The user manual states that Snapshots are useful if you want to compare different versions of a mix. Sounds great.
I was getting excited about using this feature until I read that ‘Automation data is not saved in MixConsole snapshots’. This makes the feature pretty useless for me. Any alternative mix is probably going to involve different automation data.
In my case, it is inconceivable that an alternative mix would not contain some automation changes.
I don’t usually create more than a single mix for a project, but now that the idea has been suggested to me by the Snapshot documentation, it would be great to have a complete and easy facility to accomplish this.
Unless I’m missing something here (always possible) it seems that the only way to create and save different mixes of the same project is to save a different version of a project for each different mix. This could become unwieldy and dangerous.
Is there actually a way to save different mixes within a single project?
Do you mean copy everything further down the line?
That could work. I’ll try it. Although that too might become a tad unwieldy with several alternative mixes involved. If only Snapshots could do the who!e thing.
I would imagine that it wouldn’t be a big deal because it’s the same content on the same tracks, just later. Outside of dealing with embedded timecode in recorded files I don’t really see much of a problem. If it were me I’d prefer that over separate projects I think. I suppose it depends.
I’m beginning to think that separate projects (saving a project with different names (xyz mix1, xyz mix 2 etc.) is the way to go for me.
The Snapshots feature seems to be designed to simply save a group of settings at a given moment in time rather than an entire mix with all its minute changes. The documentation is a little misleading in this area.
While it would be nice to be able save multiple entire mixes within a single project, I think that the only simple, practical and absolute way to store more than one mix for a given project is to save each one as a separate project.
I think there might be an issue with pasting everything further down the timeline. If any changes are made to inserts or sends for the second mix, this would have an impact on the first mix, unless all parameters in all plugins are automated, which I think is unlikely to be the case in most situations.
At least with each mix being in a separate project one can not affect the other.
Allow me to comment.
In my opinion having everything automated is absolutely essential.
-Touching a fader or any other parameter/knob/whatever by accident.
-Reopening a project days/months/years later after you have updated a plugin or changed whatever in your setup.
The only guarantee you have that your project always plays back correctly, is when all parameters are automated.
Without these, you can never be sure that everything in your project “snaps back” to the parameters you have initially set.
I’ve never done that. Some tracks get volume automation and other don’t require it as they never move. I would be very worried if Nuendo was unable to reliably recall the levels after a save. Likewise for plugin settings. In my experience it works as expected without having to automate every control on every plugin - life’s too short for that.
You might be right though, although I’ve never come across a problem.
It’s not just about trusting Nuendo, which I do, it’s about distrusting people - myself included. By automating it all it all plays back the way it’s supposed to. For me that includes sends and plugins.
Back to different projects versus same timeline; if you need to copy / paste then it’s going to be faster doing it within the same project since you can immediately verify that you get the result you’re after since you don’t have to make the respective projects active to audition. In addition to that I prefer being able to set up cycle markers for the various versions and simply export them all in one go while labeling accordingly. Again no need to close/open for each version.
Fredo, Mattias: I’m not going argue with, or dispute, your obvious expertise, but so far I’ve not experienced any issues with not automating everything.
Today, for the first time, I tried doing an alternative, second mix and saved it as a separate project. It worked really well and I like the fact that both mixes are comp!etely separate from each other. Works great for me. Thanks for your input.
The two most common causes of a mix not recalling properly are:
-Accidentally moving a fader on your hardware of with the mouse. (for example a pen or sheet of paper on the mixing board)
-Loading a project after an updated plugin caused a reset of the plugins’ parameters.
Good that it works for you. It’s actually one thing that Nuendo has over Pro Tools - the ability to have two projects loaded simultaneously (though only one is active of course) so you can reference copy-paste across the two. Like I said, I typically string music mixes out on the timeline and prefer to automate everything, but to each his own and I’m glad you found something that works for you.