John Vere

That's my point- There are 1,000 of technical ways to get there and not one of them is to be agreed upon by all. Mastering for me has been a life longquest and learning curve. I'm just faster at getting my mixes as close to correct than I used to be before finding the right plug ins. I could listen to my very first albums ( clients) and go, that still sounds great. For those as far as mastering goes all I had was the meters on the 2 track deck. Turns out tape is forgiving. The tapes were made in real time directly from a mixing console and I only owned 1 stereo compressor. There was no true mastering step other than splicing and adding bits of special leader tape. You had to organize the songs to fit evenly on the 2 sides of a cassette. In the mid 90's I had had my Yamaha 01v so now I had lots of compressors, eq, effects and best of all automation. This was driven by an Atari which also handled midi. I mastered to Sony DAT's, Mini Disk and later had a Philips CD recorder. These and the 01v has SPDIF so analog ended at the input of the mixer. I'm almost INB. It took me until 2004 to finally by a PC and start using Cakewalk to record audio, up until then it was Yamaha MD8. I also had Wave lab 4 and that immediately became my mastering ( and re mastering ) tool. I still use it. Over the last 16 years I've had to experiment with different mastering chains but for the most part I would manually edit out all the spikes in the track and didn't really have a grasp on limiting and master bus compression. That's only been the last 4 years that I found the right limiter ( BT Brickwall) and multiband Compressor ( LP Multiband) to give we the transparent results I was looking for. . Another huge improvement and time saver I just started to use. Youlean meter. I have always used Wave Lab to master using the Analyzer to set my RMS levels and the peak tool to look for overs and the spectral analyzer too . Now I'm loving the Youlean meter so I can now analyze a song in real time or with drag and drop. So I get there quicker. I record my originals strictly for my own enjoyment. I want them to sound great in my Truck and in my living room. Beyond that I'm not that concerned. I master for CD not MP3. I batch convert to Mp3 and post stuff on soundcloud, etc and they seem to be ok But because I am not planning on selling them I'm not mastering for that format. I'm hoping to have all my songs done to video and thats even another mastering challenge.

Ya that's the problem, I've got lots of projects and almost all of mine are like what the OP is after,,but, they don't use what's available in CbB. Also it's not easy to upload a 600MB project with all the audio. I guess you could zip it but I've never done that.

Yes a very interesting topic and important on forums like this one where the majority are new to using recording equipment and needing a lot of help along the way. In the old days we bought books and read them cover to cover a few times until we "got it". Now people want to jump in with both feet and figure because it's a computer you don't need to have any knowledge of the craft of recording, the computer will look after you, right? Sorry, it still helps to study the craft and the internet has made this easier in some ways and harder in others. This forum is a good example of a place you can learn about recording using a DAW. But that has it's pitfalls as we all know on forums the quality of advice can be all over the map. Back when, to publish a book on any topic, that book had to be "approved" So for the most part only knowledgeable people wrote the books and if it was a terrible book nobody bought it and it faded from existence. Well written books became popular and were recommended by other professionals. So you could mostly trust a book on any given topic. Now the internet has made it easy to find those books but then also offers for free a lot of bad information which is hard to wade through it all. If you want to make your head spin ask a question like " what is the best way to Master my songs" on Gearslutz. At least here we are polite and most of us are the first to admit that we are not professionals.

Go to my thread on Christmas songs I posted a whole bunch of CWP files that are just midi data so easy to download. https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/forum/2-cakewalk-by-bandlab/

I ended up wiping out practically all left hand piano parts, cause I couldn't make it work with the bass guitar. That's why a good rock and roll piano player keeps their left hand on their beer mug! The exception is Boggie Woogie. Just listen to Asleep at the wheel Route 66 and how the piano bass and Upright bass track perfectly together.

Here's the rest of my collection. holly-jolly-christmas.cwp jingle-bells.cwp Let_It_Snow.cwp white-christmas.cwp Winter_Wonderland.cwp

Here's a few links I've gleaned a few songs from. http://www.grandpaschober.com/?DivisionID=21171 https://www.midiworld.com/search/?q=christmas carols http://midkar.com/holidays/christmas/christmas_01.html http://midkar.com/holidays/christmas/christmas_02.html http://midkar.com/holidays/christmas/christmas_03.html http://midkar.com/holidays/christmas/christmas_04.html http://midkar.com/holidays/christmas/christmas_05.html http://www.garyrog.50megs.com/xmas.html Just be warned they will open in Media Player and sound kinda lame. But the midi file will be in your download folder. You can set Widows to open the midi file in Cakewalk. Use the "open With" dialog. You can make Cakewalk automatically insert TTS-1 by going to Preferences/Midi /Devices/Output uncheck all boxes. When choosing midi files look for the ones with a bigger file size. This implies more instruments have been used. Some are very bad and just a piano part played poorly with bad timing. Half the fun is looking for a good version of the song you want. Below are some more that I had worked on. I think they were all done in Home Studio so should be already to roll in the CbB basic world. Begining to look.cwp BlueChristmas.cwp Frosty_The_Snowman.cwp Have_Yourself_A_Merry_Lit.cwp here-comes-santa-claus.cwp

