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Comments
It’s a substitute for volume automation, @boone51 (on the other hand, the volume changes if you automate this way would be rather abrupt).
Thanks for the reply. I still dont get it, and I’m sure thats my problem and not yours. But... the volume changes would only be as abrupt or as subtle as the lines you create, right? It would seem that not only could you achieve the same thing, you could do it in a much less destructive way. Again, I’m sure I’m just being short sighted here, so thank you in advance for your patience with my inane questions.
No, I think you are right, I agree with you: I actually prefer and find much easier to draw my own lines, or ride the faders with W turned on... the method shown above is an alternative method, and can be vey fast if you just want to vary between a few gain levels for given regions... but I think it would work better as an altenative for multing (that is, using various tracks for a single instrument or singer) than for automation properly.
I guess that would work. If only there were some way to simply compress those tracks though. Someone could make a lot of money if they came up with something like that. ;-)
Of course there is, just send all tracks to a bus. Apply the built-in compressor (or Pro C2, or Pro MB, or Old Timer etc etc etc). Or else send them to a subgroup. Apply the buil-in BussPressor (or Pro C2, or Pro MB, or Old Timer etc etc etc). Or route them to two busses, keeping one dry and the other, well, apply the built-in compressor (or Pro C2, or Pro MB, or Old Timer etc etc etc) for New York-style compression.
Fact is, sometimes riding the faders (or multing, or drawing, or using the method above) pays off: compressors, regardless of how transparent, always alter (some say degrade) the sound. This is not always desired.
If you can find my personal take on it useful again, @boone51, I only use fader riding/multing etc on vocals these days - for almost everything else, I control dynamics with the compression methods above. I lose a lot of time but it pays off. I also use a compressor between the mic and the audio interface - yes, that dreaded Alesis 3630 - everytime I record the vocals. That means I also need to use a separate phantom power unit (in fact, a cheap behringer preamp only for the pp): not very much mobile, but it’s worth the hassle. Hope that helps.
I really wish Auria Pro offered this plug-in: http://www.waves.com/plugins/vocal-rider#achieving-perfect-vocal-levels-with-vocal-rider
But of course I can wait it to come after Melodyne!
That sounds a lot like a comperessor...lol
In all seriousness, I do totally understand that there is a time and a place to be meticulous. I make jokes about a compressor (I've never met one I didn't like) but I've also spent countless hours hand tweaking a track. I've almost always regretted it,, too. lol. I've gotten old and lazy, and I'm at the stage now where if I have to apply that much in post, I'm more inclined to just say it needs to be recorded again. And yes, I know that's not always possible, especially once you hit post. Still...grrrrr... ;-)
Talking about plug-ins, I opened a topic in the Auria Forum, check it out: http://auriaapp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=15285&p=53604#p53604
@boone51 I guess there's different ways to skin a cat, and different workflow preferences but if you read my post I actually explain my rationale at the very start: if you automate the fader itself (either by drawing automation or by riding the fader) changing the overall volume then becomes a pain in the arse.
Let's say you've spent some time making automation changes on the fader, but then you decide the whole vocal needs to come up 2db. That's a pain if the fader is tied up with automation, but with my method the fader is never tied to the automation so you can make overall level changes at any time.
Of course there's ways to work around either scenario (you can route an automated track to a bus for example, to gain a second fader), but this is what I find works for me.
Another benefit (which I think I mentioned) is that you get a visual representation of the waveform with this method: you will see the waveform size match visually in the editor as you adjust the gain of the sections.
As you say, many ways to skin that cat, and none of them are wrong. Or in my case, none are usually right in hindsight. I should have mentioned automating the bus in my original post. I swear I did in my head. Either way, thanks for sharing. I certainly wasn't condemning.
I've bookmarked this thread, as it's a fantastic read that I'm working my way through. Does anyone know how to turn off emails for bookmarked threads though? Can't find a setting for it. Fills my inbox up!
No offence taken - and also I'm more than happy for people to make suggestions/improvements on any of these tips. So anything that adds to the discussion is likely to help someone somewhere, and I include myself in that.
Easy: at the top right of the page there is a little cog icon, if you click/tap that, go to edit profile, then look for the menu on the right and you can change the notification preferences.
I used this method of section leveling frequently as the first stage after recording (on iPad) and transfer to the desktop with a dedicated editor before importing into the DAW for final processing.
(that DAW is totally non-destructive, so a lot of extra automation would apply)
It's a cool feature in Auria, but the GUI zoom (as with all their 'handle' stuff) deserves some improvement, pinch frequency is way too high. Admittedly I've no idea how atm.
you left out Pro-L, which is often much better to adjust a single track's dynamic balance to avoid the following:
Thanks again @richardyot !
