Aux summing in PT

[krinkelfish]

Heyo...
Trying some new mixing techniques in Pro Tools, using an aux bus with compression, eq, etc. for drums and such...

Do y'all use the buss feature to send the signal to the aux, and mix under the original track, or send the ENTIRE output to the aux channel?

I've tried both ways, with good results.
is there a "right" way to do this?

What are some of your favorite plugs?

Also, very dumb question, I know but...
Can you print the plug when recording?

Or is this an Audio Suite deal AFTER the track is printed?

 

[LRosario]

"Do y'all use the buss feature to send the signal to the aux, and mix under the original track, or send the ENTIRE output to the aux channel?"

My answer: yes


The reason you do that is to save you memory when using plug-ins. At the same time, it's easier and more efficient to compress the buss than each individual track. Even further, you can send a copy of that buss to a reverb aux track which will definitly give you more options to work with.

"Can you print the plug when recording?"

Yes, but you usually wouldn't want to since you might need to make a change at any point of the mixing process. There is a way to do this, but I unfortunatly don't have enough time to explain how you can do that. It's easy to do though.

my two cents.

 

[bennychico11]

if you want to "print" the effect...then just route your effected track to a new track. and record that. this is a good way to free up plugins since you can remove them or disable them after you're done...freeing up CPU usage.

aux tracks, in the world of analog consoles, were usually used for time based effects (reverbs, etc.) since you'd want to generally blend reverb with the dry track. however, there is no rule saying you can't use compression or any other kind of effect. blending a compressed version of the track with the original one is known as New York style compression....in this tecnique you would simply just bus a send to the aux track. sending the output of the track to the aux track will work also, but some people feel this doesn't give you enough control over the individual track's compression if you're compressing other tracks with it.

 

[reshp1]

I generally like to put corrective EQ and Compression on each individual track. Things like reverb and delay I use an AUX. I'll strap EQ's across multiple tracks using AUX for "mixing" EQ to do things like carving out frequencies across all the guitars to make room for vocals.

 

[caroncrest]

Hey i have a question or two.

I have been using compression with sends and aux tracks in Pro Tools, but having some serious phase issues. I'll set up a send on each drum track and send a signal to a stereo aux track to keep the panning the same. I will then heavily compress the aux send of the drum tracks and then mix it up under the original drum track to add a bit of "punch" or "life" to the drum track. Problem is, that i get serious phase issues. I have tried flipping the phase with a 1 band eq on the aux track, but that only half-way fixes the phase problem.

So does anyone know how to fix this problem? I want the original uncompressed drum tracks along with the compressed tracks to mix in, but with no phase problems.

Thanks

Mark

 

[reshp1]

Hmm, what plugs are you using? The stock compression plug only has a few samples of latency, so that shouldn't really be an issue.

Try this though...
If you have spare CPU power, route the signal to another AUX track the same way, with the same compression, but set the threshold at 0 (or bypass the plug). That'll give you the exact same latency on both tracks so they will line up.

 

[krinkelfish]

Thanks for the advice, all good.

It seems to be the opinion of running the aux buss UNDER the original tracks, yes?


Has anyone ever used (another) computer to JUST run plugs?

We have 2 G4's and 2 DIGI001's...

You could run OUT of the analog out of one, to the IN of the other, and back out, using plugs (and not taxing the playback DIGI) right?

Or, does PT have to be running in order for the plugs to be functioning?

I wouldn't think so, cuz you can play a guitar through Amplitube and change in real time, right?

 

[reshp1]

Thanks for the advice, all good.

It seems to be the opinion of running the aux buss UNDER the original tracks, yes?


Has anyone ever used (another) computer to JUST run plugs?

We have 2 G4's and 2 DIGI001's...

You could run OUT of the analog out of one, to the IN of the other, and back out, using plugs (and not taxing the playback DIGI) right?

Or, does PT have to be running in order for the plugs to be functioning?

I wouldn't think so, cuz you can play a guitar through Amplitube and change in real time, right?

Not sure I understand you when you say "Under the original tracks." You can mix the Aux outs with the original "Dry" tracks for things like Reverb, or mute the main outputs of the original track to only hear the AUX track.

I wouldn't run the plugs on another machine unless you are seriously short on CPU power. Not only will you get significant latency in the converters and playback buffer, but you'll also lose fidelity by going through the A/D and D/A converters twice each time. You can NOT play plugs in realtime, when using "low latency mode" you won't be able to use plugins on the record enabled tracks. If you don't use low latency mode, there will be at least 128 samples worth of latency, assuming you computer will allow you to run with such a low buffer setting.