sibleypeck
New member
As a young man of twenty-five, I was fortunate to have an opportunity to work along side Huey Meaux, Mickey Moody and Freddy Fender at Sugarhill Studios in Houston, TX. And though my duties there consisted of cleaning the studios and chaufferring people, I got to observe a lot of sessions and became superficially acquainted with professional recording procedures. I even got a chance to record a few of my own songs, working by myself, but never got far enough along to learn anything of true value.
I left Sugarhill in 1981, and ever since have dreamed of having a studio of my own. With the advent of digital technology, this dream is becoming a reality, though on the smallest of scales.
I have been working with Cakewalk Pro Audio 8 for almost two years now, spending that entire time on a single project, and I am at a point in the learning curve where I am able to ask a reasonably intelligent question.
The HR Forum has been my only contact with people of similar interests, and has already helped me to overcome one pesky roadblock - the inability to apply EQ to MIDI tracks, by converting them first to audio tracks. This provides enormous flexibility in controlling the sound of the mix, and I have had great fun in experimenting with it. Now, for the first time, I feel like I am finding out what mixing is all about, which raises questions of a different order.
Twice, I have encountered situations where notes did not respond to controller volume fade messages. In the first instance, I traced the problem to an improper channel assignment. I don’t recall the specifics, only that once I changed a channel assignment, the problem disappeared. The second time I encountered a stuck note, I went in search of a bad channel assignment and could not find one, but was able to correct the problem by deleting a note one octave below the note that was stuck. The over-all sound (a chord on an organ) changed only slightly, but the offending note now responds to controller instructions to fade. I don’t know why this corrected the problem, but it did.
The most recent obstacle I encountered was in making a CD copy to listen to in the car. The mix sounded okay on the computer, but in the car the level of the audio tracks that I had converted from MIDI was way low compared to the audio tracks that were audio tracks to begin with. I have not been able to discern the cause and, since I will be making another CD copy soon, would like to some advice on how to avoid this problem. That is Question number 1.
What I plan to do is to “Save As” the project and separate the drums to individual tracks (one for the kick, one for the snare, one for each of the two toms), convert them to audio, and apply a different EQ to each track. And this brings me to the reason for posting this query: questions about Aux Sends and Aux Busses.
I understand what an Aux Send is, and what an Aux Bus is. I understand what they do and how they work, largely due to two great resources: Cakewalk Power, by Scott Garrigus, and The Musician’s Guide to Home Recording, by Peter McIan and Larry Wichman. Both these books are full of valuable information, and are written from completely different perspectives.
Though I understand why Aux Sends and Aux Busses exist, I am having trouble understanding the reasons for choosing among the options those features afford.
Unless I am mistaken, the Aux Send enables one to route data from a track to an Aux Bus in order to apply a single effect to a group of tracks, say background vocals, rather than several identical effects to each of the vocal tracks, thus lightening the load on the CPU. Perhaps this is only one of several reasons for Aux Sends and Busses, but what I am having trouble with is understanding how some of the Send and Bus controls affect the sound. For example:
With respect to the Aux Send:
Question 2: What affect does varying the Aux Send Level have on the sound?
Question 3: What are the advantages of tapping the signal before it passes through the Volume Control (pre) compared to tapping the signal after it passes through the Volume Control (post)?
With respect to the Aux Buss:
Question 4: What affect does varying the input level (Send Level) coming into the Bus have on the sound?
Question 5: What affect does varying the Send Balance have on the sound? Is it simply so one can pan the background voices left and the reverb right, for example, or is there more to it?
I assume the Return Level control enables one to vary the amount of effect applied to the original signal, but isn’t that what the dry/wet ratio does? So:
Question 6: What affect does varying the Return Balance have on the sound?
I have some questions about Port and Channel assignments, too, but as this post is already quite long, I will save those for another time.
To anyone who takes the time to answer any of the six questions above, I extend my deepest gratitude. And if there is anyone who thinks I might be able to help them in any way, I will certainly try.
Thanks.
sib
I left Sugarhill in 1981, and ever since have dreamed of having a studio of my own. With the advent of digital technology, this dream is becoming a reality, though on the smallest of scales.
I have been working with Cakewalk Pro Audio 8 for almost two years now, spending that entire time on a single project, and I am at a point in the learning curve where I am able to ask a reasonably intelligent question.
The HR Forum has been my only contact with people of similar interests, and has already helped me to overcome one pesky roadblock - the inability to apply EQ to MIDI tracks, by converting them first to audio tracks. This provides enormous flexibility in controlling the sound of the mix, and I have had great fun in experimenting with it. Now, for the first time, I feel like I am finding out what mixing is all about, which raises questions of a different order.
Twice, I have encountered situations where notes did not respond to controller volume fade messages. In the first instance, I traced the problem to an improper channel assignment. I don’t recall the specifics, only that once I changed a channel assignment, the problem disappeared. The second time I encountered a stuck note, I went in search of a bad channel assignment and could not find one, but was able to correct the problem by deleting a note one octave below the note that was stuck. The over-all sound (a chord on an organ) changed only slightly, but the offending note now responds to controller instructions to fade. I don’t know why this corrected the problem, but it did.
The most recent obstacle I encountered was in making a CD copy to listen to in the car. The mix sounded okay on the computer, but in the car the level of the audio tracks that I had converted from MIDI was way low compared to the audio tracks that were audio tracks to begin with. I have not been able to discern the cause and, since I will be making another CD copy soon, would like to some advice on how to avoid this problem. That is Question number 1.
What I plan to do is to “Save As” the project and separate the drums to individual tracks (one for the kick, one for the snare, one for each of the two toms), convert them to audio, and apply a different EQ to each track. And this brings me to the reason for posting this query: questions about Aux Sends and Aux Busses.
I understand what an Aux Send is, and what an Aux Bus is. I understand what they do and how they work, largely due to two great resources: Cakewalk Power, by Scott Garrigus, and The Musician’s Guide to Home Recording, by Peter McIan and Larry Wichman. Both these books are full of valuable information, and are written from completely different perspectives.
Though I understand why Aux Sends and Aux Busses exist, I am having trouble understanding the reasons for choosing among the options those features afford.
Unless I am mistaken, the Aux Send enables one to route data from a track to an Aux Bus in order to apply a single effect to a group of tracks, say background vocals, rather than several identical effects to each of the vocal tracks, thus lightening the load on the CPU. Perhaps this is only one of several reasons for Aux Sends and Busses, but what I am having trouble with is understanding how some of the Send and Bus controls affect the sound. For example:
With respect to the Aux Send:
Question 2: What affect does varying the Aux Send Level have on the sound?
Question 3: What are the advantages of tapping the signal before it passes through the Volume Control (pre) compared to tapping the signal after it passes through the Volume Control (post)?
With respect to the Aux Buss:
Question 4: What affect does varying the input level (Send Level) coming into the Bus have on the sound?
Question 5: What affect does varying the Send Balance have on the sound? Is it simply so one can pan the background voices left and the reverb right, for example, or is there more to it?
I assume the Return Level control enables one to vary the amount of effect applied to the original signal, but isn’t that what the dry/wet ratio does? So:
Question 6: What affect does varying the Return Balance have on the sound?
I have some questions about Port and Channel assignments, too, but as this post is already quite long, I will save those for another time.
To anyone who takes the time to answer any of the six questions above, I extend my deepest gratitude. And if there is anyone who thinks I might be able to help them in any way, I will certainly try.
Thanks.
sib
. I don't use midi or cakewalk, so sorry don't know the answer.