No Such Thing

  • Thread starter Thread starter twist
  • Start date Start date
John Sayers said:


why not draw your volumes?? in Cakewalk you can draw it, in Nuendo you can draw it, in Protools you can draw it!!

way to go - new millenium ? OK??

cheers
john
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John,

I'm pretty new at this. Could you plase explain what you mean by "draw your volumes"?

Thanks,
Twist
 
In many DAWs the multitrack view allows for two or more "lines" to be drawn that represent values of volume and pan (and fx balance, etc). I happen to use Cool Edit Pro, which makes a green line for volume and blue for pan. The blue "pan line" sits in the middle of the track (the WAV drawing) and the volume sits on top of the track. These are the defaults, and are dependent on the original settings. If you wanna fade out a given track, click on the line and it creates a point from which that line now vectors to. Then drag the line where you want it (say, down to the bottom for the green volume line) and this track will behave that way on playback. I use the word "dependent" because the level and pan controls for the WHOLE track set up the track to begin with, and the volume and pan lines just affect these starting settings. This way, if you want to raise the level of vocals, and they do something volumish in the middle of the song, the volume line can still do it's thing RELATIVE TO THE OVERALL TRACK VOLUME.

Anyway, CyanJaguar and John are correct to point out the pros of "visual mixing," it's excellent for seeing what's happening in a song without having to listen to it or wait for the event to actually happen before being able to change it. All I can say is try it, pan and level are pretty much set from the getgo anyway, this is an EXCELLENT way to mod these settings while mixing...

And GOOD GOD I can only imagine the interrupts you'd get while properly setting those control surfaces up. Sounds like a lot of work to ultimately move BACK a step. I'll try and find a link to a view of this...
 
Conrol Surfaces are nice if you work long hours on your daw. Theyre just nice in general. Its the idea of tactile sensations, being able to get up in it with both hands thats most alluring. Still, I just use my mouse taking my time to tweak away. The control surface becomes more of a necessity for working long hours especially if you have paying clients who expect to see faders they can have fun fading.

In addition to the trusty mouse there are specialty joysticks and tracker balls desinged for audio. Each of these gives a different motion to repeat. Going back and forth for hours on your mouse till you feel that carpel tunnel tingle is not a good idea, so many pros switch up with different techniques(joystick, tracker ball et al). I cant afford a good control surface, so I use my mouse. If I had a bit of dough for such luxury Id get this:
http://www.jlcooper.com/pages/mcs3000.html
 
I gave up on the mouse years ago. Get a graphics tablet and a pen interface. MUCH more accurate.
Have you ever tried signing your name with a mouse? How drunk did your signature make you look?
 
From the pre-release stuff, Sonar (Cake 10) looks to be adding vector based FX, along with volume and pan. Might be a lot of criss-crossed lines on your wave view if you use all three in the same area, but John and Kelly are right - it's the way to go!
 
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