Craig Anderton

Can you elaborate a bit?

Another consideration...just throwing it out there...will it help the music more to copy the same thing, or to do the new section from scratch so it's not exactly the same? I copy when songwriting, but after the song has taken shape, usually end up replacing most of the parts.

I'm not quite sure I understand the problem. I assume that when you move the chorus later in the same, all the clips will be in the same tracks...yes? If I understand you correctly, it seems this would be the simplest option: Select All, then drag across the timeline for the section containing the chorus. Right-click on a clip, choose Split, then choose Split at Selection. Shift-click the tracks with the chorus, then Ctrl+Drag to the spot in the second chorus where the clips should be. Does that do it?

Don't forget you can hide tracks in Console View with the Track Manager (keyboard shortcut H). When hidden, they'll still exist, and still play back...you just won't see them.

Don't forget that if you're willing to work with Windows native drivers, you can aggregate interfaces as easily as you can on the Mac.

I'm using a PreSonus Studio 192 because it has plenty of inputs, digital mic pre settings, remote control options, and the Fat Channel processing. However, it doesn't have 5-pin MIDI connectors. I use an ESI Midimate to convert USB to 5-pin/5-pin to USB.

Create the folder to which you want to save the one shots. Navigate to it in the Browser, and drag the clips into the folder.

From their legal and privacy tab: "All rights reserved. This site is not connected or affiliated with AVID or its associated companies/brands/trademarks."

It's not a Pro Tools/Avid site, the same people have a Studio One Expert site. I suspect it may be they're concerned that in the future, Pro Tools won't be the powerhouse it always was, and so they'll need to broaden their horizons.

Yes, although I think they credited the wrong people with the release numbering format...

Yes, I do all the videos myself, using Magix Vegas (and a lot of public domain images ).

But I should also add that some mastering projects aren't quite so simple, like a continuous, DJ-style mix, because of adding transitions, crossfades, sound effects, etc. (to hear an example of this, click on the Joie de Vivre link in my sig). I wrote an article about how to do this in Cakewalk in my Sound on Sound column. For these, most of this kind of work has to take place in the DAW. After the continuous mix is done, I bounce it to a [long!] stereo mix, and then split it in logical places to create individual songs for track markers and such. Due to continuous nature of the project, this doesn't always happen at the "beginning" of a song, especially when two songs crossfade. These then go into Studio One's Project Page, and the process completes as described above. This is the most difficult kind of project for me to do by far; just getting tempos to match and not have weird key changes is a challenge. With the Joie de Vivre, the song order was dictated by tempo - slower ones first, building up over the course of the project. A lot of the transitions needed to speed up as imperceptibly as possible to get from one song to another. If you listen to it, the most difficult transition by far was from "To Say No Would be a Crime (Remix)" (3rd song) to "Lilianna." That took hours to figure out; the transition starts around the 10-minute mark; the transition isn't complete until around 10:55.

I still do the two as separate processes. For me, mixing is about getting the best possible balance of all the tracks; I use no processors in the master bus, only individual tracks. I then bounce within the program to create a stereo mix of that balance, which I peak normalize. (Of course, saying that means self-proclaimed "pro" mastering engineers will tell you I'm clueless, giving bad advice, and should have my mastering engineer license revoked. But with LUFS, times have changed.) The mixed tracks then go into Studio One's Project Page. I check the LUFS reading for all the files to see where they stand, level-wise. They're typically pretty close, but I usually add a Waves L3 as an insert for each file, and adjust the amount of maximizing so they have the same perceived average level. I also check the RMS reading, True Peak, and LRA readings to see if there are any crazy disparities. Of course, ears are a part of this process, but remember that ears are much worse at discriminating small level variations compared to pitch variations. Some tracks may require a bit of EQ to match the others in terms of spectral balance. I sometimes use a spectrum analyzer to get a rough idea, but really, ears are by far the best test equipment for this. After everything sounds like a collection of songs, I export a file with all the songs. This is where the ears take over totally. I'll listen to the file for several days, at different times of the day, over different systems, in several contexts. This will help ferret out any level or tone issues that need to be addressed. If there are issues, I'll go back, make the modifications, and re-start the listening/evaluating process.

