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dkistner
Posts: 50
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 Posted - Sat Jul 19, 2003 11:27 am
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I've already pre-ordered the update to Adobe Audition, and I'm playing now with the latest CEPro demo, trying to get up to speed before it comes out. As a long-time CE2K user, all I can say is "Why did I wait so long to upgrade?!"
But I have a question. Is there any such thing as putting a master effect on the whole mix (i.e., on Out 1) without having to send all the tracks to a kludge bus? If I want to apply a mastering plugin or a global spectrum analyzer to a mix, it looks like the only choice I have is to manually route everything to a bus. I hope this is not the case and I'm just missing something.
Surely there's a trick....
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Sat Jul 19, 2003 11:58 am
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| Surely there's a trick.... |
No, there isn't - you've already outlined what you have to do! Essentially, you'd normally be doing this to the single mixed-down file, and not to the unmixed tracks. Whilst it's not an impossible thing to arrange to do to a mix (although you have to bear in mind that can't feed a buss to another buss), it would mean that you were making your poor PC do a staggering amount of work before you heard anything!
But if you want to apply global EQ, I shall set the cat amongst the pidgeons somewhat, and say that really, you should be analysing the problem with the components in your mix rather than trying to 'fix' the whole thing, surely? That is what mixing is supposed to be about!
If you do a search, you will find that we have discussed this before - and that there has been a fair degree of agreement with one of my definitions of a good mix, which is - one that does not need any mastering! With care, it is possible to get your mix to the point where virtually everything that needs to be done has been done to individual tracks (via busses where neccessary), without any need for extensive post-processing at all. Oh, and I don't include your final normalise in this - this is about the one thing that realistically, you could never fix in the mix. But with a 32-bit mixdown, your final normalise has no penalties attached to it whatsoever.
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dkistner
Posts: 50
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Posted - Sat Jul 19, 2003 12:10 pm
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Steve, thanks for your answer. I'm very old (and hence new) to this forum, and I'm still hunting for the search-forum feature...old eyes...sorry.
Yeah, I was afraid of that. I don't particularly do much "mastering," although I was hoping for a quick way to just solo a handful of instruments and see how they work together in Inspector (spectrum analyzer), perhaps adding in or dropping out instruments quickly in real time to get a sense for where my holes and train wrecks are. I find it difficult to "visualize" what an entire mix is doing just by analyzing the individual instruments' spectrums...which I also do, of course, when EQing. Maybe there's a way to do that already using the built-in Frequency Analyzer; I'll keep playing.
It would be nice as well (and maybe there's a way I haven't found in the manual yet), to be able to collapse the whole mix to mono in real time to help in making panning refinements. It's just handy to be able to apply an effect to a master bus sometimes, even if it does cost a lot in resources to do it.
Thanks for suggesting those earlier threads. I'll certainly check them out when I find the search button!
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Sat Jul 19, 2003 5:30 pm
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CEP2 does internal track-bounces - if you select the tracks you want to bounce, and use Edit>Mix down to empty track>selected waves you can do this in mono or stereo, and just ditch the track when you've finished with it.
If you really are desperate to do a master FX track, you can use this technique to achieve one without doing a final mixdown, I suppose... but for just checking a mix of some tracks in mono, it works fine.
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dkistner
Posts: 50
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Posted - Sat Jul 19, 2003 6:59 pm
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What I need is the ability to nudge things and hear how they sound in real time, like you'd sweep through frequencies to home in on something, so I guess what I'll do is set up an initial "rough mix" bus strictly for this purpose; I can move everything out of that bus when I'm finished with it--but adding the ability to put "effects" (global utility plugins, actually) on the master bus (like you can in Acid) would be a fine addition for a future CEPro upgrade.
I'll have to test it to see how it handles wrapped, but I can use the VST Monomaker to hear the mix in mono as I nudge the panning a bit to arrive at the best initial spots for instruments (per Don Smith's technique as mentioned in the Owsinksi book). That's really the main thing I want to be able to do. Because I compose and mix specifically with (and for) headphones (brainwave entrainment stuff that will never be listened to on anything but headphones), I don't have (or need) a monitoring setup that I can flip easily to mono. So the equivalent of a mono/stereo switch would also be a fine addition to CEPro.
Thanks for your help in this, Steve. I'll be back!
Oh, and I finally found the darned search button. That tiny light grey type is really a bear to read. :(
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SeanC
Location: USA
Posts: 20
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Posted - Mon Aug 11, 2003 6:22 am
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dkistner
you have found one of the issues that is annoying. There are many many times I would like to put an effect on the entire mix, without having to mix down and apply it or use a workaround.
Two examples that I do often: bass rolloff at 100 hz on the entire mix for a TV commercial. Patching in a limiter or reverb on the entire mix.
The workaround is tedious but possible just as you mention, assigning all used tracks to a bus and setting up a bus processing chain. It's interesting that last time I was using Adobe Premier they hadn't made a master bus patch point yet either...thankfully Vegas Video did.
If enough people would find benefit to this feature, hopefully it can be added.
Sean
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Master FX in Cool Edit Pro/Adobe Audition