DAW mixing, routing, clipping ?'s

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jrich

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Hi everyone.

I have just started to mix a project for real, and I ran into some things that I have questions about. I have mixed a few songs before, but all just as practice.

1. The drummer is very sporadic, and if I set the drums at a nominal level there are a few times when the snare clips on the overheads and the snare track. I have tamed this a bit with compression. My question is...Should I set the levels so that the loudest snare hit is just below clipping, and then use a limiter on the final mix. Or should I place a limiter in the signal chain somewhere during mixing to keep the levels below clipping.

2. I am a little confused on the routing. I am using Vegas (maybe i should post this in the sonic foundry forum but I assume daw routing is fairly similiar) All of the tracks have fx inserts on them, but they only allow specific sonic foundry plugins. So I have set up fx sends (i think thats what they are). I have one for the kick, snare, oh, and toms, and I am sending the signal to those, and routing all those to a drum buss. Then I have busses set up for acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, vocals, and the solo. Is this correct? The fx sends were a little confusing to me.

3. The guitar amp was recorded with five mics (ya i know its a lot) so I have five tracks for each guitar part. This has given me like 50 tracks for some songs, but there usually isn't more than about 20-30 at a time. This is already taxing my system and amd 1800. Should I mix down all of those guitar tracks into one track, so I just have one guitar track for each part recorded? I pretty much think I should, I just wanted other peoples opinions.

Hope these questions aren't too stupid. I did a search but was having a hard time figuring out a good search term and couldn't find much. If anyone could direct me to any reading or a thread too that would be great.

Thanks,
josh
 
1. When is it clipping? During recording or mixing? Compression/limitng during the mix won't help if you clipped while recording.

2. Sounds about right.

3. 5 mics!!! What are you doing there? It would definately make sense to mix it down to a stereo pair or at least send it to a buss and put the effects on the buss to save processing power.
 
thanks

tex.

Ok, so I just typed this long post and it didn't go, so this one'll be shorter. I believe I've found a lot of answers, which point to Vegas Pro being the problem I'd prefer to use the track inserts for fx on like kick and snare, but I can only use the assignable fx sends. But when I do that it mixes the effects signal with the original. I can't figure out how to send only the effects signal with the sends. Also, there is no master fader, which is a big problem to me.

anyway.

1. No, I got a clean recorded signal, I think it is mainly the transients. I set the kick and snare to a good level, and when I bring in the o/h, the summing of the signals makes it clip. I just wondered if i should set the level low and limit the already mixed stereo track, add a limiter to the snare track, add a limiter to the o/h track, or add a limiter to the drum buss.

2. Thats what I though its just the fx sends I'm having a hard time using. I think i'm gonna switch programs so i can use track inserts and have the sends only for specialty verbs and stuff.

3. Ya I know. Its actually a mono track. I set up 5 mics so we could get a test track with a bunch and the guitarist could choose which 1 or 2 or 3 he liked best, and he chose all 5. I had them all sent to a buss to use its fx, but it was still taxing on my comp, so I'm going to mix them down. The guitar does sound good though, very big.

Thanks a lot,

josh
 
1. That's a common problem and those are all valid solutions. Whatever sounds best.

2. I'm really surprised that Vegas does not have insert effects. You might want to look into that a little more to be sure. Any Vegas users here who can confirm?

3. You can pan the tracks to give you a stereo image and get some cool effects. To be honest I can't imagine that you don't have some phase issues with all those mics summed to mono but if not, cool.
 
thanks

Thanks tex,

1. ok, thanks. I just kinda needed a second opinion, I wasn't sure if there was one options that was an automatic no.

2. Well the current versions of Vegas do, but this one only allows you to use certain Sonic Foundry fx. I got confirmation on this after a little searching.

