Tips on using markers, VCAs vs Folders etc

[swethington]

Hi all,

I'm hoping I can tap into the collective knowledge here and get some tips on some ways I'm trying to speed up my mixing workflow. Any help would be much appreciated!

I should also mention I'm strictly doing music production, no post work or anything like that. Primarily recording/mixing live bands (typically very few instrument tracks etc). Probably an equal mix of songs where I've been the tracking engineer and songs where I'm just the mix engineer.

1. MARKERS. I'll typically set these as the song is playing back on a first or second listen just to give myself visual cues for verse/chorus changes etc, but if I hit 'enter' to create a new marker I'd like to have the marker created where my selection is rather than where the playback head is. Is there a preference I haven't found that would allow me to change that behavior?

2. VCAs vs FOLDERS. This one is probably more subjective in some ways, and hopefully I can explain this without making it overly complicated.

So I currently use routing folders exactly how I used to use aux tracks. I'll use guitars as an example, but this is pretty much my setup for other instruments as well. If I have 3 guitars in a song, each with 2 tracks (different mics) I'll put the two tracks for each guitar in it's own routing folder and then those three folders are nested in a main 'guitars' folder. In terms of mix/edit groups, I'll group the mics for a particular guitar track (guitar 1a, guitar 1b grouped as guitar 1) but I generally don't group the routing folders for the 3 guitars.

I do it this way so that I can have inserts/sends on the individual guitars and/or the overall guitar bus and still control the guitars with a single fader (again, just like an aux, but with the benefit of being able to collapse the folder to keep things visually clean).

I also then will create some different layouts on my S1 - for example, a 'mains' layout that has the primary folders for drums, bass, guitars, keys, vocals, etc. And then another layout for the guitars where I'll see the folders for guitars 1,2,3.

So I guess my question is, what (if any) benefit would there be to using VCAs rather than routing folders for those 'mains' folders? My understanding is that one benefit is that if I group all 3 guitar folders to a VCA and mute/solo the VCA any sends I have on those individual guitar folders will also mute/solo. That seems handy, but the trade-off is that the VCA doesn't allow processing on that bus. I guess I could have a routing folder and a VCA for the same group of tracks but that seems overly complicated for minimal benefit.

Is there something fundamental that I'm missing about VCAs that might make them more useful than routing folders? Or am I overthinking this and looking for a solution to a problem I don't actually have? It certainly wouldn't be the first time!

Hopefully I'm asking that question clearly, but after years of working with just aux tracks the transition to routing folders made a lot of sense to me right away. But VCAs still mystify me a bit!

Thanks!!

[Ben Jenssen]

I'm retired, and nowadays I mostly use PT to play around with old sessions from my old studio, and occationally colaborating with friends on home made stuff. So mostly mixing, mostly audio, like you. Not very big sessions.

Just a few thoughts on VCAs;
I see you have an S1. I'm having great fun these days using a combination of Command|8 and SSL UC1. It lets me take my eyes away from the screen for long periods of time, and focus better on what I'm hearing.

One thing I find extremely useful is the 'Master Fader' button on the C8. One click and the controller shows only MF. Another click and all VCAs is spread out on the controller. (Yet another click and you're back to regular tracks.) I find myself using them all the time during mixing to mute, solo, and control level. The biggest advantage is that the solo tells the VCA tracks to solo. I'd have to use groups to do that were it not for VCAs - or use AUX and routing folders and messing with solo safe, it's much more intuitive with VCAs. Basically, I solo some tracks with a click on their VCA, and go into individual tracks without them being grouped.

A typical session for me has all audio tracks not solo-safe'ed, and AUX'es solo-safed, and most tracks are part of a group with a VCA and the group is inactive. The VCA controls its tracks as if it's group is active with regards to solo, mute, and level.

I don't know about S1, but I thought there might be something like the master/VCA-button there.

I've used routing folders and folder tracks very little. When I tried them, they didn't do that much for me, and I had troubles with them showing up 'uncollapsed' on opening sessions. I don't bother, and use AUX tracks like I've always done. I also supect they won't work nicely with the UC1, which has some quirks with track order and visibility.

