Avid Pro Audio Community

Avid Pro Audio Community

How to Join & Post  •  Community Terms of Use  •  Help Us Help You

Knowledge Base Search  •  Community Search  •  Learn & Support


Avid Home Page

Go Back   Avid Pro Audio Community > Legacy Products > 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Mac)

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #1  
Old 02-14-2007, 07:56 AM
KMAN385 KMAN385 is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 126
Default Mixing with pro tools...

Hey everyone,

I am working on a project and I have a good mix going with the music, however, It is just a tad too loud for the vocals. Since everything sounds good, I just want to lower the music, say 1-2 db. That is, all the drum, guitar, key, bass etc, tracks.

How do I set something up where the actual mix stays the say, but I can move one slider that acts as a master almost.

Now, I know I can make a master fader track for the whole session for outro fades and etc., but I can't figure out how to get a track to affect on certain tracks (something tells me it has to do with a buss)


None the Less, I have seen it done before where all the music was grouped and one could lower the over all volume of the music mix, without affecting the actual ratios/mix.

Thanks,
Kyle
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 02-14-2007, 08:53 AM
Naagzh Naagzh is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 1,175
Default Re: Mixing with pro tools...

Learn to use your busses, which are internal mixing pathways. Go to your I/O setups, and click Busses. Now label each stereo buss something useful. Label one Drums, another CompDrums (if you're doing the parallel compression trick), another Guitars, another Vox Reverb, Vox Delay, Drums Reverb, Guitar Reverb, etc.

Start with drums. Go to each individual drum track and select as its output the buss labeled Drums. You won't hear these tracks now because their outputs have been routed to a buss, not to your monitors. Now create a stereo aux channel, label it Drums, and select as its input the buss labeled Drums. Now you can control the level of your drums as a whole by moving the Drums stereo aux fader. Repeat for guitars, if you have more than one. If you label your busses, you'll be able to know exactly where everything is going at a glance, rather than having to remember that the Drums buss is Buss 19-20, etc.

Hint: in PT a track can be sent to more than one output at a time. To do this, hold down Option-Shift-Control, click the output selector on a track, and select another output.

You can also use your busses to send a track's signal to an effect. For example, create a stereo aux channel, insert a reverb plug, and select as its input an available buss pair (say Buss 21-22, which you've labeled "Reverb"). Now create a "send" to the reverb on a another track, say a vocal track, by clicking one of the five little arrows below where you insert plug-ins. Select the "Reverb" buss, and raise the fader on the channel that pops up. Now your vocal will be sent to the reverb effect, according to how high you raise the fader.

Hope this helped.
__________________
002R PT7.3.1
MacBook Pro 2.33
OS 10.4.8
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 02-14-2007, 02:42 PM
brwells brwells is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 4
Default Re: Mixing with pro tools...

Can you just make a group for all the tracks excluding the lead vocs and the master fader? Then you just move one of the faders in the group.. and everyting else within that group follows, respecting their current positions. So essentially, you lower the "mix" behind the lead vocs. Right? I'm new to protools... so i could be missing something.

-b
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 02-14-2007, 02:52 PM
req06 req06 is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 418
Default Re: Mixing with pro tools...

damn right brwells,

What i would do is group the track minus the vocal (apple+g after selecting all the tracks for your group)

Then you can just lower one of the faders by say 2db. Hold apple when you move the fader and you can dou ultra fine changes to 0.1 0f a db.

If you have automation written already on any tracks in your groups do the following:

select all the tracks in your group and highlight the whole track, switch to view automation and using the trim tool apple drag one of the volume envelopes down by 2db.

Then you still have all your automtion just that everything is lowered by 2db.
__________________
G5 dp 2.0Ghz, 2.5 gb RAM/ G4 Powerbook 15" 1.33mhz, 2gb RAM/ 002r/Lacie D2 FW800/PTLE 7.4
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 02-14-2007, 03:11 PM
KMAN385 KMAN385 is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 126
Default Re: Mixing with pro tools...

Quote:
damn right brwells,

What i would do is group the track minus the vocal (apple+g after selecting all the tracks for your group)

Then you can just lower one of the faders by say 2db. Hold apple when you move the fader and you can dou ultra fine changes to 0.1 0f a db.

If you have automation written already on any tracks in your groups do the following:

select all the tracks in your group and highlight the whole track, switch to view automation and using the trim tool apple drag one of the volume envelopes down by 2db.

Then you still have all your automtion just that everything is lowered by 2db.
Now this is what I was talking about! Ok that seems real simple and what I was looking for..so Thank You!

Naagzh Thank You as well. So Now I am wondering, Would it be easier to say have a stereo AUX track say for my drums, and then add a Verb plugin there, instead of individually, to simulate the kit being in the room ?

Thanks
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 02-14-2007, 03:24 PM
brwells brwells is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 4
Default Re: Mixing with pro tools...

Yeah.. first thing I learned (again, totally new to PT)... use AUX tracks for reverbs if you are wanting the same reverb across multiple tracks. Just bus your tracks to the AUX track w/ the reverb. Otherwise... a reverb on EACH track would be a resource hog.

req06....

Good tip on adjusting automation!!! I had been adjusting each track manually! That tip is a huge timesaver!

-b
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 02-14-2007, 04:30 PM
c.evans c.evans is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Anderson, IN
Posts: 191
Default Re: Mixing with pro tools...

Submixing various elements with Stereo Busses is really useful once you get used to it. It allows you to easily process different groups and instruments via an aux return and then you can buss the output of your individual auxes to a final mix buss.

This enables you to print your mix back into your session. This is a cool way to work as well as it keeps your mix versions nested inside of your final mix session. It also allows you to print performance tracks at the same time as the final mix. All you have to do is setup a stereo buss labeled perf trax and send everything except the lead vocal through that buss as well as your final mix buss.

So in your situation you could trim the automation back a db or 2 on your drums, bass, gtrs, bgvs, and leave the lead vocal at its level. This will maintain all of your current mix balance.

Anyway, I'm not doing a great job of explaining everything but I hope this helps you to get the idea.

Chad
__________________
Home Studio Setup:
PT 9.0.5
Mac OSX 10.7.2
iMac 27"
3.4 GHZ 8 Core i7
8 gigs of ram
003 Factory

Chad Evans
Chief Engineer
Gaither Studios
Owner/Operator Big Mix Productions
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 02-14-2007, 06:33 PM
req06 req06 is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 418
Default Re: Mixing with pro tools...

Both methods are valid. I use stems all the time when I get to the end of my mix.

I will set up 4 aux inputs label them drums, bass, music, vox. Then I'll send all the relevant tracks to the appropriate bus.

It doesn't replace my automation triimming just helps when mixing down alternate mixes and is quick and easy way to adjust the overall balance of the track.

The possibilites are endless.....unfortunately the buses aren't
__________________
G5 dp 2.0Ghz, 2.5 gb RAM/ G4 Powerbook 15" 1.33mhz, 2gb RAM/ 002r/Lacie D2 FW800/PTLE 7.4
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
5.1 mixing Pro Tools 10 mbt.fair Pro Tools 10 3 04-23-2012 03:29 AM
Mixing On Pro Tools LE tandem Post - Surround - Video 3 06-23-2011 07:29 PM
Mixing Pop In Pro Tools nod25 General Discussion 2 08-06-2009 11:34 PM
Pro Tools LE & Mixing on The Go Willosy 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Win) 11 05-20-2009 04:32 AM
mixing in pro tools major_thom Tips & Tricks 12 06-10-2001 07:49 PM


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 01:05 AM.


Powered by: vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited. Forum Hosted By: URLJet.com