Session workflow and templates in Cubase!

[SawdustRecordings]

One thing I am always struggling with is importing or exporting session content.

Lets say you've created a nice recording template session and a mix template session to start with for every metal band you recorded. You start tracking in your recording template session, and then have to get things over into the other one.

In Protools it is so easy. There is the "import session data" feature that lets you import tracks into a new session, even with track inserts and so on. So if you want to get your recorded tracks into your mix session, you just import the tracks, and move all audio events "up" to the mix session tracks they belong to.

I haven't found a decent way to do something similar in Cubase yet! I am working in Nuendo 4, so if there is a newer Cubase version, which has that feature let me now. Gonna have to update then.

What I'm doing till today in Cubase, is just open both sessions, and then copy all audio events in the record session and paste them in the mixing session. But this is anoying! Mostly I get issues with overlapping events that get kinda jumbled up. Then there are problems with tempo tracks. Sometimes Cubase doesn't get the audio events to the right time position. And in addition to that there is no way to copy mixing info, like inserts from one session to another without having to save a preset or something.
As I am always recording every song of an album in one session, this copy process is just unuseable. I don't even thought about copying automation data ....

So whats your workflow concerning this?

Thanks to everyone who answers!

 

[Ermz]

I use track presets for this. Once I've finalized a mix for a record I'll just save all the main ones like kick, snare, rhythm guitar bus, bass bus, vox etc. and then apply them one-by-one for each song. Is it as good as the ProTools' 'Import session data'? Hell no, PT's implementation pisses all over it, but unfortunately it's all we have to work with.

One thing to bear in mind is that the track preset method will screw up your automation, so make sure you have your automation on clean busses that have no plug-ins on them. For instance I'll have a 'rhythm guitar' group, then a 'rhythm guitar automation' group with only automation data on it, so I don't screw myself up down the track.

This used to bother me greatly down the track, but I just came to live with the fact that the folks at Steinberg are ass-backward about everything, and we'd have to deal with it in order to be blessed with using a platform that doesn't hinge on dinosaur code which is not only unreliable, but highly resource inefficient (which leads us back to ProTools).

 

[SawdustRecordings]

So your using individual sessions for every song?

How about the exporting/importing track archives? Someone using this feature? I came over this option by researching my problem and it kinda seems to be the way to go. Seems similar to PTs "import session data". Are there any known issues with this?

 

[Charles J]

I use track presets for this. Once I've finalized a mix for a record I'll just save all the main ones like kick, snare, rhythm guitar bus, bass bus, vox etc. and then apply them one-by-one for each song. Is it as good as the ProTools' 'Import session data'? Hell no, PT's implementation pisses all over it, but unfortunately it's all we have to work with.

One thing to bear in mind is that the track preset method will screw up your automation, so make sure you have your automation on clean busses that have no plug-ins on them. For instance I'll have a 'rhythm guitar' group, then a 'rhythm guitar automation' group with only automation data on it, so I don't screw myself up down the track.

This used to bother me greatly down the track, but I just came to live with the fact that the folks at Steinberg are ass-backward about everything, and we'd have to deal with it in order to be blessed with using a platform that doesn't hinge on dinosaur code which is not only unreliable, but highly resource inefficient (which leads us back to ProTools).

EXACTLY DOWN TO THE "T" what I do. It's the only logical way to do it.

I don't trust doing an entire record in one session not too mention it makes automation a total fucking hassle which results in my just giving up on it.

KEEP IT STUPID SIMPLE. =D