I've used Studio One's Project Page in tandem with Sonar for years. Although its claim to fame is integration with SO4's Song Page, no law says you can't load in WAV files, and treat SO4 like a far hipper version of CD Architect. I've written about how to assemble collections of songs in Cakewalk, which is completely doable. However, since you have SO4, you might as well take the path of least resistance. The Project Page was designed to do what you want to do.

If I was given this to mix, in the beginning: A little more reverb on the vocal Lower piano level Organ way lower Bass part sparser Overall, what you’re hearing is too many parts competing for space, and there’s not enough variation of instruments weaving in and out. It's mostly an arrangement issue. Drop the bass out at 2:00, organ down, hand percussion (tambourine, shaker, etc.) to maintain the beat. Then at 2:15, have those drums pump!! Give them some serious limiting, boost the level, and a reverb splash to lead into the next section. Bring the bass back in for the next section. Then decide which other instruments you want to have predominate in this section. A harmony vocal would be cool...at 2:30 start dialing back the instruments, to reduce the density. The change at 3:00 is most welcome, but again, drop out the bass and use hand percussion until the drums come back in. At 3:17, I’d lose the synth figure which is almost anti-majestic, and use a sustained choir sound, which would add majesty. The TTS-1 is fine for that, it’s actually quite good. At 4:00, you’re getting the right idea - you’ve pulled back, and emphasized the voice. Less is more. Just ask Miles Davis Finally, for the vocal, do the phrase-by-phrase normalization technique I’ve talked about numerous times. You’ll love how your voice sounds, especially after you limit it. So...If you get a chance, listen to my latest single: You’ll hear the kind of contrasts I’m talking about. The intro has power chords, keyboards, heavy drums, etc. But the first verse starting at 0:20 is only voice, guitar, bass, and drum toms. Very basic, but that’s all that’s needed. At 0:48, keyboards and more vocals creep in. Then the power hits at 1:07 with the Chicago blues harp solo. But here’s the most important part: at 1:22, note how after that excess of distorted guitar, blues harp, and heavy drums, it dials back to only vocal, acoustic guitar, and tambourine way in the background. This essentially "reboots" the song, so I can build it back for impact, which happens at 1:50 with the extended section and DJ-style FX break. At 2:00 the song returns to full instrumentation, but to take it up another notch, it’s not about adding more instruments or changing levels, but going from 2- to 3-part harmonies. Then at 2:23, EVERYTHING drops out except the vocal + harmonies – an old country trick applied to rock. Then from there to the end, it’s back to Chicago blues harp, a more animated bass, louder drums, etc. on the way out. One exercise you might find helpful – when doing a final mix, I’ll mute tracks. If the music doesn’t sound worse, I leave it out. If you remember only one thing from all this verbiage, it’s this: The fewer parts that are playing, the more importance the remaining parts assume. Hope this helps! You're well on your way.

The pok from x-tempo is a pretty amazing device. It's wireless, and basically lets you program keyboard shortcuts on two banks of four footswitches. It's actually more than that, though, because you can have another set of shortcuts if you double-click the footswitch, so that's 16 keyboard shortcuts. If you dedicate one switch to a function key, then you can hold that and press a footswitch for another keyboard shortcut - so in this mode, you can have 21 keyboard shortcuts underfoot, as it were There's a Mac/Windows pok manager app for programming the shortcuts. You can also load and save profiles. For example, you could have a profile for keyboard shortcuts for Word - change selected characters to all uppercase, bold, insert page break, whatever. In addition to storing keyboard shortcuts, you can also store up to six individual keypresses as a character string. As one way to use this, if you put the keypress for zoom in horizontally (like PgUp or whatever) and the keypress zoom in vertically on the footswitch, then one footswitch press does a "two-dimensional" zoom. The pok concept has been around for a while, I wrote a review of the original wireless, USB-receiver-based unit, which was great. the latest model pok now works with Bluetooth BLE. The price is $259, but they have B-stock on the site sometimes for $179. They're rugged, so it wouldn't be a problem if it was a unit they took around to demo at a music store, had at a trade show for a few days, or whatever. Being able to place so many keyboard shortcuts under foot control is really helpful.

