Exporting Master and two additional buses as a mix...?

[linkbekka]

I`m trying to get to grips with using buses. I`m sending lead vocals to a new bus. I`m sending harmony vocals to an additional bus. I use compression on both and then the faders to get my mix with the rest of the track going through the master.

I have checked my routing. But when I want to export a mix of the piece and chooses buses Cakewalk wants to give me three separate tracks for the three buses...whereas I want the mix that I can hear as a wav file.

I`m doing something fundamentally wrong here...or simple don`t understand the use of buses. 

Please check out the screen grab. It should be obvious to the experienced used where the mistake lies.

To get round the problem I`ve reverted to my usual way of working without creating buses. Get everything right in each individual track and then export the master bus.

Any advice gratefully accepted. Many thanks.

[57Gregy]

If you have multiple busses selected, you will get a mix from each bus. Deselect all but the Master bus.
 

[John Vere]

You only use TRACKS  or BUSES  when you want stems. You use Entire mix to export "what you hear" from your project. 

In Gregs screenshot the export will result in the other buses  actually bypassing the Master and you get 5 stereo stems. 

The Audio interface should ultimately be the source.     I use Entire Mix CD for CD's and Entire Mix MP3 for MP3 for proofing mixes. This setting in the screen shot I will change the sample rate to 48 and Bit Depth to 32 for final mastering. 

Edited February 14, 2022 by John Vere

[Will.]

4 hours ago, linkbekka said:

I`m trying to get to grips with using buses. I`m sending lead vocals to a new bus. I`m sending harmony vocals to an additional bus. I use compression on both and then the faders to get my mix with the rest of the track going through the master.

I have checked my routing. But when I want to export a mix of the piece and chooses buses Cakewalk wants to give me three separate tracks for the three buses...whereas I want the mix that I can hear as a wav file.

I`m doing something fundamentally wrong here...or simple don`t understand the use of buses. 

Please check out the screen grab. It should be obvious to the experienced used where the mistake lies.

To get round the problem I`ve reverted to my usual way of working without creating buses. Get everything right in each individual track and then export the master bus.

Any advice gratefully accepted. Many thanks.

Question to ask is: why do you want to export the final mix as a bus and not as ENTIRE MIX which will burn all your Tracks, Aux and Busses as one single file with all its effects included. 

[John Vere]

 I demonstrate proper use of the export dialogue in the end of this video

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by John Vere

[David Baay]

2 minutes ago, Will_Kaydo said:

Question to ask is: why do you want to export the final mix as a bus and not as ENTIRE MIX

'ENTIRE MIX' is all hardware outputs which may include signals you don't want in your export (e.g. a headphone mix sent to a vocal booth). I always recommend to export the Master bus.

[Will.]

3 minutes ago, David Baay said:

'ENTIRE MIX' is all hardware outputs which may include signals you don't want in your export (e.g. a headphone mix sent to a vocal booth). I always recommend to export the Master bus.

Entire Mix gives me exactly what I want. Guess my routing is different and gives me precisely what I want. 

[John Vere]

Good advice  but my guess it's very few people would have that set up happening, and if they did they would be probably be someone who either totally understands signal paths. . or their audio interface uses a software mixer that they have not figured out yet. But generally speaking huge majority of people only have the Master bus feeding outputs 1/2 of the interface. Most people using Cakewalk now are reported to be using on board audio these days.  

My method for Cue mixes is to use Outputs 3/4 of my interface. Outputs 1/2 are to the Studio Monitors and interfaces Headphones. 

AND my advice and something I've repeated a million times is  " Always mute your master bus with the song playing to check if anything is bypassing it and going directly to your Hardware outs"   This eliminates any weirdness in your export when using Entire mix and Hardware  as the source. 

 

[David Baay]

http://forum.cakewalk.com/Exporting-a-final-mix-m2509719.aspx

Cakewalk CTO Noel Borthwick on exporting a final mix:

"The cleanest and most deterministic way is to bounce the output of a final bus, typically named master as it is in the normal template but it can be any other name of your choice. 

For convenience we also allow the capability to output the "entire mix". When you choose "entire mix" internally the bounce process creates a "virtual master bus" and redirects the outputs of all the hardware mains to this. Then the virtual master is rendered. This essentially is summing SONAR's output to ALL hardware outputs. 

Entire mix can be a useful shortcut sometimes when you don't have a master bus - e.g older projects created before bussing existed.  However you have to be careful that you don't have any duplicate signal paths sending to your hardware, or these signals will be summed into your mix, probably not something you want. A common reason why this might happen is if you have your project set up to send to headphone outs.
Another common problem here is if you have adjusted the level of your hardware mains for listening purposes this gainstage will be included in the bounce which may not be what you want.

So in short its better to manage this yourself by keeping a final bus and always rendering its output wen you want to bounce your project. 

[John Vere]

Well I think that statement could be sort of incorrect.  At least it’s contrary to what I have always believed. 
If you look at my screen shot you will see it shows only my 1/2 as output. This is the same for my Tascam and Motu interfaces.   It does not imply that it is using the 3/4 outputs at all? Seems to me if it was it would be showing those as well. I’d expect a second or 3rd check box? 

I have never in probably over 1,000 exports using “Entire Mix” and possibly 6 different interfaces with most having 4 outputs, had an export mix sound any different than what I was getting in Cakewalk. Is this just dumb luck?  
If there’s a difference it was always because a track or bus was not routed to the master . 

The statement above is even contradictory to the signal flow diagram that they post. It clearly shows the Master going to the chosen Hardware pair. 

We have be told that your audio interface has nothing to do with the export. It is directly from Cakewalk to your hard drive. 
So I will continue to assume that means from the Master buss only. 
And once again if you mute the Master it will cure any doubt of what is being exported. 
 

If by headphones you mean you make a headphones bus and send it directly to your 1/2 hardware outs then that to me was user error. 

Edited February 15, 2022 by John Vere

[David Baay]

The 'hardware' buses in Cakewalk are still virtual/software; the audio interface driver comes after them. If everything is ultimately routed through Master to a single hardware bus and the levels are not altered on that bus, Entire Mix will indeed be the same as the Master. You make a good point that hardware buses are only displayed in the output list for Entire Mix if something is actually routed to them so there is an opportunity to see that something is not going to the Main Out 1-2, and to exclude it by unchecking it if necessary or to go looking for the unexpected routing to it. But as busy as the export dialog is, this could easily be overlooked in the heat of battle.

In any case, no one is saying that exporting Entire Mix is wrong, just that exporting the Master bus directly is a best practice to avoid unexpected results.

 

 

[msmcleod]

@linkbekka  - if you want to export a selection of buses as a mix of only those buses, the easiest way to do it is to do an "Entire Mix" export, but solo only the buses you want to export, e.g.:


 

[linkbekka]

Many thanks. 

Yes, entire mix works....but will have to check I`m not just duplicating tracks in the buses.

I`m sure i didn`t have this puzzle before.

Thanks anyway.

[Kalle Rantaaho]

On 2/15/2022 at 11:10 AM, David Baay said:

In any case, no one is saying that exporting Entire Mix is wrong, just that exporting the Master bus directly is a best practice to avoid unexpected results.

That's what I've been told, too.

Ever since I've worked in SONAR/ Cakewalk as a hobbyist I've been advised by the more experienced to route everything to export through the master bus.

This is maybe (?) the first time since early 90's that I see someone preferring Entire Mix and not causing a burst of disagreement.