dobro said:
"Dobro, isn't you computer fast enough to handle realtime effects?"
Fast enough for EQ, but not fast enough for Full Reverb. What do you do about reverb?
Due to circumstances beyond my control (namely, having 3 children and a wife who all demand personal computers which are all newer and faster than the one I use for my "hobby,") I have been relegated all the way down from a 3GHZ processor (WHICH I TOTALLY FUCKING DESERVE) to a 286Mhz that I bought in 1998. Does anybody remember seeing an "M" in front of the "Hz"... lol. This denotes an exponential loss in processing speed to the 10th degree. I mean, c'mon...like my freaking wife really needs a 3Gig machine to check spam mail. Granted, the 5 year old requires some processing speed in order to keep up to snuff on "CARTOONNETWORK.COM", b/c a lot of those video games are pretty fast, but he barely brings ANY money into the house. Same old story..."SCREW DAD, HE'S A GOOD GUY, HE WON'T MIND!!" well I say SCREW THEM, DAMMIT...SCREW THEM ALL!!!!!!!!! WHERE'S MY FREAKING GUN?!?!??!?!
Now what were we talking about? Oh yeah, reverb...my point is that I got spoiled on 2.0 when I had better machines, so I'm not going back, and the best way I've found to deal with the CPU processing crunch for reverb is to take the track into edit mode, preview a couple of seconds of a few reverbs to get something that I think is close (after all, don't we all have a pretty good idea which CEP presets are close by now?), then go back into multitrack and put the effect on the track and lock it. As you know, 'locking' the track just automatically does what you were doing manually...it makes another copy of the track with the effect on it which it plays just as easily as if there were no effect on the track, and it saves the "dry" track, which magically reappears when you "unlock" the track.
Now, I'm not gonna' lie...this is a total pain in the ass when you're at that stage where you've ALMOST got the verb right, but you're tweaking the decay or the predelay a bit, b/c you have to wait for CEP to "lock" the track each time you change it, but in reality, if all the other tracks are locked or have no FX on them, even my dinosaur of a machine will play for a bit before it starts skipping...so you can earball it a few times before you lock it. Also, there's an option in the settings to have CEP save your locked tracks as seperate copies after you close a session so that it doesn't take the session 10 minutes to open up while it's locking all the tracks...it even makes a seperate folder inside your current session folder called "locked tracks" or something.
Also, I use a lot of Waves "TruVerb" verbs now, which are incredibly light on the CPU for some reason, so previewing them is not really a problem. But this is about CEP, right. Oh, and I totally agree with the bussing comment. I usually use the same reverb setting for both rhythm guitar tracks, so I just run one verb through "BUS A" or whichever one I'm up to. However, you can't lock these, so they don't work as well for slower machines that have trouble even playing one reverb on one track...doesn't help that it's the SAME reverb on 2 or 3 tracks if it wouldn't play on a solo track. But overall, if your machine can physically do it, bussing is much easier on the processing demands when you're using the same effect on different tracks, even if you have different settings for that effect.
DOBRO - USE THE LOCK TRACK BUTTON. IT'S THE BLUE ONE NEXT TO THE "fx" BUTTON. IT DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN'T UNDO IT, LOL. IT UNLOCKS REALLY EASILY
Now, as for saving, I still think you're batty for saving all those copies of files. The only time I do that is when I need to apply something that I can't run as a Dx plugin or throught the VST Wrapper...for example, my analog multiband compressor. Can't "undo" that shit, lol. So in some cases, I'll make an extra copy. But in ALL cases, I do keep a seperate folder inside the Session called "DRY TRACKS." Once a track is spliced and diced/comp'd, and before I put so much as a gate on it, I immediately save it as "BASS - DRY TRACK1". Then I immediately "SAVE AS" "BASS - WET TRACK1" inside the session folder, but not inside the "DRY TRACKS" folder. I still typically will not do any destructive editing to that track if I can avoid it, but rather, run the compressor and the limiter and maybe a chorus or whatever the fuck else I maul my recordings with in the multitrack unlocked until the machine starts crapping out...at which point, I start locking the tracks. This totally avoids the need to redo everything that you've done to a track when you have to go back to the original...rather, just make another copy "BASS-WET TRACK2" and plug it into the same track with all the FX already on the track.
Also, I'm a lazy fuck, but I'm very much into saving session information even though I'm not doing work for anybody else...if I happen to end up with a mix where the bass doesn't suck, and I want to reproduce it, I just pull up the CD that I've saved the Dry AND the "WET" tracks on, and the session file, and it loads it all up and I can just look at the FX that are on the bass track that miraculously worked. This is next to impossible to do if you're making copies of tracks and doing destructive editing...(and you're too lazy to write all the crap down as you go, b/c you know that it'll probably suck anyway, lmao).
LOCK BUTTON, DOBRO...USE IT - LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!!
Plus, by having 3 tracks for each track (if I understand what you're doing) where there should be only one, you're actually draining a lot of processing power, even if those tracks are muted. Don't believe me? Try this - Solo just one single track that has no unlocked active FX on it when you've got a bunch of effects running on the other muted tracks... It SHOULD play that one track just as easily as if it were an mp3 in your Winamp player, but it won't...it'll drag ass just like all those muted files were playing, b/c it's still processing all of the FX and EQ and enveloping on the muted tracks...right before it mutes them, lol. I think using the lock feature is actually a lot faster than what you're doing...all you have to do is hit one button instead of saving a whole new file, and it's easier on the CPU, and...well, it's GOTTA' be less confusing...wanna' know what FX are on a track? Hit the FX button...they're listed.
By the way, I need to check out a couple of your latest submissions...I'm just way behind. Not b/c I owe you anything, but b/c I tend to enjoy your recordings. I'm at that stage where I'm just too damned busy making a living to live any. No, actually, it's this damned computer...christmas on a stick, I can barely download porn on this clunker...
