Track Mixdown - no FX

[Fabio Rubato]

Hi, I haven't down stem mixdowns for mastering before, so I'm trying it out. I normally export the stereo mix and then do my mastering separately. So today, I'm mixing down the individual tracks to then re-import into Cakewalk for mastering. 

I selected the entire mix and then for exporting, just the tracks. I made sure the checkbox for Bus FX, Clip Automation etc was selected and did the mxdown. 

However when it came to importing, there are no bus FX. So for example, the reverb, delay weren't preset...just dry tracks. What am I doing incorrectly? 

 

Thanks in advance

[martsave martin s]

have you select the preset "what you hear"..

[John]

I may be wrong but what you are asking Cakewalk to do seems on the face not possible. Having just tracks as your output precludes using a master bus. If you want to have the bus and its FX  it must be the source for exporting. Checking bus FX wont run the audio through it.  

[Leadfoot]

Stem mixdown normally means exporting the busses.  I would suggest doing it like that instead of exporting every track. 

[John]

I agree if that is really what he wants to do. I got the impression he was trying to export an entire project with all its tracks so he could send it to someone. I also agree with how you are using the term stem. 

[Leadfoot]

Are you using effect sends on the individual tracks, and routing the sends to dedicated fx busses, or are you just grouping guitars, vox etc, and sending them to their own busses that have fx on them? If you use effect sends on the individual tracks, they should show up on the bounced tracks. 

Edited February 15, 2019 by Leadfoot

[Fabio Rubato]

thanks for responding guys. I'm trying to mixdown the individual tracks their track FX and the sends to various buses - eg, drums to bus 1 with comp, drums to bus 2 for parallel processing, bus 3 for all drums - including PP - and then to a submix and finally master. 

Some  special vox tracks might have some SFX, but usually vox are send to eg a vox bus - eq, comp etc, whilst the track might also have sends to eg, reverb, delay etc.

So as you can appreciate, this eats up CPU, so my intention is to mix down all the various tracks wavs, with their individual and bus processing, and then import back to a master template for final tweaking and mastering. This would include all automation, effect sends and bus FX/processing.

The export tracks with 'what you hear' did not work - thanks for the suggestion.

The export of the buses gives me the FX, and processing, submix, master etc, but not the individual tracks.

 

Leadfoot - a bit of both as I'm trying to explain above. The main FX are on the buses. 

I've seen this done in tutes on Abelton Live, so I"m trying to do the same thing here but maybe as initially suggested you can't do stem creation like this? The best I can do at this point is to 'freeze' all tracks - which does reduce CPU - and go into a master like this...but I really prefer a clean template...or mixdown just a stereo track and master this...but I don't have the same type of control as I would if I had all the track's wavs with their incorporated FX/processing. 

 

[msmcleod]

Have you tried freezing the tracks (with Track FX) before exporting them?

[Fwrend]

Frankly, I think you're overcomplicating the mix-> master process.    Doing as you describe would basically give you what you have in your project  now.    While msmleod's suggestion would help, you would still have to do  two separate exports, i.e. one for individual tracks (which negates the need for freezing as this would be done on export) and one for busses.

However, this defeats the purpose of stems in the first place.  Stems would require the requisite Busses setup with ALL tracks going to their respective busses Doing this, you would end up with much fewer tracks to deal with but a little more flexibility at Mastering.   In my mind, routing is the issue, not export.  Do your routing (even if you have the odd track going to a bus with nothing on it) and export Busses as shown below.

You may know all this and I may be missing your intent (my apologies) so in that case  nothing else comes to mind.  Perhaps you could direct us to a Live tute you refer to.

EDIT: if you're simply wanting the ability to adjust the dry/wet mix of Buss FX post export, you could setup two busses for each grouping - one dry and one wet.  At least this way you are still minimizing/consolidating tracks for Mastering but giving you additional flexibility?  But if so, why not just apply Buss FX in the Mastering project?

Edited February 15, 2019 by Fwrend

[Fabio Rubato]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. There's a few ways to go at the end of mixdown before mastering, that I'm figuring out.

1. Stay in CW and freeze tracks and add to mastering chain, if haven't been doing that...some like to mix into comp, etc. This still has processing on the buses, which may or may not limit your mastering processing.

2. mixdown to stereo tracks and either import into CB mastering template, or import into 3rd party mastering program like iZotope.

3. Mixdown groups tracks with their processing and import into a new CW session for mastering chain setup. 

The latter idea is Syence's approach  to mastering- Hyperbits - https://hyperbitsmusic.com - it's a paid for tute so you won't be able to see it. The idea here is to expand the mastering process to have some further groups available for individual processing if necessary.  So  for eg, if you wanted the piano lower, rather than go back into a mix to do so, or if you wanted maybe a specif eq cut, a stereo mixdown might limit this further 'fine-tuning'. But if you had some groups, you might be in a better position to do so. 

I don't know if it will be necessarliy better mind you as I haven't tested it yet. I found the only way I could do this is to mixdown one group or track at a time as an 'entire' mix and just solo it before mixing it down. This gives me what I was chasing...a track - or group of say basses, - with processing, including the bus FX/processing.

All good, thanks for help and ideas. Appreciate  it guys. Cheers. :-)

[John]

I tend to do everything in the project now. That is because I have updated my computer and am able to run a lot more plugins. However one does it / export/import or all in one, the mixing stage is the most important stage where if that is done right the mastering stage is easy. Look upon mastering as polishing the song not doing deep adjustments.  

[Fabio Rubato]

Thanks for that John. I agree with you re the 'polishing' stage for the most part. I like the idea though of maybe having some other options open, should you need them. It appears to work for Syence and it's something I've never considered doing...so give new approached a try hey? Cheers

[John]

I forgot to add mastering is also important for tailoring the output for various media.  

[Daniel Vrangsinn]

I have never done stem mastering myself, just the regular kind. But I would send the tracks to dedicated buses for each intrument group. Guitars to a guitar bus, drums to a drum bus and so on, and then just solo the buses I want to export. I think that is what the mastering engineer wants 

[Cookie Jarvis]

Read up on this a bit and to me it's just light buss mixing followed by the traditional 2-track mastering.

Bill

[Fabio Rubato]

5 hours ago, Daniel Vrangsinn said:

I have never done stem mastering myself, just the regular kind. But I would send the tracks to dedicated buses for each intrument group. Guitars to a guitar bus, drums to a drum bus and so on, and then just solo the buses I want to export. I think that is what the mastering engineer wants 

Yes, that's the idea. I tried this and it's certainly a way of getting groups of voices for mastering treatment..instead of just a stereo mixdown of the entire mix. I believe this also works from the track group as well...ie, solo the group track - say guitars - and mix that down...you then get the bus FX/processing as well...if you mix it down as an entire track. Maybe bus export is a more elegant way, assuming everything is sent to such. I sometimes take sends out from a track to other FX buses , so I guess the track mixdown is better...unless you also mixdown the bus FX for those specific sends...if that makes any sense.?

[Fabio Rubato]

5 hours ago, Cookie Jarvis said:

Read up on this a bit and to me it's just light buss mixing followed by the traditional 2-track mastering.

Bill

Bill I think the idea here is to have some groups of voices from a mix you're happy with, to then apply final tweaking and setting up a mastering chain. So theoretically, you could have an instruments group, vox group, bass/rhythm groups, and send those groups to the master bus. I was trying this yesterday and it certainly felt 'a lot lighter' is terms of CPU and memory use. I liked being able to further fine-tune the levels of the various voices or do whatever as they fed into the mastering chain. So I'm liking it so far. No way is the correct way of doing this of course. It's just something I haven't tried before. :-)