What would you do in this situation?
A band is coming in to record 6 songs.
EACH of the 6 songs uses a backing track and has a specific different BPM tempo.
You want to have ALL 6 cubase projects ready to go when the band arrives, so you want to have the backing tracks all imported as well as have the BPM determined AND all lined up to the grid for easy editing.
NOW, when the band arrives and does a soundcheck, you get all recording levels set and all the appropriate inputs determined in the FIRST song created.
The band does great AND finishes the first song and wants to move on to the 2nd song to record.
You open the 2nd project with its backing track and specific BMP, BUT!…. it has NONE of the headphone cues, recording levels or inputs SET as in the FIRST song! NONE.
But you had to create all the songs ahead of time so the band could go from one song to the next.
The question is….WHAT WOULD YOU DO in this situation?
How can you APPLY all the additions made to the first song, to the 2nd, and the 3rd and so on….?
This is where my idea would be for a Cubase command that “Updates existing template” to a song that has already been made by the template.
I know an option would be to make the band wait how ever long for you to create the next song, import the backing track, find its BPM… which could take up to 15 mins depending on circumstances. But the band wants to keep going without loosing momentum.
wouldn’t it be possible for you to save selected channels in your mix console in your 1st project (select the channels you want), then load selected channels in the new project to get back the setup of your recording channels (this should save inserts and every setting)?
That sounds like a really efficient way to do what I am looking for! As long as I didn’t change the amount of tracks or channels, that should work.
I’ll have to do a couple tests to convince myself that everything gets carried over to the 2nd song. lol
Thanks Glenn!
Kelp’s suggestion of using the same project is a clean way of getting it done with minimal time overhead.
If for whatever reason it’s important to have six different projects, here’s a quick & dirty solution. It’s not pretty, but it gets the job done and only takes a minute or two.
Copy & paste the project folder of song 1 to a new one called Blank Song.
Go into the Blank Song folder and rename the Cubase project file to Blank Song.
Open the project, select all events, delete.
Go into the pool and delete all audio.
You now have a blank project with none of the content but all of the tracks and settings. From there you can clone it for the remaining five songs, or perhaps knock it into a template (although that’s probably just putting lipstick on a pig).
While this approach is something you’d never admit to doing when having a beer at your local pro audio engineer’s tavern, all of your audio files will now be kept in their separate folders and tweaking Song 3 will have no effect on Song 4, etc. Just be sure to clean up any evidence when you’re done so if anyone asks why you implemented such an ugly hack you have plausible deniability.
'Just did some testing and everything EXCEPT for Inputs & Outputs get saved when using “Save Selected Channels”. Makes no sense to have such a feature only to exclude 2 import settings such as In & Out. Still, I think I’ll end up using the function. Glad I spotted the glitch, and it does say in the manual that Inputs & Outputs are not saved. Just thought I’d mention it for what its worth.
I also frequently have this issue when tracking bands or ensembles. Whats worse the Save As Template does not allow saving the setup without recorded files. If you were to record the first song and want to save a template to setup the next project you have to very very carefully jump through hoops of removing files from the audio pool wthout deleting the audio from your first completed song. Its a longstanding gripe of mine …
AND… if in your instance we had the Import Session Data style feature from ProTools it would also be a step to curing yours and mine issue.
Save as template without including media
Import all types of track from another project - without including the media.
These two enhancements of current featureset would seriously enhance my life and also make Cubase Pro more of a Pro choice for ensemble tracking and mixing
AND… if in your instance we had the Import Session Data style feature from ProTools it would also be a step to curing yours and mine issue.
Save as template without including media
Import all types of track from another project - without including the media.
These two enhancements of current featureset would seriously enhance my life and also make Cubase Pro more of a Pro choice for ensemble tracking and mixing
Yes, we need to be able to save templates without media, absolutely agree.
Anyway for a session with multiple songs I record and often even mix them in a single project. Keeps a lot of potential confusion out while recording, has literally no session downtime between songs, saves tons of time when mixing while getting a more consistent result (which is often what we’re after, ain’t it?).
When things get too complex with automation or tracks that do not share between songs, the visibility features help out. Or, if it gets crazy complex, I do the basics in a single project but split it up later.
How do you split it up later? I’ve recorded live rehearsals as one project and it’s been handy for applying universal stuff across everything (eq, snare sounds, drum mix), but I then really struggle with automation changes.
I just open the project and delete anything that’s not part of the song I want on itself and do a backup to a new folder (with ‘minimize audio’ etc. ticked). The arranger track is very handy for defining different songs.
Same procedure over and over. I end up with the ‘big’ project untouched plus a folder for each song which really just contains the files belonging to the song.
Good idea to do a backup before, it’s possible to create a mess and lose stuff.
Or use multiple loops.
I have used the arranger track instead, in the past. But that also brings me some navigation issues.
Mostly because of muscle memory, I just keep hitting the wrong keys
Good one, Chris! Thanks!