EQ Magazine - September 2007 - (Page 40)

THE SOFTWARE POWER USER GUIDE “off” when manually set to off, or for tracks that exceed the 32 or 48 track limits of LE and MPT. Tracks disabled in this way will also be “grayed out” on the edit screen. Or, click on the Track Type button, also located directly below the faders (Figure 1). On audio tracks, this icon looks like a miniature waveform. Clicking on it disables or enables the entire track (including plug-ins), in one easy step. When tracks are disabled with the Track Type button, tracks in the edit window will be grayed out — as will the mixer fader, all plug-in inserts, and aux sends. 3. Create a new stereo audio track. Assign an unused aux send as its input source (e.g., Aux Bus 1 & 2 in Figure 1). 4. Set the output for the tracks you want to premix to Aux 1 & 2 so they’re routed to the new stereo track. Watch your levels; if you premix too many “hot” tracks at once, you can overload the stereo premix track’s input. If needed, lower the volume faders of all the individual source tracks by a few dB, or use Trim plug-ins. 5. Mix those tracks relative to the rough mix of the song, using whatever individual processors, automation, and other techniques as you feel appropriate, and record the premix to the new stereo audio track. 6. Use the Voice Selector or Track Type buttons to disable the tracks you just premixed. This will free up at least six tracks for additional overdubs, or eight if you’re willing to disable the stereo submix you just recorded while you track additional parts. If you need to hear the first submix while tracking still more parts, just disable a few more tracks that you can afford to do without while you track the additional overdubs. If you’re running low on CPU power, disable any plug-ins on all of the disabled source tracks after premixing. Disabling a track using the Track Type icon does this step automatically, but if you used the Voice Selector buttons, you’ll need to disable the plug-ins manually. Merely bypassing the plug-in (instead of disabling it) takes it out of the audio signal path, but still requires the same CPU resources as when it’s processing audio. To toggle the plug-in between enabled and disabled, use the key command Control + Windows Logo Key + click on the mix screen’s plug-in insert (on a Mac, use Command + Control + click). Either method will retain all automation and other settings whenever you need to reenable the track or plug-in. If that’s still not enough tracks, or you’d prefer to premix your dozens of background vocal tracks all at once, there’s one other option. 1. Instead of bouncing just a few tracks at once, do a premix of the entire song (for headphone monitoring purposes). 2. Record the premix to a new stereo track. 3. Disable all the tracks except for the new stereo track. 4. Create a couple dozen new tracks. 5. Record your wall of background vocal tracks on them. 6. Premix those down to one or more stereo tracks. 7. Disable the new vocal tracks. 8. Re-enable the original instrumental tracks. It’s usually best to premix into several stereo pairs — putting all the high harmonies on one stereo track, the low parts on another, and so forth, because it allows more control over them in the mix than if all the harmony parts share one stereo track. Regarding input monitoring, note that Alt + K toggles between Input Only and Auto input monitoring; set it to Input Only so you can hear what’s coming into the stereo track via the aux bus, even when you’re not actually recording. What if you later decide the levels, EQ, panning, etc. of your premix weren’t right? Unlike an analog tape bounce, you still have the source tracks and automation saved and part of the session, so all you have to do is disable a few tracks, re-enable your source tracks, and redo the premix with whatever changes you want to make. You’ll also have little or no sonic degradation when doing a digital bounce — especially Fig. 5: Preventing the processor in a Mac PPC-based computer from “taking a nap” can improve audio performance when using FireWire interfaces. Fig. 6: DXMan is a simple program that shows the complete roster of DirectX plug-ins in your Windows computer. In this example, PSP VintageWarmer was selected, and the Info button clicked, to show the details about this plug-in. 40 EQ SEPTEMBER 2007 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - September 2007

Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly Ben and Vesper Kaiser Chiefs Toolbox Ozma Porcupine Tree Rush The Software Power User Guide Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drumheads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Chameleon Labs TS1 and TS2 Primera Bravo Se Disc Publisher Roland MC-808 Magix Samplitude Professional 9.1 Massey Tape-Head Big Fish Audio Revolucion Reggaeton Sonivox World Beats Sony Pocket Diva Adobe Audition 2.0 Cakewalk Sonar 6 Room with a VU: J Street Recorders, Sacramento, CA

EQ Magazine - September 2007

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