Am I just overlooking something? Pre-send solo exempt?

[Tripi]

Hi - I'm running into a situation while bouncing stems out. I will solo just the tracks that I need to bounce together into the stem and do a record pass. Problem is when i have tracks using pre-sends to fx (reverb). Even though the track is not in the solo'd group, the pre-send is still coming through. I have my reverb and fx in a V-rack. I can't mute the fx, because some of my tracks going into the stem use it. I know that I could mute everything else except my bouncing tracks, but I have a hundred tracks in my template.
any ideas of how to make the non-solo'd track with a pre-send not send?
thanks,
Tripi

[bennals]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how about muting the send?

Bill.

[Tim]

I know that I could mute everything else except my bouncing tracks, but I have a hundred tracks in my template.
any ideas of how to make the non-solo'd track with a pre-send not send?

Select the unneeded tracks, group them together and mute them all at once (or mute their sends).

[Tripi]

Well - i thought of the muting everything except my bouncing tracks in a group..... except that I have several tracks which are already muted. So, if i muted everything, then i would need to leave the original muted tracks muted after i take everything out of mute (i know that sounds crazy). It definitely makes more sense for me to solo just the tracks that I am bouncing. I have been going through and turning off all of the pre-sends on the tracks that use it during this, but it gets complicated keeping track of which tracks pre-sends need to be re-activated again after the bounce.

Wouldn't it make sense to automatically mute the pre-send on a track if it is not active? Shouldn't this hold true for a non-solo'd track also?

ahhhahahah


thanks

[blue]

Wouldn't it make sense to automatically mute the pre-send on a track if it is not active? Shouldn't this hold true for a non-solo'd track also?

It makes sense when your stemming things out, but there are times when I need a pre-fader send to be active even when the track is muted.

I agree, though. Remembering which sends to mute and unmute when printing stems can be a bitch.

[bennals]

Well - i thought of the muting everything except my bouncing tracks in a group.....
Wouldn't it make sense to automatically mute the pre-send on a track if it is not active? Shouldn't this hold true for a non-solo'd track also?

ahhhahahah


thanks

Gotcha. Yeah, it would make sense to at least be able to select a 'mute sends on non-solo'd tracks' preference. Send it to MOTU. Sounds like it wouldn't be hard to implement and you could claim it as your very own DP feature.

Bill.

[musicarteca]

Another solution could be to create another aux track with the same reverb plug-in and use it only for the tracks that are pre-fader.

[Tripi]

Making a seperate track for the pre-sends would be a solution, except everyone shares the same reverb buses. If I use the pre-sends, i usually am doing so with the fader turned all the way down. So, one other solution I came up with is to not use pre's, but just insert a reverb plugin in at 100% wet. Only draw back to this is that altiverb can be very taxing on the system.
thanks for the suggestions. i'll email motu and see if they take me up on my offer for a fine new feature.

thanx!

tripi

[mhschmieder]

Yeah, I was surprised by this initially as well, and wasted a lot of time in the Mixer window trying to figure out if I had been inconsistent in my assignments and in my usage of aux tracks.

I ended up giving up, so to speak, and just making sure I disengage the output assignments on raw tracks once freezing (that is, rendering) the effected versions. I have developed new naming conventions for tracks that are self-documenting, so this approach has worked so far in terms of being able to go back to a project and tweak things from original settings.

I will watch this thread with interest to see if I can learn a more effective workflow from others' experiences.

[musicarteca]

Making a seperate track for the pre-sends would be a solution, except everyone shares the same reverb buses. If I use the pre-sends, i usually am doing so with the fader turned all the way down. So, one other solution I came up with is to not use pre's, but just insert a reverb plugin in at 100% wet. Only draw back to this is that altiverb can be very taxing on the system.

tripi

What I meant was adding a new aux track with its corresponding new buss(es). that should solve your problem.

By the way, almost always I use the rev. plug-in at 100% wet, when I am using it on an aux track coming from a buss. The disadvantage of the way you have it set up is that an instrument will vary its wetness when riding the fader, in other words, the lower the level of the fader, the wetter it gets. Besides the level and panning of the dry signal will vary with the amount of signal fed to the send. I would only use a pre-send reverb if I want that specific effect, for example fade out a track and leaving only its wet signal

[Tripi]

I understand your idea for another aux track, but now that we have been discussing this topic, it seems like the best solution is to use an insert instead of a send. The tracks that I use the pre-send on, use it as an effect mainly. No volume automation involved, unless i want to fade out to only verb. I guess it comes down to looking at these tracks as using an effect, which should be done as an insert. I've been using the arts acoustica reverb plugin much more lately, so it should work as a low cpu option to altiverb. If anyone ever comes up with a way to just sync the send mute with the track mute, i'm all ears.
thanx

[Tim]

Well - i thought of the muting everything except my bouncing tracks in a group..... except that I have several tracks which are already muted. So, if i muted everything, then i would need to leave the original muted tracks muted after i take everything out of mute (i know that sounds crazy).

That's one good reason for grouping the un-needed tracks for aux send muting.

[musicarteca]

I understand your idea for another aux track, but now that we have been discussing this topic, it seems like the best solution is to use an insert instead of a send. The tracks that I use the pre-send on, use it as an effect mainly. No volume automation involved, unless i want to fade out to only verb. I guess it comes down to looking at these tracks as using an effect, which should be done as an insert. I've been using the arts acoustica reverb plugin much more lately, so it should work as a low cpu option to altiverb. If anyone ever comes up with a way to just sync the send mute with the track mute, i'm all ears.
thanx

Yes, you can insert the plug in, and then reduce the dry and wet percentage, but the disadvantage is more CPU drain. Think about it, if you have 3 tracks where you want reverb on, you will need 3 inserts, vs. one insert on an aux track. If I were you, I would try the sends post fader.

[Tripi]

Think about it, if you have 3 tracks where you want reverb on, you will need 3 inserts, vs. one insert on an aux track. If I were you, I would try the sends post fader.

Well, this might be going back to the original problem. The trouble i was running into was that I did this (all of my tracks use a reverb bus, but some use it as a pre-fader). The verb plugin is in a v-rack. When i bounce stems, i turn on solo mode in the tracks window first, then play (solo) enable the tracks i want to bounce together, arm a stem track and record. Now.... if one of the tracks that i did not select this way was using a pre-fader send, it's fx send signal still comes through while bouncing.

I know the down side of using an insert instead of an master verb aux. If i was going to make another aux just for the (pre-fader send) tracks, then i would put it in the main sequence window (not a v-rack), and take it out of solo-exempt. Just seems like an unecessary stem since i cannot figure out any logical reason why the pre-send should stay active on a non-active track.

whew. sorry for so much typing

tripi

[bennals]

Tripi.

I still think your idea of muting sends on non-solo'd tracks would be a good option to have, but perhaps one way of working around the problem of having to keep track of which sends to unmute when you come out of solo mode is to use Mix mode.

1. Duplicate the mix before you go into solo mode.

2. In the new duplicated mix you can select the tracks other than the tracks you want in the stem bounce, group them together in a Custom group with 'Mute sends' selected and mute one of the sends in that group (which will mute them all).

3. Do your stem bounce in solo mode.

4. When your bounce is finished, go back to the original mix with all of it's original send configuration intact.

5. Keep the Mix configuration in case you want to repeat the dose or delete it to keep things tidy.

It's a bit long winded but it should take the worry out of preserving your send structure on a hundred track project.

What do you think?

Bill.