Absolutely. I totally score free stuff there all the time. Last 2 freebies were izotope Nectar and Ozone 9 elements for free. Both because I bought a $ 8 VST. I have tried them both but found the Nectar when you use the automatic gizmo made my vocals sound worse. And actually quieter. So I guess that is hit or miss. But it is straight forward to dial in your own settings. It's very subtle which is a good thing. Don't go looking for "wow that sounds 100% better" it's very small difference. Same with Ozone. I slapped it on a few songs in the master buss and the automatic gizmo didn't change a dang thing that I could hear. I think my mix was so perfect it baffled the software

Glad I got to help. Yes keep those old sound modules going. This winter I plan on digging all of mine out and hooking them up. If you have a lot of them a mixing board is the way to go. I'll be dusting off my Yamaha 01v which I will run everything into. I also have a MIdi splitter box I made with a toggle switch. I think it was a Craig Anderton project from the Electronic Musician mag days. Hardware lasts forever. And it tends to gather dust, but some of those boxes cost me $1,800 so heck if I'm going to sell them and only get $50. I especially love my Korg o5R/W.

I do this as my mike lead isn't a jack and doesn't fit the Steinberg input jack. I just caught this. What type of mike and cable is this and what model interface? Most interfaces have XLR inputs, can't think of any that don't? And it would be scary to think your mike doesn't have a XLR cable. That implies low quality hi Impedance. Or very old Shure. It's not the really the issue but seems odd. Nothing wrong with using a mixer. I used to always have a little Mackie in front of my interface. It has better pre amps and the headphones are easier to control otherwise I'm messing with Mix Control software. There should be very little difference as long as you use short good quality balanced cables. Kurre- I always say "This is the way I do it" I never say it's the correct way. It's what I have learned results in a mix that translates and sounds balanced on all other systems. What is the point of adding frequencies that most will not hear on a cell phone speaker. I leave plenty of low end which comes across in a sub woofer.

I thought it would be fun to share ideas on messing around with Christmas music. There are 100's of midi files available so this is a good opportunity for family fun. I've shared the CWP file for Grandma so you can record your own version. I removed all the audio. For the video I'm actually playing live along with the backing track as it is below. I drop the videos ( I used 3 cameras) into Movie Studio Plat 14 and then I add the audio from my Tascam DR 40 which records a board mix to get the vocals and guitar and I also add the the backing track to beef up the mix. I had to change the bass and drum VST's so to the SI instruments so anyone can play it. I realized I forgot to replace the piano part so if you don't have AD Keys use any piano. AD keys is free by the way. I have the full version but the demo is the same minus a few upper and lower octaves. Granma Got run over.cwp

Watch the Creative Sauce videos. He's excellent at explaining this stuff. I watched the one on using audio snap to have a free form track be used to create a tempo map.

I drew this up for someone else with same issue a few weeks ago. It's a standard diagram found in the user manuals of most audio interfaces. He had passive speakers so I've included the stereo amp set up but if your monitors are active then you just run the 1/2 outputs directly to them. Your using your Ketron as both a midi controller and a sound module. This is a little more advanced than most people who just use the VST instruments inside their DAW. First make sure Cakewalk is using ASIO mode for audio. Midi will use MME. Attach all cables as shown in diagram and insert both a midi track and an audio track. Set the input of the midi track to the Focusrite USB midi Omni. arm it for record and see if the meters move. Set the input of the audio track for Stereo Focusrite USB ASIO line 3 You won't need the audio track yet but you can test it right now by arming for record and make sure your getting a signal. Note; you will use inputs 3/4 on the rear of the 6i6 for the output from the Ketron. You will hear the audio from the Kenton in the Scarletts headphone jack and your studio monitors via the direct monitoring function of the 6i6. Make sure to use the default setting in Mix Control. You will then record the midi output of the controller, after you can edit the data, quantize etc then once happy you set the output of the midi track to the Focusrite USB midi. This should play the Ketron. Now arm the audio track and record the playback.

Don't forget the "local off" toggle.

I didn't see your video you posted before my last post. I see now how it works. You will have the loopback channels show in Cakewalk as following When you open the ASIO input dialog. M2 inputs 1/2 are the physical inputs , (on the M4 there is 1/2 and 3/4 ) M2 inputs 3/4 are the virtual loopback input s ( on the M4 5/6 and ? 7/8? ) In the video he is clearly using ASIO mode. So this might depend on the DAW you use and sharing drivers on how it works. Also I think You tubes use 48 hz so might depend on that too. Your stand alone synth might have the options to share drivers or clock rate. . But it looks as easy as setting an audio track in Cakewalk choosing inputs 3/4 and away you go. In other words the loopback features is a simple matter of adding 2 more virtual inputs to the ASIO driver channel list.

