Clovis Ramsay

I find that you converting the incoming stereo tracks to mono interesting as in my experience, this causes an increase in decibel and even introduces artifacts or eliminates timbre. Though for maintaining mental health, I always record drums kit pieces in mono and prefer to mix them as mono, but when a less experienced home export mix comes to me that is each channel in stereo, I just keep it as is just more out of fear of degradation. Am I being a bit naïve or irrational for thinking so? You're ancient wisdom I seek of thee!

Become an independent Luthier and make a good living.

In all my years recording and mixing bands, the drum kits individual pieces are tracked onto their own track and then mixed into a sub group or buss, then sent to the master track. Unless you are recording a group that sounds like Buddy Holly or The Beatles of the early 60s where the drums are tracked in mono, you will track and mix drums per kit piece per channel and summed to a buss channel.

The first time is usually a tactic to convince the wife that he's "still got it" and "back to himself" and "being the guy she fell in love with" since she's been showing signs of disappointment and regret, aka "im leaving"...

No one should regret buying outboard analog studio gear of high reputation just for the fact that they retain their value and even gain value with age as seen with well taken care of vintage boards. Plugins are very useful and do great things for your production so the question one should ask oneself when purchasing plugins is, "how much is the experience of using these temporary shelf life plugins worth paying for?" Because they are not investments since investing is about long term gains on assets that do not have expiration dates and limited compatibility. Sure you can resell your license and recoup some of that money but only after 90 days of ownership and 90 days is about the time it takes for the next better version to be developed and released that you will more than not be required to "upgrade" for a fee. I will not list those companies here, I do not want to risk my current standing privileges having access to "my" plugins.

Use the time offset feature, pre count metronome feature, or change the time display to SMPTE. It is important to note that when sequencing songs for an album to be sent off to a mastering engineer, the songs should always always start by or after the beat 2 mark in the project. Once the song is ready for mixdown, you still keep that dead space in the beginning so that no audio gets accidentally clipped off from importing and exporting to various applications. Whoever is in charge of sequencing a groups album (use to be its very own job and position in studios) will be the one to determine how many ms are allowed on the start and end of each song.

I regret ever investing into the bottomless hole that is an inherent evil in being a plug in "owner". When a carpenter invests in their craft, they purchase the tools that will be reliable and last a lifetime guaranteed by a lifetime warranty, at the cost of what we pay for plugins. ...PLUGINS that are only as good as the HOST they are being launched within. One year tops is the usefulness of plug ins due to the exponential nature of technological evolution and the nature of modern consumerism (mental illness)

@Squonk2 Neutron is in itself a multi faceted effects processor that works as its own FX Chain. Use Neutron all on its own when using the “mothership” plugin or, you can use just the single modules and build out your own FX Chain. Its also worth noting that when using any of the single processing modules, they will communicate with Neutron “mothership” when it is used on a mix and master bus enabling you to utilize some automated features. This also is true when using the Relay plugin on each track. Relay also enable you to even insert the Visual Mixer plugin on the master buss and control your pans and track faders within its interface.

Because freezing doesn't render any side chaining effects nor does it render in certain automation. All freezing is for is to hold that synths particular sound in a temporary state and offloads the VSTi to free up memory when using several VSTi's simultaneously. It is always best practice to bounce down your synths before the mixing phase so that the rendered track represents every send, signal, and bit depth/resolution. Mixing with all audio files is also superior when using a console and outboard processing. The audio is just at it's best sonically and leaves one with a much more confidence in the quality of the tracks. And from experience, It's also a huge problem if you record a group and they want to have it mixed elsewhere and then have the nightmare scenario when that engineer loads it into their DAW, all the frozen tracks will have no context, application to unfreeze to, and no way for anyone to recreate the sounds in the future.

Freezing is a convenience feature that is totally fine to use during the writing and pre production phase of a song, but when it comes to the mixing stage that will then be mastered, always bounce down or print your virtual instruments with the upmost care and attention to quality.

