keeping consistent sound in projects with many songs?

[s34nsm411]

Just wondering if you guys had any tricks or tips that have helped when dealing with the inevitable "ok I made one tweak to the drums here, now have to change across all 10 other songs..."

in cubase I usually select the channels I want to copy and save them to a folder named "settings" within that project folder, but even this gets messy. eg: sometimes I will forget I had certain FX sends on one project and those get deactivated when I load settings from another, or I will have read enabled on the track and then the new volume changes will not overwrite that and I will be wondering why it sounds so much different...

Ive had thoughts of trying to possibly do all the drums in one project and then export and load into the master project but I feel like it would end up being more trouble than its worth. this would clear up a lot of CPU power for the master project though... decisions decisions

If you guys could share what has worked from experience it would be much appreciated, although I am thinking that the save/load channels option might be best for now

 

[NSGUITAR]

Easy man. Pick ONE song that you think is the best material for mixing. Mix it to perfection, make it your bitch, make it a beast.


After that, delete all of the takes (not tracks), then "save as" a new name such as _Mix Template


After that, it's just a matter of copying from one project and pasting into another.

 

[OneDaySky]

make it your bitch

Haha!

 

[ahjteam]

Mix 1 good song, then

Alternative 1:

go to the mixer, select the channels of which settings you want to save, right click > Save Selected Channels. I usually save them like DRUMS, BASS, RHYTHMGTR1, LEADGTR1 etc. Make sure that the track count and order is the same in the other session, otherwise it gives you an error.

Alternative 2:

go to the project window, select the tracks you want, right click > Save Track Preset...

 

[Anthropocide]

I always mix all songs in one whole project and have absolutely no headache about getting identical sound of the same instrument in each and every track

 

[jaredistheman]

I personally just track the whole project in the same session. That way when one song is mixed, the entire project is mixed (for the most part).

 

[Joel4662]

I always mix all songs in one whole project and have absolutely no headache about getting identical sound of the same instrument in each and every track

Same
Except my mixes are similar enough that I can use the same master chain for all the songs on the "album." I just assumed that's how everyone does it (sneap-forum-wise.)

 

[s34nsm411]

out of curiosity does anybody know how PT people deal with this? if it had some elegant solution matching up the channel names, even if they are out of order, I think it'd almost be enough to make me switch

 

[ahjteam]

out of curiosity does anybody know how PT people deal with this? if it had some elegant solution matching up the channel names, even if they are out of order, I think it'd almost be enough to make me switch

file > import > session data

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

the XML exporting/importing in cubase is amazing for this. it even saves routing stuff.

 

[OneDaySky]

go to the mixer, select the channels of which settings you want to save, right click > Save Selected Channels. I usually save them like DRUMS, BASS, RHYTHMGTR1, LEADGTR1 etc. Make sure that the track count and order is the same in the other session, otherwise it gives you an error.

This if anything. I personally record different projects for each song and remember what I use or load up a saved channel setting if its to complicated.

 

[s34nsm411]

the XML exporting/importing in cubase is amazing for this. it even saves routing stuff.

ahhh damn that makes me want to switch. the worst is loading something like "drums + drumcomp" channel in cubase. it does not connect the send to drumcomp chananel, you have to do it manually. and if you forget to you spend the whole time wondering "why the hell do my drums sound so weak after loading the same settings"

 

[ahjteam]

the XML exporting/importing in cubase is amazing for this. it even saves routing stuff.

how do you export it (musicxml, right?), it's grayed out for me?

 

[jimwilbourne]

yeah. I actually have no idea how to use the XML format stuff.

it'd be nice to have someone break down exactly how it works. not really a step by step process (due to different daws) but just basically what you're doing.