I need to do some work across 40 projects where I export an individual audio track as stereo to mono downmix. I then need to normalize the resulting mono track, which will be imported into a different project.
What I’ve found is that the resulting mono file is not normalized when I view it outside the original project, so I’m assuming normalize is non-destructive. In general, that’s pretty cool. In this case, however, it works against me.
Additionally, I’d like to set up a macro that allows me to select a given track and perform these operations on it. Currently, I have to select the source audio file in the export dialog itself, as well as manually naming the resulting mono file. I’m not sure if it’s possible to do an export where the dialog is aware of the currently highlighted track, but if so it would certainly speed things up. All told there’s over 100 tracks across 40 projects, so doing it all manually is going to be pretty labor intensive.
Would be grateful for any suggestions, both in terms of creating a macro for this process as well as whether or not it’s possible to generate a file that is physically normalized rather than virtuallyy within the given project.
If you use the “Freeze Edits” function (I think it’s in the Audio menu), then any edits you make to your audio file, such as Normalising will become permanently written into the original audio file on your hard drive.
I would try to use the channel batch export in this case.
So my workflow would be something like open the project, select all the events, normalize.
Then name the tracks (lanes, mixer channels, whatever the name is for clarity) to what you want in the edit window. You can use tab to go to the next one for quicker work.
Then make a mono output connection, even if it goes nowhere (F4). Open the mixer, do a full reset so all faders and pans are at 0/Unity. Then select the channels, hold shift-alt (or maybe just although or maybe just shift) and set the output to the mono output.
Then set your markers and do audio mixdown and do batch export. Select the tracks and use the naming scheme to get it how you like it. Select mono- downmix and bam…all set.
I find that you have to set a mono bus to make sure they are mono. Now I haven’t tried in 7+ but in 5 this was the case and I just include it in my workflow. I do whole albums this way all the time and it goes pretty fast with a few custom key strokes for mixer reset and bouncing.
In my case it is either for mixing without all the extra editing work or to send off to an external mixer.
Now you have me wondering if there is a command line audio editor that you could script. I am thinking like Audacity or something had such a thing. Well I guess you still would have to get the files out of cubase to start anyway.