3. I was afraid of the same thing but I didn't really run into any problems. I was just close mic'ing different speakers, I just zoomed in on some of the waves and lined up some of the tracks that were a bit off. I summed to mono for that guitar sound, I doubled track for all the stereo. On a couple of the parts I panned the 2 room mics hard right/left to give it a stereo effect. It gives a subtle natural reverb that doesn't sound too bad which is surprising with my crappy room.

josh
 
I would definitely stop with the five mics on the guitar amp. phase issues like a bitch, no doubt, and in my experience, any more than three mics (mic on the grill, mic on the back and phase reversed, and a room mic a ways out) is diminishing returns, and just gets ridiculous. you could probably get a better sound by recording a guitar track with just one mic on the amp, then using a different mic on the amp and recording the part again (if you have more than one guitar, change it as well, so you get a tonal difference between the takes). pan these tracks halfway left and right, respectively, and you should get a pretty good sound.

if you can record at 24 bits, I'd say don't bother with a limiter or compressor while recording the drums and just set it at a level beforehand that is just below clipping when he hits the absolute hardest. although, if his volume is REALLY sporadic, you might be better off in the long run to get him to try and be a bit more consistent, as then when you compress the drums in mix down you won't be working as hard.
 
Vota,

Thanks for the input. I understand what you are saying about 5 mics. I didn't want to use that many, but this was my band, and I know how anal our guitar player is, and he's got a good ear. We listened for phase issues, and we didn't have any. There is only 3 mics for the other guitar player. I wouldn't have used that many if I was running into problems. There are only 3 mics for the clean tone, it just sounded better. I understand all the issues with using that many mics, but that just gave us the sound we were looking for. We tried a lot of different variations, and this just worked w/o any noticeable phase cancelation.

I didn't record 24. Its a long story why though. I used a limiter while tracking, but only light comp and only on the snare and kick when they were really loud. My question was basically where would it be best to apply the limiter during mixing. The tracking is finished. Thanks for all the suggestions though.

josh
 
> I'm really surprised that Vegas does not have insert effects. You might want to look into that a little more to be sure. Any Vegas users here who can confirm?

I have both the first version of Vegas Pro and the current incarnation (Vegas Video 3) and they BOTH offer insert effects.
Plenty of 'em are included, but the reverb plug-in was extra $ in Vegas Pro.
 
drstawl.

I think you misunderstood. We were talking about allowing the use of fx inserts on the tracks. Vegas Pro only allows the use of certain Sonic Foundry plugins on the tracks. If you want to use another company's plugin you have to use the fx sends. I'm 99.99999% sure of this now, but you could maybe confirm. (I am using the first Version of Pro) I'd love to upgrade to Vegas Audio 2.0 but for the time being I'm going to use the version of Cakewalk bundled with my soundcard. I just don't like Cakewalk as much (although by the sounds of it I might be ok with Sonar)

thanks everyone for your input. I think my questions were pretty much all answered.

josh
 
>I think you misunderstood. We were talking about allowing the use of fx inserts on the tracks. Vegas Pro only allows the use of certain Sonic Foundry plugins on the tracks.

Not so! I've ended up with a bunch of plug-ins from third parties in my plug-ins folder. I really don't remember how to put them there off hand, but stuff from fasoft (n-track) and Waves work the same way (as far as the GUI) as the ones that come with Vegas.

Given the price of Vegas Audio- I'd forget that and go straight to Vegas Video 3. ;)
 
here drstawl,

I cut and pasted this directly from the Vegas Pro manual/Help.

"Vegas Pro allows to you place the built-in EQ and Compression plug-ins on the tracks in any order. Standard DirectX Plug-ins can not be added to the tracks. To use standard DirectX plug-ins, use the Assignable FX and Bus FX"

I think this is only true for the version I am using (an older one) Unfortunately this just doesn't cut it. And it is just not worth it for me to upgrade right now, and so begins the Cakewalk learning curve.

Plus I read there were issues with the mixdown from the busses and their fx. I'm sure there are too because my mix sounds good until I mix it down. When I do that everything gets messed up. Not to mention there are no track meters, no master bus meter or volume. Again, I think that none of these problems exist anymore.

Sorry to keep bumping this up.

josh
 
OK- I fired up the old dog and tested this:

I stand corrected! Thanks for clearing that up.

To reduce the strain on your system- I suggest rendering sub-groups to a new track before mixdown. Sure- that's somewhat weak (adds another step) because you can't hear the effect of various combos of effects in the whole mix, just the subgroup, before deciding to commit to it without saving a ridiculous # of takes.
 
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