Mixdown or not

[Jack J C Peeters]

Hello,

When you made a complete mix in 2.0 with the plug ins is it necessary to mixdown every single midi track to audio?
So, yes, why?

Regards.

[pkm]

Nope. It used to be necessary a few years ago on some DAWs, but no longer.

[christerholm]

I guess only if you are sending the tracks to be mixed and mastered by someone else.

[reddiesel41264]

Nope not necessary if your machine can handle it. If you are having the track mastered by someone else it is sometimes a good idea to mix down some stems as well as a stereo mix.

[Daryl]

There are good reasons for doing it either way.

The best reason not to, is to do with time saving. However, my template is set-up so that I only have to play the track through once and all instruments are recorded to audio tracks.

The reasons for mixing in audio for me are:

1) It is much easier to sculpt subtle volume changes (for evening out bumps) when you can see the wave form. You can also be sure that you have the correct note when using round robins.

2) If you ever need to go back and re-mix a project, or produce a version that doesn't use some of the instruments, it is always going to be possible to do when you have the audio files, whereas if you leave everything in MIDI, you may not be able to open the project in the future, unless you keep every single version of every single sample player you have, and make a note of which ones were used.

D

[Jack J C Peeters]

Thanks all for youe reply's.

How did you menage this: However, my template is set-up so that I only have to play the track through once and all instruments are recorded to audio tracks..


I have to mixdown every single track I use. It can take up more than 1 hour to do so.

[Daryl]

Originally Posted by Jack J C Peeters

Thanks all for youe reply's.

How did you menage this: However, my template is set-up so that I only have to play the track through once and all instruments are recorded to audio tracks..


I have to mixdown every single track I use. It can take up more than 1 hour to do so.

Easy. Each instrument has its own VSTi Output. Each of these is routed to an audio track. All audio tracks are in a folder, so I record enable the folder and then press record, which then records all of the VSTi outputs to their respective audio tracks.

D

[pkm]

Make an audio track for every midi instrument. Set the output of each instrument to a bus, and set that bus as the input to the corresponding audio track.

If you have multiple instruments per instance, you may have to set up the multiple outputs in your sample player and in your DAW.

If you're on logic, an easy way to make stems of each track is cmd-shift-E but you can't do submixes this way.

[reddiesel41264]

I see you're using Cubase 5.5 If you are using Instrument Tracks or MIDI tracks with multiple audio outs you don't need to bother with making lots of audio tracks for each MIDI etc. You just go to File >> Export >> Audio Mixdown - and select each Bus in the windows at the left, tick the channel batch export box, and Cubase will mix each one down to a seperate audio file. And you can set it up so each file is given an appropriate name.

[Jack J C Peeters]

Yes I'm a cubase user and I have tried that with batching. Now I've been confused? Multiply audio out? You mean a group channel (strings) linking to audio out 1 and 2.group Wood to 3 & 4,group Brass to 5&6 and group perc to 7&8.?
Or do I have to select the output channels in the play? Or Both?

For Example: I have 5 instances (vst play) for my stings. First one for the first violins, 2nd for the second violins, etc. My first violins have output channel 1&2. second violins channel 3&4, etc.

I go to export--audiomixdown- en tick the channel batch export box.
Then I see 4 output busses. When I select all 4 output boxes it converts every single miditrack to audio?
I had tried this also before, with less miditracks, the only thing is when I mixdown on audio output 3&4, the audiotrack will be blank and hasn't recording nothing. I'm talking about a terratec ews 88 mt. I hear the sound on my analoog mixer, but it won't convert it.

I'm doing something wrong, I'm sure.