Sonar ? How are you guys mixing down?

evhwanabe

evhwanabe

New member
I seem to have problems when I export to wave about 17 tracks. It doesnt sound anything like what I am listening to in Sonar. I have tried using 2 or 3 vmains and that seems to make it worse. I have heard of people bouncing to tracks right in sonar but have not tried it yet! I usually export the tracks to a wave and then go into sound forge to do my last minute changes. So how r you mixing down to 2 tracks?
thanks
 
I use Cakewalk9 but I don't render to two track in software. I do an analog mix through a mixer back to two tracks in Cakewalk and send that to Soundforge to do any additional sweatening. I always end up with what I was hearing to begine with this way.
 
Sorry I didnt say what I was recording! All live tracks audio, no midi.


Trackrat I will have to try that using my sh#ty Alesis studio 32, but you arent using the mic pre's of the mixer right so it shouldnt effect the sound too much? correct
 
I do it the same way you are doing it - export to a stereo wave and finalize in Wavelab.

It is not recommended that you use multiple Vmains (unless you are going for something very specific). If you use multiple mains your mix could be clipping and you would not know it.

Make sure none of your individual tracks are clipping and make sure the Vmain isn't clipping.

Other than that, can you be more specific about the mix not sounding the same. What is the exact problem?

Also, are you recording in 24-bit? If so, are you exporting a 24-bit wave or a 16 bit wave. That could be a problem as well.
 
I mainly have problems with the vocals being louder after I mix down, I also have problems with the drums not being loud enough after mix down. Yes I am recording 24 bit 48k, and I open that in sound forge and do my editing before I dither down to 16b 44k. The mix sounds bad even before I dither. Maybe I just need to do some more experimenting with different ways of mixing down.
 
I mix thru a mackie. the 2 bus summing isn't the brightest but it sounds like what it sounded like before being mixed down
 
Yeah I am going to try using my mixer tonight. I thought I could get rid of it but I like the idea of being able to tweak stuff with my hands. Are your guys running the outs of your sound card into the line in's of your mixer or what? I think my Alesis actually has tape in's so I would want to use those right! Man I am going to need more cables ugh! I think I got a couple of extra snakes laying around. I will have to switch what I have going into my soundcard (ch 1 & 2) with the outs from the mixer everytime I want to mix something, oh well.
thanks for your replies guys!
 
Track rat I am using a Motu 828 so it has 8 analog outputs and 8 adat optical, I also have and Alesis AI-3 to convert optical to analog so technicaly I have 16 analog 1/4" outputs.
 
dachay2tnr said:
I do it the same way you are doing it - export to a stereo wave and finalize in Wavelab.

It is not recommended that you use multiple Vmains (unless you are going for something very specific). If you use multiple mains your mix could be clipping and you would not know it.

Make sure none of your individual tracks are clipping and make sure the Vmain isn't clipping.
<<snip>>
Click to expand...
An iteresting note above. I just had reason to do a drum sub-mix on a seperate v-main. It's output is the same as the 2-mix's v-main. Now I'm not sure if the 2-mix's v-main meter is still giving me the total (combined) level. (I thought I had all this figured out, now...?:rolleyes:
Ultimately, my mix goes out and back spdif to an L2 for peak trimming and dither down to 16 bit, recorded back to a 'Mix' track in the project, then I export that. The L2 digi input should show any overs there -I think. Hmm...
Wayne
 
If you can break your tracks out and feed them to an analog mixer, I have a feeling you'd like it. I have my setup where I can break out 24 outputs that I send to an analog mixer and I way prefere the sound of it to software mixing.
 
guys I tried it last night without any luck! I either have a dud for a mixer or I am not doing something right, looks like I will have to get the manual out for the mixer! I do have one question, how do you pick your outputs for each track? do I need a vmain for each track? that seems like a pain in the ass! it seems like I should be able to go to track view and just pick one of my outputs.
 
I have a MOTU 2408 mkII and an Alesis HD24 that functions as a soundcard. Twenty-four ins and outs.
 
evhwanabe said:
guys I tried it last night without any luck! I either have a dud for a mixer or I am not doing something right, looks like I will have to get the manual out for the mixer! I do have one question, how do you pick your outputs for each track? do I need a vmain for each track? that seems like a pain in the ass! it seems like I should be able to go to track view and just pick one of my outputs.
Click to expand...
A couple of options here.
Each track can be asigned to a diferent output on your sound card, just like a v-main is. Or, put some tracks to a v-main (which then goes out to both sides of an output pair, or just one side of a pair), or any combination of that.
On my Dakota/ RME-ADI-8 combo, the selections for ins and outs are a choice of ADAT 'A-1 Left', Right, or 'Stereo', for the first eight, 'B-1--8' for example.

But that still leaves the original question of why the ACKUS mix sounds different bounced than straight playback. It shouldn't.
It has been said that DAW's mix quality degrades as the track count goes up, thus the need to break the load out to small groups of tracks. But if the DAW can process the mix real-time and it sounds correct, I would think it should be able to do the same on a bounce or export.
(FWIW, I surely do not consider myself the final word on this. :D :D
Later.
Wayne
:)
 
I've never had any problem with my Sonar mixes, up to 32 audio tracks, even. The export to .wav function sounds great, and levels do not seem to change at all. I have a 2.53ghz Pentium4 XP machine with 256mb ram, and a Delta44 card. I just upgraded, and didn't have any problems with my older 1.3ghz machine either.

Not sure why you're getting different results. Might this be a soundcard issue?
 
I add a stereo track, set my Audigy mixer to 'All you hear' and record everything to that track. I'm too lazy to convert every midichannel to wav....
 
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