Chopping up a vocal track and visually adjusting the volume of individual phrases (or words) is a very common approach. (If I remember correctly, Warren Huart likes this approach). I usually do this during the 'prep' portion of working on the main vocal where I make major volume adjustments, get rid of mic/stand noises, adjust breathes, etc. When you get comfortable with it, the process goes very quickly.
Then I render the chopped up track to a new file and use volume automation from that point to help the vocal ride just above the instruments. (On the desktop, I've also started use a vocal rider (the Melda one) which simplifies much of the process. I find it especially useful on background vocals that I don't want to spend tons of time on).
I'm sure i'm missing a setting somewhere but i ran into a strange issue today
I exported a midi file from Beatonal to Auria and set up synths. This worked fine until i added another, empty, track where i manually entered 2 notes i wanted to use for a pad. It was out of tune by 1 semitone
In order to eliminate the problem being with the actual exporting of the midi file, i tried to the same file in Modstep. Set up synths, added a new track and entered the notes and everything was in tune
Does anyone have an idea on what could cause this in Auria?
Where do you guys place inserts on your channel strip or does it not matter.
For example, Pro C2 first then Pro Q2 second?
Depends on the situation. Usually like that, once you compress you might need to shape the sound to fit your mix or to add sparkle you lost while compressing. But i usually lowpass filter before compressing or if the track needs a lot of eq i do that first so i'm not adding unneeded frequencies into the compression. On a vocal track i might have a light compressor going into an eq into another compressor into another eq.
Makes sense. I just put a mixed drum track in and the cymbals are a bit splashy, so probably best to deaden them with eq before compressing.
Stereo to mono.
I've seen a lot of people saying mix with mono tracks as it's easier/better?
I have tracks in stereo in Auria - so is there an easy way to convert them to mono inside Auria, or should I take them somewhere else?
I also recorded some guitar from bias fx into Auria and that was stereo. Couldn't find a mono option in bias. Was it a case of turning left or right channel to zero?
To convert to mono, solo your track, go to Menu --> Mixdown, and select the options for "mono", and "import as new track"
TBH I never bother. I think all IAA instruments are stereo by default for example. I just leave them like that.
Thanks @richardyot
Ah, I wondered why most instruments were giving me the double wave stereo.
So it's a bit of a myth that mixing mono tracks is better?
Well mixing in mono is going to use less resources, and less disk space (if you clean up your project after deleting the stereo tracks).
Something I'm unsure of: how it affects panning, I'm sure I've read somewhere it makes a difference somehow, but I can't quite recall.
Yeah, me too on the panning front, I'll google it or something!
You should avoid using stereo tracks in your mix, or approach them with garlic and a crucifix, @richardyot and @DefRobot, and this have nothing to do with storage economics.
I’ll try to explain with a situation that I experienced in my early days using DAWs: I learn my lesson the hard way!
Let’s say you find a nice synth patch, the most gorgeous sound you’ve ever heard. It has the softness of a flute, but the edginess of a violin, and a glistening echo gives it space and greatness. You decide to use it in your mix, and while tracking you are amazed at how cool it is, making all other instruments, including your live guitars, bass, etc, sound dull.
But when you arrive at the mixing stage, you decide to pan it full left to add some space to your creamy fat distorted guitar rhythm, which doesn’t sound as cool but is necessary to your arrangement. Oops, suddenly you have some wonky, ellefantine sound at the left speaker, and your mix suddenly sucks. You try the opposite, panning left, but the situation is even worse: try have a screaming stuttering cat going randomly up and down in level. If you put it dead center, the wonderful sound is back, but then you have to get rid of the guitar. You bitterly delete the synth from your project.
What happened was the synth sound was a layer of many sounds, already cleverly distribute throughout the stereo range to get that cool sound. When you move the pan, say, to the left, you are not moving the whole sound stereo mix to the left, but rather giving prominence the elements that were mixed in the left field of the original synth sound. By panning full left, only the element that was placed full left in the layered synth would appear; that happens to be the awful, elefantine sound. Same for the right field: the screaming cat was sitting there alone in the full right!
Of course, I could instead have bounced the synth to mono. That could have worked, but that could have altered the sound greatly because of a phenomenon called phase cancelation (many know this effect as “comb filtering”). That happens a lot using bass and kick sounds: generally speaking, low pitched sounds will sound better dead center, and any energy difference between the left and right speakers will result in lost of impact, weight and general punchiness, so they must be monaural sounds. It’s common, after summing a kick or bass to mono, to realize that powerful sound is mostly gone because of phase cancelation.
If you really want to use a stereo sound in your mix, keep it dead centre and build your artangement around it, and don’t test your luck using lots of stereo sounds. Don’t ever use stereo basses and kicks, and don’t use stereophonic effects on basses and kicks. Use only one or two stereo patches if possible. Better using none at all.
@connactic
Ah, thanks mate! Just posted the question in the main forum as I couldn't find answers from searching on google!
Makes a lot of sense that!