Bouncing or "printing" your tracks in audible real time is necessary when routing your track out to be processed by external devices or console that influences the character of the track. Bouncing your track as you do in your example is the standard and most versitle option, and is necessary when bouncing a track that utilizes side-chaining. To print a track that use side-chaining effects must have the corresponding track or bus also selected when bouncing down. Rendering in 32-bit floating is the best practice (64-bit is also an option) as it is far more dynamic and higher resolution working within the DAW. Only dither when you are rendering a track from a higher bit depth to a lower bit depth, for example, 24-bit -> 16-bit to correct for sample quantization distortion. Never dither twice tho, you start to get hissing distortion and its far more unpleasant than no dither at all.

@rescareguy Softube allows for downloading legacy versions of their plug ins but it can only be obtained by downloading a package of their entire inventory of plugins which comes to around 1.5GB. The pkg is their older method of installing and validating plugins. The versions of the plugins I needed come to v. 2.3.76 (2016), such as the TSAR-1R. Placing the .dll into the PC module folder does fix the issue but their is a quirk with using presets in the Inspector pane where each time you select a preset, it turns the module off. I suggest you do not replace the Saturation Knob included with Cakewalk, even though it is version 2.2.84, you will cause the plug in to not respond to settings or retain your settings in memory. VST3 inserts however are fine and can be up to date.

I just ran across guitar strings made by Amazon selling for $6 a pack. Now who remembers when Wal-Mart started selling strings, electric guitars and Casio keyboards?? If you don’t then its probably because it only lasted for less than 2 yrs back in the mid 2000’s. Musicians, we may be a peculiar type of human but that doesn’t mean we want our tools for creating music to be unspecialized and mediocre garbage from Walmart. We will always choose convenience to most things in life like hot pockets and Chinese take out, but when it comes to my craft, I will drive as far as I must to a music store! I will even take off from work, call in sick, or fake my death if It is required of me to get to a music store. Music derives from deeply personal feelings within and I just feel “whole” knowing my strings are the perfect size, weight, tone, playability just for me. That the makers spent time developing the best methods to get the most out of the materials used, cryogenics anyone? Amazon getting in on this market is a terrible thing, as for one, it forces the reputable string makers and startups to gradually start cutting corners to maintain profit margins once Amazon increasingly eats away at the market share. I really do hope they stay out of developing software and computers because a world in permanent mediocrity just isnt a world worth living for. When Rome fell, In came the dark ages so all the bath houses and public facilities running water 2000 years ago stopped flowing. No one knew how to build and maintain the aquifers. No more incredible built architecture, no more city apartments, no more rations of bread and meat per month per citizen…..all forgotten and never rediscovered for 1000 years. welcome to the jungle baby, the Amazon jungle

Definitely phase issues with the L-R guitars. Its going to require all new rhythm guitar tracks for sure. Thanks for the feedback, I greatly appreciate it! @jack c. thanks jack! …i thought you were calling me jack like Nicholson, but then I realize you are jack c., jack! @Lynn Wilson that is greatly insightful and a tremendous help having fresh perspectives to reveal my blindspots. Im also inspired to install security cameras on each dial, switch and mic on the guitar setup lol Shooting for July 4th week or else it becomes a Brian Wilsons 40 year “Smile” session

I've used a SVT-PRO3 w/8x10 Rig professionally and on tour the past 15 years and I stand by the Amplitude SVX collection when I want to dial in the exact tones I was getting on the first couple of albums. It's the exact tone and response, pretty spectacular. BUT I loathe IK Multimedia and all of their unnecessary managers and authorizers and custom shop because you need to authorize what you manage to claim what you own in a shop that has its own currency that you can't get on the website and bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla,,,,,,crapware! wearing the crap out of me dammit! They even designed and sell wrists alarms that detect coworkers less than 6ft apart from you as part of workplace COVID safety wearable's . I wish they would detect the nature of their business and stop with them apps. I wanna play bass dude, time is precious! I think Ampeg took from the SSL plug in playbook and charged 500% more than what audio software companies sell the authorized versions for. SSL Native Channel $450 vs WAVES SSL 4000 Collection $60? What is going on here?

