Handling of recorded D.I. guitar track together with amp signal

Cubase
1

Hi there,
I am just wondering if someone has a “best practice” or any idea for my scenario:

I like recording my direct out signal of my electric guitars together with the stereo amp signal for reamping purposes just in case I would need to. That results in 1 mono and 1 stereo track for each guitar. If you scale up bigger projects, that can be a bit troublesome and is at least additional work to handle both tracks for each guitar at the same time in the arranger and making sure everything is kept in sync and where it is supposed to be on the timeline.

Is there any possibility to link two audio tracks together to use them as if they were one? I was testing recording a LRC channel with the direct signal on the C part, but then handling the output with the surround panner is less then ideal…

Maybe someone has an idea that helps me out, otherwise I will manage my duplicate channels somehow… :sweat_smile:

Thanks,
Patrick

2

The problem is : do you need both sources in a given project ? If not, and in a rudimentary way of seeing things, I would disable and hide the unwanted tracks involved, with the Visibility panel of the track inspector, this, to keep the “not yet used” source(s) at disposal if there is a further need. After this… :neutral_face:

EDIT - Maybe another way of managing this could be to do a partial File > Export > Audio Mixdown on the involved two tracks, and reimport the result in the project. But I’m doubtful about, indeed, the sync issue and the quality of the hearable result, once the process done…

3

Well, I’d say this is what groups are for, at least for mixing. For editing, you can create a folder track and put both tracks in it.

1 Like
4

And makes it really easy to bring in parts of the other track and/or apply wee DOP segments for sonic variations/effects. I don’t do that all the time, but when I do, I keep the tracks together in a group so that the creative process doesn’t suffer when you have to stop and track stuff down.

5

Some time ago, I wrote up how I did it in some detail:

6

Take a look at the Edit>Group Command.

For what it’s worth I tend to record the DI as Mono content on a Stereo Track. Then you can process it in Stereo right on the Track.

7

Thanks für that obvious solution I did not see. I think that will help me a lot with handling the tracks together as a unit as far as I can judge right now. :+1:

8

Thanks for that input, thats close to what I tried. But as far as I can see, there is no way to use a normal stereo panner on sends / Cue sends and the main bus even after using the 6to2 mixdown right? That seems like too big of a downside for me… or is there a way to do that?

9

It’s been a while since I used this technique regularly, since I’ve gone pretty much with virtual amplification over the last year or so.

So I don’t remember, if there were limitations to what you could do with the signal after the 6to2 plugin.

I the worst case, routing that signal to a group (stereo) channel should make further routing rather normal.

However, as I mentioned in the beginning of my post, and as @raino mentioned in this thread, more recent versions of Cubase have opened other possibilities for exactly this kind of use case, which may make my old method obsolete. But I’ve never gotten into that, since working with amp simulation and modelling plugins has become sonically “good enough” for my ears and the workflow is obviously so much easier.

10

One may even go as far as to say they are not only “good enough,” but “potentially indistinguishable” from mic’d amps all other things being equal.

11

I’ve done this a lot in the past but these days I just go with the flow. I realise out of all the DI I’ve recorded I’ve never reamped a thing. If I go back to it I normally want to change the sound/tone but also change the performance so I just re-record