Hi, From a Gig we have 16 tracks containing 2 hours of recording. My question is how to work with this. Here are my thoughts:
I need to be able to mixdown each song, to make it sound optimal
I would like to have the main sound (so all settings, inclusding eq, reverb etc) for all the songs the same.
What is the best way to go? I could cut the songs out of the tracks and create a project for each song. In this case I have full mixdown possibilities but not a “main sound”. I could make 1 project (=1 sound), but this makes the mixdown for each song difficult.
Disclaimer : I don’t have any experience with such as long recording stuff, but, just a ‘what I would do’ suggestion…
As these are, I guess, only audio files (which, theoritically, don’t use much ASIO resources), I would go for just one project (after having carefully made backups, of course). You’ll always have the ability to, either split tracks when needed, or create regions, afterwards and if necessary, for specific treatments on a song or another…
I would also leave all songs in the same project.
Use Cycle Markers to mark the individual songs (and later also for audio export).
Make a new set of 16 tracks for each song (possibly best with folder tracks). Have each song in their own set of 16 tracks.
For each song make a Group Channel that acts as its Master Out. Don’t use the Stereo Out for anything but final level and dithering.
You can name Effect Tracks that should be used by all songs something “ALL FX - …”,
use the copy functionality to copy EQs or other inserts to use them on all tracks.
I’d also go with a single Project. As an alternative to making duplicates of the Tracks you could use Track Versions. If you set the Version IDs so they are coordinated with each other you could easily flip between songs. An advantage of using Track Versions over duplicated Tracks is that any settings you want to be the same for all the songs, like maybe EQ on the bass, you only have to dial in on a single Track. With duplicated Tracks you’d need to copy & paste the EQ Settings onto the other bass Tracks. But the flip side is if you want to vary something between songs, for example a compressor’s settings because the vocalist moved around the mic too much, then a duplicated Track would be easier.
The problem with the track version approach might be that if your halfway in and realize that you need very different processing for different tracks, how easy is it to create different tracks from versions? I know that you can convert versions to lanes, but I am not aware of a command that converts track versions to dedicated tracks (maybe PLE?).
One approach to mitigate the “copy plugin settings” problem with duplicated tracks could be to start the mix first to get it roughly right for all songs, then make a duplicate set for each song and make the fine tuning afterwards. And even if you the realize that you want to make the same change to say all bass tracks, you could select them all and use QuickLink to apply the same EQ move or whatever to each song.
You don’t need to convert anything. When that happens just duplicate that Track, versions and all. Do the unique processing on this copy & Mute the original. For the other songs Mute the copied Track (or delete the Audio on them),
(Is there an emoji for “brainfart….?)