merging tracks?

[RetroMan]

I can't seen to find any info about this in the documentation, but i'm not sure how to 'merge' two tracks together to make a single track.

What I have is 2 vocal tracks - one with the verses, one with the choruses and I want to merge them together to make a continuous single track.

It's easy enough to click and drag the segment into the adjacent track, but if there's any audio overlapping (which there is from the end of the verse into the chorus), you can only hear one track without it blending.

One idea I thought would be to use the old 'ping-pong' method like you do on a 4 track were you record both tracks into a third track and blend it together that way, but that seems like the hardest way around it.

Once the track is merged, I know how to glue all the pieces together with the tools, it's just that I lose audio when it overlaps.

can anyone help me out?

 

[TelePaul]

I can't seen to find any info about this in the documentation, but i'm not sure how to 'merge' two tracks together to make a single track.

What I have is 2 vocal tracks - one with the verses, one with the choruses and I want to merge them together to make a continuous single track.

It's easy enough to click and drag the segment into the adjacent track, but if there's any audio overlapping (which there is from the end of the verse into the chorus), you can only hear one track without it blending.

One idea I thought would be to use the old 'ping-pong' method like you do on a 4 track were you record both tracks into a third track and blend it together that way, but that seems like the hardest way around it.

Once the track is merged, I know how to glue all the pieces together with the tools, it's just that I lose audio when it overlaps.

can anyone help me out?

Uhmm you shouldnt really be losing audio....not unless the verse and chorus in your song are designed to overlap. You probably have some excess track with no vocals on it that you just need to trim before moving them onto one track.

 

[RetroMan]

....not unless the verse and chorus in your song are designed to overlap.

yeah is the problem TelePaul - they are actually designed to overlap - the last note of the verse overlaps with the first note of the chorus and they harmonize
when you drag and drop the vocal segments you lose that last/first note overlap
to whatever track you nominate to be on top

 

[DaSpider]

re: merging tracks

Try this:

1. Solo the 2 tracks
2. File > Export > Audio Mixdown
3. Specify Stereo or Mono
4. Select "Import to: Pool / Audio Track"

 

[RetroMan]

Try this:

1. Solo the 2 tracks
2. File > Export > Audio Mixdown
3. Specify Stereo or Mono
4. Select "Import to: Pool / Audio Track"

DaSpider - you are DaGenius! that worked perfectly!!!! thank you very much!

 

[The Audio Cave]

Da Spider man was dead on for combining tracks. Let me include a tip about tracking and mixing lead vox in Cubase that also covers issues like yours.

Before tracking create a mono group. Create 3-4-5 mono lead vocal tracks and assign them all to that mono group. Record your vocals on those tracks but use the mono group for compression, FX sends, EQ (unless you need to do something specific to one of those individual tracks) , automation, etc.

Put all of your vocal tracks in a folder track and treat the mono group as the lead vocal track. You can then comp across tracks or lanes and still only be working with the one track in the end... mostly.

And not worry about overlaps or duplicating effects on multiple channels. You can still render a contiguous track just like SpiderMan said by soloing the group channel (which solos all the vocal tracks) and exporting a mono mix.

Hope that helps.

 

[stash98]

yeah, I was going to say..just make a group and bus them to that.

 

[RetroMan]

thanks for the extra info! - I'm making notes of all this, you guys sure make problems a lot easier to sort out

 

[pelon916]

...

it took me a little while to get used to bouncing stuff this way, i come from an analog background..

and that brings up another point..

with digital you really don't need to bounce tracks like you would need to with tape.. you pretty much have a unlimited tracks at your disposal.. with analog (especially a 4 or 8 track) the tracks are limited so freeing them up is beneficial but you have to do it right because once you re-use the track the old one is gone forever.

in a digital project bouncing two tracks down to one track doesn't have the benefit of freeing up a track, but it still has the drawback of limiting any further volume or tone adjustments on the individual tracks.. so why bother?

you can achieve the exact sound of bouncing the tracks down by grouping them. grouping tracks simplifies using different effects over ALL the grouped tracks simultaneously without having to apply and adjust them separately. and if you do end up wanting different effects on the separate tracks you can still totally change each track's settings separately from the group. but.. you would be out of luck if the tracks had been bounced down to one track.. unless you saved the original tracks.. in which case you would have 3 tracks to keep track of and worry about instead of 2.

so.. i guess my 2 cents is.. forget bouncing stuff down, keep all your tracks separately.. if they are worth keeping then they are worth being able to fine tune later during final editing.

(sorry this is kinda long, i can't figure out how to paraphrase my own rambling train of thought.. )

 

[pikingrin]

Wouldn't a simple crossfade work too? Granted, it may have to be a little longer than one would like (or perhaps shorter), ah, screw it... You already got it figured out...

 

[DaSpider]

Thanks Audio Cave and Pelon916 for the extra info. I come from the analog perspective too so bouncing tracks is second nature. In particular I tend to tweak as much as possible (again learned from analog) before bouncing. Time to learn and try something new!

Thanks!
Neall