Preliminary mix -I think my guitarist sneaked behind me and fiddled with the guitar amp eq, they sound washed out in the midrange and has given me a terrible time trying to bring back articulation. ... -Made 100% In Cakewalk by BandLab

@Glenn Stanton from what I've gathered through my little journey through ARA integration is that certain features are tier specific within the Melodyne application. Essentials doesn't allow for polyphonic editing, one must upgrade to the Studio or Editor tier in order to have the functionality of editing stacks or layers or comps. But I have always defaulted to flatten my comps first anyways as a method I adopted after running into Melodyne not accepting a track that is made up of several clips in multiple clip lanes. I never questioned it as a lack of a feature at the time, more like how one has to loop your shoestring and pull it through a hoop before you can get a nice bow at the end!

@tparker24 Here is a Melodyne reference guide for use in Cakewalk with hyperlinks to help guide you through, as well as links to Celemony for further references. You can download the entire Cakewalk Reference Guide PDF from the link down menu at the top of this forums header. I hope this helps! Melodyne - Cakewalk by BandLab Reference Guide.pdf

@tparker24 in the Essentials version of Melodyne, there is a limitation to a single instance of a melody or instrument. Upgrading your tier of Melodyne will allow you to work polyphonic such as a vocal quartet, in one rendering. In the image example you have presented could have been done as polyphonic or each rendered one at a time. I suspect one at a time though but as you said, it doesn't say you can or cannot render multiple takes and perhaps someone with extensive knowledge could provide some context. I believe the issue you are trying to work out here has to do with the tier version of Melodyne and not Cakewalk, as per my own personal experience with Essentials and with Editor, i can only conclude that this be the case.

Updates to Cakewalk are done from within Cakewalk. You should receive a prompt when they are available or manually check in the Help menu. Once you have installed Cakewalk initially, you no longer need to utilize the BandLab assistant. Also to note if it helps, when installing the add-ons through the assistant, the instrument download is about 1.7GB and contains demo project files as well, so this file does take some time to download and I would suggest downloading it by itself. Drum Replacer runs around 450MB, the rest is less than 200MB.

@Will_Kaydo My issue seems to be related to working with older archived projects created in Sonar 7.02. I am working on an anniversary rerelease and pulled up project bundles that were created back in 2009 so I am curious if this might be affected by the pan law bug? In a new project within the latest CW release, the panning of sends work so my only conclusion thus far has everything to do with these older project file sessions.

Sends inserts in console view do not pan any more, nor do they “Follow Track Pan” when POST is enabled. I noticed a couple of weeks ago that something was starting to sound off in my mixes as they sounded washed out and cloudy. I put it off on thinking I was just exhausted or perhaps I made an accidental change with my effects but, after taking time to finely comb through settings, I discovered the issue with the panning of sends. I solo’d the stereo vocal track, put the reverb insert send on PRE then turned the track fader down to hear only the vocals reverb. I always do this to find the sweet spots for group vocals panning the reverb L or R, but this is no longer possible as I can not only hear it, but I see it on the meters staying pegged to the center. I don’t know if it’s a bug or maybe I have a few gremlins wrecking my computer. If no one can recreate the problem, I will try to do the thing with the motion graphic image thing…u know the thing!

When I was in a metal band, our drummer used this exact setup and it made our sound so much better live. It was just better in all areas with monitoring, eliminated issues with standing waves on the stage, and the drummer didnt have to worry about the kit going out of tune during the show lol

@Darcy It is certainly doable with a latest multicore cpu workstation and soundcard (pci-e). It's the mobile setups that leaves one without a sense of confidence and expectations of reliability. But either option can be undermined by an audio trigger plugin not detecting the variations of hits or introducing latency in a live situation. Plugin triggers are not cheap either, the Addictive Trigger cost as much as a bundle of physical trigger+heads and a MIDI interface. I am a fan of the various mobile MIDI interfaces that connect directly to a smartphone or tablet then using an app, line out the audio to the DAW. You have options at least with some points to consider now, and the experience will ultimately improve and add to your engineering skillset for the better. Good luck!

@tparker24 you must "flatten comp" on your vocal track first so that it renders a complete phrase or clip that can then be processed within Melodyne and VocalSync. Flatten your comp by right clicking on the main track, as well as deleting any muted parts that are being discarded to help clean it up if you desire to do so. I always keep an archived track of my original non-processed performances for back up in case something goes wrong. Do take note of the tracks data being "locked" after your comp has been flattened. Unlock the clip so that it can be processed.