Mix down trouble

[Timeline]

I never freeze in DP 5.13 unless my cpu load sucks. Here's what I do.

All my mixtracks goto Adat 1-2 via my RME IO. I loop the sdif and tell RME setup to route adat.

I then simply setup a stereo channel with the input set to the Adat and output to Analog 1-2. Yes you could simply buss through effects sends but I feel that's messy.

So... when I mix I simply put stereo mix track into record and print the mix in DP which includes all the unfrozen VI's and everything else. Yes it's like bussing but here is the difference.

When I overdub, all overdub tracks monitor through Analog 1-2 cutting latency in half compared to adat throughput. When done I reselect adat 1 and they resync.

When I bounce I simply select the audio in the mix track and put the stereo fader up to -1.00db and letter fly. Always works great.

It's not perfect but it works for me.

[XYZ]

To answer the previous question, yes, the freezing of tracks was mostly intended for slower machines, and/or very large or heavy VI use.

Having a fast machine and smallish projects, I don't NEED this capability, but find it works very well for creating stems or for printing tracks to send to the other guys in my band so they can re-track some of their parts. This way, if they don't have all the exact same plug-ins I have, it doesn't matter, they can use the frozen tracks, and then add their new tracks.

Also a good idea to freeze the tracks after a project is done. If you ever return to it 5 years from now, are you sure the plugs and VIs you used will still work? Will they work the same way? Will they sound the same?

[mattsearles]

Good points.. I was kinda thinking along those lines.

Right now what I'm doing is working on this project.. rather linearly.. where I start from the first note and keep going, more or less, till the last note.. and every once and a while I'll want to render out a version to share with people.. as a part of my communications strategy... people who follow my blog or my twitter or whatever.. people I've connected with here there and wherever...

so because nothing is really final yet.. It's preferable not to have to freeze stuff.

Freezing for collaboration.. I don't usually segregate, in my mind, composition from performance, from mixing... Sorta like how harmony, orchestration, and counterpoint.. aren't really things that live independently from one another accept maybe in how we might study them..

So it sorta seems like.. what you'd probably want to do is have frozen tracks, or somehow have the option to.. without them reflection any automation you put on them.. and maybe make some kind of standardized automation data format that every one could use.. that they could load up in whatever program they are using, so they could get the mix and still be able to modify it.. of course then you have the troubles with aux tracks and effects and what not..

Maybe you could handle that like typography on the net.. "if you have this font, use this, if not use this," particularly if some group worked on a project to try and program different effects of the same class to produce pseudo consistent results.. like programing different reverb effects to try and make it so the resultant patches were reasonable fact similes.

It's interesting.. I was just at this local media makers meet up.. a social media orientated group.. and there was a guy from PBS who was looking for someone to help score something he was doing, and a film maker friend recommended a guy he often collaborates with because he'll give him the rendered files from DP, so when he does the mix for his film he can mix the parts himself.. so they don't get in the way of the dialog or whatever.. at the time I was thinking "well why don't you just use EQ?"

But now I'm thinking.. wouldn't it be interesting if a film maker made impulse recordings in the space.. so he could throw that into a convolution reverb, and mix the sonic elements into the space of the scene.. wouldn't that be interesting.. sorta Andra Bizan-ish.. aesthetic thinking

In any event, I wonder how you might manage these sorts of issues.