Recording/Saving Multi-Track Songs To A CD But Saving Separate Tracks: Possible?

[Mike Freze]

Thanks, everyone, for all your help for this newbee. You've been very helpful so far.

I use Cubase LE and Cakewalk for my computer-based, home recording software. I also have a SIAB (Fostex VF160Ex, 16-track, mixer built in) that I play around with, too.

Here's two questions. Outside of the portability of my Fostex stand-alone digital recorder, is there any advantage to using it if I have a laptop computer with my Cubas LE program to work with? That can be portable, too. Any advantage to ever using my Fostex instead of my laptop to record, edit, and mix with? Both are portable, so I'm not sure.

Here's a big question: If I record a multi-track project in Cubase LE (say, 8 tracks), I can save that as a Cubase file and call it up and can edit each track again and again if I choose. When I export it out after mixing as a wav file on my hardrive, ifr I call it up that way back into the Cubase program, it swounds exactly the same except it's all one wav file: no separate tracks to work with unless I call up the original Cubase project; then I can have all the original tracks show up like when I first recorded to edit.

Is there a way to save a recording project with multiple tracks that becomes a wav file (for, say, copying to a CD or playing through your Windows Media player on your computer) so that you still have the separate tracks there (like on a CD) that you could copy to another system, computer, etc. to re-edit or mic later on?

This is an important question because I've had people want to make more elaborate demos of their music (say, a singer/songwriter sending me a CD with only one voice, one instrument). But when I get it, the voice and the single instrument show up as one audio file in my computer (there aren't separate tracks for the vocals and guitar) to call up and edit individually; it's everything on one wav or mp3 file (one track, in other words).
Sure, you can add other tracks later for other instruments or add some effects to what they sent you, but you don't have separate tracks to work with on what THEY recorded.

When I record something in my SIAB Fostex digital recorder, I can record up to 16 tracks there and save it internally in the Fostex system. I can then burn a CD of what I've recorded from my Fostex CD drive. BUT!!!! Can I save my 16 separate tracks as a wav recording, burn it to a CD from my Fostex, and have the recording on that CD be all separate 16 tracks so it could be imported to my computer later and show up in Cabase with all 16 tracks separated like I saved it originally? Or can you only save a recording to a wav format as one final, single track recording with no breakdown of the tracks like before? I know when you "mix down" a recording in Cubase or Cakewalk and then export it as a wav file to your hard drive, you get one final file: no separate tracks to work with.


Any advice you can give me would really be appreciated. I know that on an CD recording in my computer from a famous band (say, the Eagles), whether or not it's from the origianl CD I bought or an mp3 download, both will call up into Cubase and play fine, but it shows up as one file (track); nothing shows up as separate tracks that the artist used to begin with when they made their recording. Therefore, I can't experiment and play around with editing on those songs because it's all mixed down to one mastered file.

Is there any program out there that will "unlock" a final recorded wav file (track) and separate it back to individual tracks for all the instruments like ot was when they originally recorded it before it got mixede down and mastered as a single, wav file on CD?


Mike Freze

 

[gecko zzed]

When you record a number of tracks (say, eight), you can view them all in Cubase, mix away to your heart's content, then bounce or render these to a single stereo track. The original eight tracks and the final stereo track are all WAV files (unless you choose to record to some other format).

Your Cubase project stores the metadata for your original eight tracks (i.e. where they start and end, what tracks they're on, what effects you are using, what tempo you used and so on). This is always availabel so long as you save t Cubase project.

If you want to store your eight source tracks so that they can be used by another application on another system, you do so by creating a data CD (as opposed to an audio CD), saving the source files and project file onto this. You should then be able to import these from that CD into another application. If fate is kind to you, that second application will be able to load
(either directly or through a filter) the Cubase file. More likely, though, fate will not be kind. You will have to import each file, and figure out where to place it. This gets kind of tedious if there are many files starting at a variety of places.

Sadly, there is no easy way of deconstructing a mixed stereo WAV file. If you get a file which is a demo of voice and guitar mixed together, then you are pretty much stuck with that. However, you can ask the person to provide you with a CD of the source files, which you should be able to import into Cubase. With luck, that person's source files will have vocals and guitar separate (but they may not).

There is no way to "unlock" a mixed file (at least not in the sense you mean).

With your Fostex, the process is the same. Fostex should give you an option to save or back-up your source files externally (as opposed to creating an audio CD), and you can use this to save files to a CD, then load them from the CD into Cubase.