On a 2x 2 interface the only way you could have a true loopback is internally via a software mixer. With my Scarlett I have Mix Control which goes beyond the simple controls and option on the hardware. I don't think M2 or M4 come with the Cue Mix software mixer, at least there's no mention of this in the any of the documents and no download link. From the Motu web site and Manual for the M2 and M4 Loopback The M4 driver provides convenient loopback channels to your host computer, so you can easily route computer output back to the computer, where you can mix it with live mics and/or guitar inputs from the M4 in your host software for live streaming or podcasting. Streaming and podcasting has never been easier and better-sounding! LOOPBACK Use the Loopback 1-2 input channels provided by the M Series audio driver to capture audio output from your computer. These channels return the signal being sent to Outputs 1-2 back to the computer, as Loopback inputs 1-2, so that you can capture the signal in your host software, stream it to the web or broadcast it with pod casting software. Mixing loopback with live inputs If you need to mix loopback channels with live inputs, use the Loopback 1-2 Mix channels provided by the M Series audio driver. These channels combine audio being sent to Outputs 1-2 from the computer with any live signals on the unit’s inputs. For example, you could play back a music (or other audio) from your computer software, speak or sing into a mic connected to the M series unit, and feed the combined result back to the computer for recording or internet streaming. ☛ Remember, be careful! When monitoring loopback channels and live inputs, your host software can cause loud feedback loops. Be sure to disable the monitoring of loopback tracks to avoid feedback. This implies a software loopback channel which I do not see in the control panel. If it was anywhere it would be in Cue Mix. Possibly it shows somehow in the interface mixer section in Console view found to the right ? Not overly impressed with info at this point,, very Mac oriented. On the list of DAW's they don't include Cakewalk. Oh well, I downloaded the sparse manual and have installed the driver so ready to go when it gets here. The other downside is it doesn't come with any useful freebies. Focusrite at least came with some 1st class Plug ins and a licence for Addictive keys. This is the Cue Mix which I don't think is included and the very basic control panel.

Sorry Its all Ed's fault. But when I get mine I will most certainly try this. I was thinking it was for reamping too. Or send my vocals though my Lexicon MX 200.

Funny I always wondered about that as I too find it a bit annoying when I copy a clip and try to then paste it in 2 places. I guess I'm inadvertently doing some move that clears the clipboard along the way. I guess there's a feature request. A "copy to Special clipboard" that stayed put until something new was put there. Sure would save time.

I was lucky and found one in Victoria were my son lives. Was 1 of 2 that Long & Mquade had in BC. He should be bringing it to me this coming week. I can see they would be popular as they are $30+ cheaper than the Scarlett4i4 and have better features.

What I have found over time is that if you come up with a plan that seems to work stick with this and then your mixes will be consistent from song to song. This is why I use the sub busses. I have a general idea of where those meters should be for each part. I totally agree with Marled above. I have always put the hi pass filter on every track. Seems strange to some to do this to kick and bass but these are places your levels can go right over the top and the song doesn't even sound very loud. I cut at around 95hz on the bass and 150 on the kick. And think about those frequencies on Vocals or even some guitar parts. You don't need them in a mix. Vocals will just have plosives. EQ is the next thing to master once you've got your head wrapped around things like Compression. And good point made by Dave about peak level is not what matters but Loudness does. Invest in a good LUFs analyzer like the You Lean or Span ( it's free ) and pay more attention to loudness not peak levels. https://youlean.co/ https://www.voxengo.com/product/span/

http://www.gearsoftware.com/pro-mastering.php I guess it's not from your link but your link took me down a rabbit hole that ended up here. Hofa seems well liked and shows up via searches a lot. So does Sonoris. I played around with the Wave Lab tool and it seems pretty straight forward. Wave Lab is never user friendly. They haven't updated the GUI for a long long time. Well maybe they did, but I'm still on version 7. But while looking up DDP I found Wave Lab mentioned a few times so that's how I stumbled on the feature. Was super hidden and had to google the help info.

Actually it's a grossly overpriced USB mixer. Same features would be less than $300 if it was a Mackie, Behringer or Yamaha. Bose uses snake oil marketing to give common features new names and make it all seem like it's magic. I don't think you have any control over some parameters, just stuck with presets. My last client came back at me complaining about how this percussive sound we placed in a song was not loud enough. He couldn't hear it on his beloved Bose stereo. It was very audible everywhere else.

Like all things to do with audio there are many ways to approach this common issue. We all end up with our own best practices. Mine : I use sub busses to group instruments - Bass-Drums-Keys-Guitars-Vocals as example. I can simply turn the instruments down and turn the vocals up. This also allows you to leave the tracks alone once you've say balanced your guitars or synths. It's a can of worms to have to go back to 16-30 tracks and fiddle with levels and effects sends. Compressor - My goodness, I have soooo many compressors I never know which one to use. I'll even use the adaptive limiter on my vocal. But this solves the issue of peaking. There are special plug ins for vocals that are worth a shot. I grabbed IZotope Nectar for free from Plug in Boutique last week. I have also used the Vocal Strip which is included with CbB. I really like the way the delay works. SImple.

I did install the DXi version I just checked and mine says it is also a DXi version but I didn't install it. It might be project specific. I used to use it a long time ago without issue. But now the one project I tried it on it immediately froze up. I tend to move on to better things when this happens instead of troubleshooting.