About Working Procedures

[LynchpiN]

Hi everybody!

I've been wondering something... how do you guys set up your projects when HD recording?

This dumb question crossed my mind when I saw some colleagues who use different projects (multitrack files) for different songs in a same album. So they tweak every of those songs separately, resulting in differences between them - the kind of differences that kill you during mastering.

When you are recording an album with 15 tracks, you have to keep them all under your sight, so particularly when I'm mixing multiple songs I tend to put all of them in the same project (I use Nuendo), one next to another in the timeline. The working area gets a little messy, but also less tricky in my humble opinion.

I'd like to ask you guys if you agree, or how do you do if you work differently. Is there any way to synchronize in order to when you tweak a track in one project, the other track in the other project tweaks as well?

See ya.

 

[Joshua]

I have always wanted to try this but have been afraid my PC wouldn't be able to handle the so call load...of running like 40 mins of 32 individual tracks worth of audio for example....on top of that, I love punching in and having multiple takes for everything which just racks up the number of tracks per song depending on the song...

I too use Nuendo but set up different projects for different songs...but i always save the mixer settings thus able to just so call reload them..even then its very tricky...it still takes a hell of a lot of time personally to tweak them to so call sound the same...I have still have problems in terms of consistency from track to track....

Whats your computer's spec?? How far have you pushed your system in terms of the max number of songs you can squeeze into a project, the number of tracks on the average for each song??

 

[Benny H]

No way I'd bother trying to keep a lot of tracks in one project, comp isn't up to it, and just one alone gets messy enough. But that's cause it's only my own stuff and generally everything is 'in progress' song writing wise.

What I do for consistancy and time saving though, is save template projects - Project files with no audio(or perhaps some audio for source reference), just plug-in and general settings. I use Sonar.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

On the project I'm working on at the moment, I have the whole album in one single file... because this is a more than one hour long song so I don't have any other choice. I'm running over a hundred tracks (I try to lower this number but I hardly can, so many things happening...) and a lot of plugins, and yes, my CPU is dying (the UAD-1 helps but I'd need another one already)... But I don't think that the length of the song has something to do with it. Actually I'm pretty confident that it doesn't, unless you activate a CPU hog plugin somewhere for like 15 seconds and keep it unbypassed the rest of the time.

 

[Andy Sneap]

In Pro Tool you just import session data so everything matches, though this only became available with 6.0. Before that it was a pain, I'd have to write everything down and copy , which as you know, takes forever.

 

[wicked_s]

Never thought of that option, sounds interesting. Personally, I create a template to use with all tracks and save all mix-settings and plugins as presets, so when I start on another song I just import all presets from that.

 

[daver]

In Pro Tool you just import session data so everything matches, though this only became available with 6.0. Before that it was a pain, I'd have to write everything down and copy , which as you know, takes forever.

Ok, this just goes to show I really should start reading manuals / upgrade info, this is going to save me loads of time!

 

[ThomasT]

I'm working with Cubase, but I mix with creamware pulsar mixer. (It's a DSP based soundcard with a virtual studio environment, for those who didn't know it.)
So I use the external mixer for the static basic mix of the first 24 or 32 channels and do the automation and the submix of the other tracks in Cubase.
So the first 24track can be equal in every song. When I start a new song I simply copy the project.

 

[LynchpiN]

I've noticed through experience that doesn't matter if you're with 2 hours of just some minutes of audio in your mixer - what leeches the computer is the amount of plugins and tracks you're using. Am I right?

Nice to know you work this way, Andy. But when you do this do you make your mix basing in one song, then import this mix data to the other song files and fine tune them? It must be easier on you since you mostly use external audio processing, not a plugin freak like us.

In Nuendo or Cubase I've never seen a way to directly import project data from one file to another (the way is by creating templates), at least to my knowledge. Anyone?

I mix all songs in one file mostly because I can have a preview of the whole album mix without the need of opening multiple files. Hope it doesn't sound too weird.

 

[Ermz]

Well I figure it'd make sense to have the entire album in the one file. If you want cohesiveness or flow from track to track it's alot easier to treat it all as one entity then index it when you burn to CD or whatever.

 

[SPLASTiK]

I usually go the import session data route.

I'll also import a stereo bounce of the first mix so I can A/B to make sure they're pretty similar. The session I'm doing with a band now we recorded the drums in 3 different sessions having to tear down the mics each time. So everything will be slightly different and having something to A/B will be beneficial.