Newbie Questions

[nisthana]

1. Whats the difference between a channel and a track ?
2. Does stereo mean 2 tracks or 2 channels ?
3. Whats SMTE ?
4. Whats volume evolution ?
5. Whats a wave editor ?
6. Whats an aux channel ?
7. Whats the master channel ? Is there a slave channel ?
8. Whats send and whats return ?
9. Whats bouncing ?
10. Why the hell am I asking these stupid questions ?

I was reading the n-Track manual and had these queries.Sorry if they sound so stupid.But someone once told me "There arent any stupid questions,there are only stupid answers" ;-)
More to come later. maybe you can include this into your n-Track FAQ list.

[Slackmaster2K]

Originally posted by nisthana
1. Whats the difference between a channel and a track ?

Sometimes nothing...in some discussion they are used almost interchangably. But they are different concepts. Think of a track as a track on audio tape. If you have a 16 track tape, then the tape is split up into 16 discrete parallel sections, called "tracks". A channel, on the other hand, is an audio path. In the analog realm, a channel would be an input on a mixer, for instance. You might connect each of the 16 outputs on your 16 track tape machine to an input CHANNEL on a mixer, such that you can create your mix.

When it comes to computer-based multitracking, it gets kind of confusing...just think of a channel as a path...think of a track as file or group of files all on the same channel (e.g. they all share controls for volume, pan, send to aux, return from aux, effects inserts, etc). When you're recording in n-Track, each time you hit record a new wave file is created and placed into a new track, which in this case could appropriately be called a channel. Yikes

When we talk about soundcards themselves, we only talk about channels, never "tracks". A 4 channel soundcard has at least 4 mono inputs, and typically (but it's not a rule), at least 4 mono outputs.

2. Does stereo mean 2 tracks or 2 channels ?

Stereo means both! A stereo track exists as two discrete tracks, regardless of the medium. Thus a typical cassette tape is split up into two tracks, representing left & right. An audio CD has data representing two discrete tracks, representing left & right. etc.

A channel is just a path remember...thus a stereo tape deck has two discrete channels inside on which it moves audio. It has an output for each channel, such that it can be connected to an amplifier. In a CD player, there will only be one data "path", but the data is encoded such that the player knows which data is technically on the left channel and which data is technically on the right channel.

Let's talk about your soundcard. It's an SB Live and thus has one stereo input and at least one stereo output. That means that it has TWO input channels. Thus you can record up to two tracks at one time. Confused? Just mull over it a little bit and it'll come to you.

3. Whats SMTE ?

It's a time code typically striped to tape or video to synch machines to other equipment (like other tape machines for instance). There is also something you'll see called MTC which is "Midi Time Code" and is used to synch MIDI devices. n-Track has support for both.

4. Whats volume evolution ?

Basically changes in volume over time.

In n-Track talk, you can draw volume "envelopes" on a track, and the track's volume change based on that envelope. This is often referred to as automation. You can also automate panning, aux bussing, and effects parameters.

5. Whats a wave editor ?

A program used to edit wave files. A wave file is an uncompressed file containing raw audio data. Everything you record with n-Track will exist as wave files. n-Track has some wave editing capabilities...you can modify volume and do a few tricks, but it's not as good as a full-fledged editor like Wavelab or Soundforge.

6. Whats an aux channel ?

An aux channel is a channel to which you can connect effects and processors. You can route multiple tracks (notice how tracks and channels are starting to be used interchangably!) to an aux bus for processing, and can control how much is sent to aux and how much is returned. With n-Track, you can also specify whether an aux channel will be pre or post fader, which means "is a track routed to the channel after it has hit its main volume fader or before?"

A typical use for an aux channel might be applying reverb to a group of drum tracks. Typically you'll want a drum kit to have somewhat consistant reverb, so you'll route each drum track (say snare, kick, and two overheads) to an aux channel with a reverb plugin attached. You might send a little more snare than kick, though, or whatever, you have complete control.

You'll often hear aux channels referred to as busses. A bus is an audio channel to which multiple signals are added.

7. Whats the master channel ? Is there a slave channel ?

No. The master channel, or master bus, is what everything you do is summed to....the entire mix. Hmm, what's the best way to put this...when you're mixing, the master bus is where everything ends up. It is a two channel (stereo) bus. If you add an effect to the master bus, the effect is applied to the entire mix. If you increase the gain on the master, the gain of the entire mix is increased. TYPICALLY you'll leave the master alone.

8. Whats send and whats return ?

Send means send and return means return If you "send" an audio signal to an effects processor, it has to come back on a "return", otherwise it's useless. You "send" a signal to an aux channel and control its "return" to the master bus. Your guitar amplifier might have an effects "send" and "return", where you can add effects after the preamp.

9. Whats bouncing ?

The process of mixing down two or more tracks to one track with the intent of freeing up available tracks. Let's say you have a 4 track machine and you want to record two vocal tracks, two guitar tracks, and one bass track. That's five tracks! So you might record your guitars to tracks one and two, and then bounce them to track 4, thus freeing up the three tracks you'll need. When you bounce two or more tracks to one track, it is a permanent deal, and you can never seperate them or mix them differently....because they exist as one track! You also start to lose quality because you're recording tape tracks to tape tracks. Each time you do this it's called a "generation"...if you bounce a guitar around 4 different times, its signal on the tape will be 5 generations old, and sound quite bad.

You'll rarely bounce with n-Track....the only time it would be necessary is if your computer didn't have the power to handle what you were doing....in which case it would just be a temporary thing...blah, don't worry about this yet. "Generations" don't mean squat, because it's all digital. Bouncing and mixing down in a computer multitracker are going to be the exact same thing.


Slackmaster 2000

[nisthana]

Slackmaster,
I owe you one. Thanks much for answering my questions (so they werent stupid afterall eh?).
Now things are little clearer than before, but I would definitely have more questions.
Thanks for the help
- n