New to This

[Ken Newton]

Hi Thanks for the ad!  I’m new to this forum and almost brand new to Cakewalk, have been using/learning it for about a month.  Just long enough to be dangerous.   My question is: while I’m recording a track, should the track settings be set to : Master (as in Paulie) or Speakers (as in Mando 2) ?  Or does it even matter, as I record a single track?  Thanks! -Ken

Edited August 29, 2022 by Ken Newton
Accidents back-arrowed a page and lost some of my content

[scook]

As a rule, all audio should ultimately pass through the master bus and the master bus should be the only source of audio data coming out of the DAW to the main monitor inputs of the audio interface.

[Ken Newton]

Thanks Scook.  I figured it was something like that. 

[Starship Krupa]

44 minutes ago, Ken Newton said:

Hi Thanks for the ad!

Welcome to the forum and to two of my favorite hobbies: using a computer to make music and discussing it on this forum. Curious though, "thanks for the ad?"

40 minutes ago, scook said:

As a rule, all audio should ultimately pass through the master bus and the master bus should be the only source of audio data coming out of the DAW to the main monitor inputs of the audio interface.

IMO, this falls into the category of "for now" advice. The OP should take notice of the "as a rule" caveat. Also "ultimately." I'd also precede it with "technically, no, but...."

The reason to use the rule/convention that Steve mentions is that it anticipates that we'll eventually mix the tracks we're recording. As you learn more, you'll discover how much smoother things go the better you are set up for the next stages of the process..

There are exceptions to the rule that you may eventually discover. For instance, when I set up a headphone cue mix using sends, those usually bypass the Master bus.

[57Gregy]

20 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Curious though, "thanks for the ad?"

"Thanks for adding me to the forum." 😉

[Starship Krupa]

2 hours ago, 57Gregy said:

"Thanks for adding me to the forum." 😉

I was wondering if it was that. I haven't heard the term in decades. I'm always interested to meet someone else who's been online for a long time.

[Alan Tubbs]

Usually one uses the master buss.  That is working Inside the Box (ITB), and one wants to pass all audio through it.

however, some or many work with their DAW thru a mixer or summing mixer.  The original idea for this was back before we had 64 bit mixing and native up sampling.  The 24, 32, 48 and 54 bit mixing engines many pros felt didn’t provide enough information unlike analog summing.  Today many use analog mixing just to integrate external hardware.  I have about 6 different analog processing channels to record into.  With my Summing mixer  I leave my channel strip and combinations of pres, eqs and or pres hooked up to record into and analog mix out without messing with the patch bay.  I don’t do it because I’m dissatisfied with Sonar’s mix engine.

however, I can hear the transformers driving in my RND Orbit when mixing. Even just a stereo out.  If you ever want to hear what a good, musical transformer can do to add some excitement to your mix, try an Orbit.  Much better than any saturation/distortion plugin in my opinion.