New Mix_1-30-14
https://soundcloud.com/bats-brew/road-to-tabriz-new-mix_1-30-14
 
you can download the full bandwidth wav file if you want.
the wav file sounds so much better than the streaming..........

another approach, using a new drum kit, really mostly aesthetic changes,
but if anyone wants to compare to the original, here's the link:
https://soundcloud.com/ba.-brew/the-road-to-tabriz

MakeShift
My biggest issue in using the method that you are doing here by importing the separate wav.'s; would be that I am constantly changing up the fills and patterns until the end.  

 
yes, i wouldn't do the 'bounce' to separate audio until i am ready to mix.
 
and
 
i do not mix, until i am thru tracking, and thru with arrangment changes, and writing the drum parts.
 
 
but at that point, my issue is currently ram, and i don't have all my plugins working and all the stuff that really taxes the program....
 
so i'm cool routing to individual tracks still at that point...
 
but having the SD mixer do all the work early on, still seems less taxing on my system, than routing the tracks to their individual channels and relying on the midi to keep up.
 
it is cleaner to commit the audio tracks and mix off those, IMO

well, these are not soft synths.
but i understand what you mean...
i do use those as well, just not very often

Hey Bat, 
 
I am remixing a blues song of mine and I bounced all the SD2 tracks and did not use "thru the mixer" and I turned all bleed off just for fun.  I brought it all back in and hardly had to do anything but add some highs to the top snare mic, rolloff some 120hz on the toms and cleanup the hihat a taste.  I sent them to a buss and compressed the bus.  It worked great and the kit now sounds more real and live than it being played through midi notes though SD2's mixer.  
Fun stuff.
 
Jimmy
 

EZ Drummer does not have the bounce function.

Hey Starise, 
After following Bat's example, I do hear a difference between what comes out of the drum mixer and the wave files created after bounce.  I think that is what Bat is saying.  There seems to be much more of a direct sound to them and all mics can be separated on different tracks.  This then makes your mixer look like the channel setup used when they recorded the original kit.
 
I never thought there would be a difference but know that I can hear it first hand, I believe going through drum VST mixers may dilute the sound in some way.  It actually makes sense since a new layer in the path is added.
 
Rimshot
 

I am now curious as to if this is only a thing that happens with Superior Drummer. When I take the dry drums from my drum mixer I get good clean tight drums. 
 
What I hear you saying Bat is that  it was necessary to take some other measures because of limitations on your machine and that this resulted in you finding an even better solution. The drums do sound good! 
 
I think these internal drum mixers are all a little different...obviously, but I didn't think they were that different sound wise. FWIW I can route each of my mic channels from my BFD mixer into Sonar X3, so I can go dry or mix the mics in. I could  use a stereo channel for the mics but I usually feed it in mono. Tails can be controlled if that is wanted. Snare in, snare out, Kick inside,kick outside,Toms, rides,cymbals,percussion and then my three mic channels.My main is eliminated in the drum mixer as all channels are sent out and routed through the Main in Sonar.
 
The way I see these drum mixers is that for someone just starting out or someone who needs an uncomplicated mix it is possible to simply build an entire drum track from only the drum mixer and send it to a stereo channel in your DAW. Really a pretty ingenious approach to drum mixing and for someone who is trying to save cpu it can be a lifesaver. I notice a very small amount of noise on some inert plug-ins. I can almost swear that I hear a little something when I turn on the eq in pro channel with no adjustments to eq. I think it all adds a very small amount of something to the signal but it seems so small I can't really notice it in any big way.
 
I'm thinking that adding any kind of gain stage might add a little something I usually don't notice unless I specifically listen for it.
 

those bits DO matter!