First of all, here are some more links: Overview of multiband distortion Specific instructions for doing multiband distortion in Sonar As to Helix Native, I took an instant liking to the Helix floor when it came out, and did a pro review of it for Harmony Central. There's a lot to like, to say the least...so when Helix Native came out, which duplicated the functionality in a plug-in, I was ecstatic. The ability to do multiband processing so effortlessly is one of the main reasons why. For non-multiband, Waves' Paul Reed Smith Supermodels, AmpliTube, Guitar Rig, TH3, and the amp sims in MOTU DP all have their place and I use them as well. However, the Helix Native multiband presets are my go-to these days. The preset pack grew out of the presets I had designed for my own use. Once I had 128 of them, I figured what the heck, I'll turn them into a product

Haven't had any problems so far, but I went for SampleTank 4 MAX. It's has like 46 billion terabytes of sound data, haven't downloaded it all yet I assume SE is pretty much the same.

Cool, thanks! Now I can go buy a new car ! I think you'll dig the presets.

The Volume blocks provide two different functions, some are set up as mute buttons, while the others are set up for Panning (the Vol block can be set to do panning). The widening is due mostly to panning the different bands in the stereo field; with four bands, it's bass and highs in the middle, with the low mids panned slightly left, and the high mids slightly right. The cabs are all stock Helix cabs. You can of course apply these kinds of effects with TH3, which is one of the reasons I thought this was worth posting. The Sonitus multiband makes a great multiband crossover, but you need to either do a fair amount of busing, or copy tracks so you have one track for each band.

The way to do it is 1) install Sonar Platinum, 2) install CbB, then 3) forget about Sonar Platinum. The reason for installing it is that CbB will see all the Sonar plug-ins that don't ship with CbB. Make sure you keep CbB updated. The updates aren't monthly, but they are really nailing down the loose ends. CbB is a better program than Sonar was.

I guess this falls into the "self promotion" folder, but the reaction has been so good, I thought any Cakewalkers using Helix native/floor/rack/LT might want to know about it. It's a set of multiband presets (2 to 4 bands) for all of the current Helix amps. I've written a lot about multiband presets with respect to Sonar and CbB, but even if you're not interested in the Helix, the video demo (sorry, can't figure out how to make it smaller...) illustrates the difference that multiband operation makes to distorted guitar sounds.

I did an FX Chain called the "Sizzle" bus that generated artificial highs via harmonics from distortion. It was in one of the Sonar updates so if you had Sonar, it's probably on your hard drive somewhere. If not, there's a full description starting on page 128 of The Huge Book of Cakewalk by BandLab Tips. The basic idea is to create a BUS effect (not a channel insert) in parallel with the signal you want to boost. You create a ProChannel FX Chain in the bus with: 1. QuadCurve EQ. Enable the high-pass (HP) filter. Set the slope to 30 dB/octave, Frequency to around 10 kHz, and optionally enable Gloss. 2. Tube Distortion. Use Type 1 (important), turn up Drive all the way, Output up about halfway, and use Input to vary the amount of distortion. Start with Input all the way down. The EQ eliminates all but the highest frequencies, which are then distorted to create artificial harmonics above the natural harmonics. The parameter settings are pretty crucial, you'll need to experiment to add sweetness instead of harshness.

I had this happen once and it baffled me. In that case, it was something misset in the GUI...I can't remember what, though. Maybe that's what's happening here. Next time I'm in front of Melodyne, I'll see if I can jog my memory.

There are people who subscribe to my craig_anderton twitter feed solely for the monthly nag I give to back up your data I'll add one more suggestion: it's not enough to back up, the backup needs to be organized so that you can find what you need, when you need it. Knowing that the file you need to restore is "somewhere" can be a problem. I just bought a 4 TB drive last week to backup up my drives of loops and samples.