[swethington]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply Ben!

It sounds like for the most part I'm using routing folders with the S1 in a similar way as you're using VCAs with the C8. I don't know the C8 at all, but the S1 basically does the same thing where I can switch from a bank of my main folders (drums, bass, guitars, vocals etc, each on it's own fader) and then back to all tracks or to another set of tracks/folders with a click. There's a shift layer to get there on the S1 but it's not at all cumbersome.

I think another key thing that makes it similar is that routing folders don't need to be put into solo safe like auxes do. So if I solo a track inside a folder it acts as if it were routed to an aux in solo safe, and if I solo the actual routing folder it acts as if I were soloing a group of all the tracks that are in the folder, whether or not they're actually grouped together.

My biggest hesitation with VCAs is that if I wanted to write identical automation to all the tracks in that VCA/folder, I'd rather do it at the folder level rather than automating the individual tracks in the same way. I'll often have some sort of dynamics processing inserted on the routing folder, and if I make changes to the volume of the tracks feeding that compressor I'm potentially changing the behavior of the compressor. So I'd rather keep the tracks pushing a consistent input to the compressor and then automate the output of it rather than the input (if that makes sense).

Ultimately though, I think I've sort of answered my own question about folders vs VCA. And it seems like it comes down to being one of those things where the 'best' solution is the one you know how to use. Having said that though, adding the S1 to my workflow totally switched things up for me in a way that felt laborious at first but eventually streamlined and focused my approach to mixing in Pro Tools significantly, so I don't want to discount that VCAs might be another one of those things that I just haven't fully understood the potential of yet.

Still curious about the behavior of adding markers during playback though!

[climber]

I just play thru a song, tapping the enter key to drop in markers as I go along. Then go back afterward to name each and fine tune their positions. I’ve done this for hour long live performances and it works pretty well.

[albee1952]

For me, a marker drops at the spot when I hit enter(the first hit), so I name each on the fly and they drop at or very near the desired spot(its also simple to drag them around on the next pass if they need to move).

I'm an old sound guy and VCA's are something I use more than Folder Tracks. But having said that, its more habit than anything else and the only possible advantage of VCA's is the VCA spill feature on the S1(but for all I know, the S1 might be able to open a folder too). If the S1 can't open a folder track, then consider using VCA's(or both). If you place your VCA's on the screen so they are clustered together, you can access most or all of your channels and do your mix on one page of faders(VCA's for general mixing. Spill any VCA to see the tracks assigned to that VCA. Unspill, and your cluster of VCA's should come right back up on the S1 surface)

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by swethington

1. MARKERS. I'll typically set these as the song is playing back on a first or second listen just to give myself visual cues for verse/chorus changes etc, but if I hit 'enter' to create a new marker I'd like to have the marker created where my selection is rather than where the playback head is. Is there a preference I haven't found that would allow me to change that behavior?

Could it be as simple as to uncheck 'Link timeline and edit selection' in the options menu?

[its2loud]

While I use both VCA’s and folder tracks, let’s take a pause to discuss the difference of each. They are NOT the same thing. Nor do VCA’s and routing folders function at all the same way.

VCA’s are a single fader controlling a group of source tracks (audio, aux, inst, midi) that are ultimately bussed to a destination such as a Subgroup, 2mix, or any other output path.

VCA’s control these source tracks from faders of each individually contained group of that VCA.

Routing Folder tracks are a dressed up AUX track. Each individual track contained in a routing folder should have its output bussed to the input of their parent folder. The individual faders of these child tracks (tracks within the folder) are NOT controlled by the parent folder fader. The parent folder fader simply controls the processed output of the all the child tracks combined.

Therefore, while you can spill both VCA’s and Track and Routing Folders from any of the Avid control surface. Signal flow wise, they do not operate the same.

So, to sum up, VCA’s control a group of source tracks by adjusting their individual fader output levels.
Routing Folder control the output and processed signal of only that folder of ALL contained child tracks routed to that routing folder. Same as an Aux track would if you were using it as a Drum buss, guitar buss, or any other type of buss.

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by its2loud

While I use both VCA’s and folder tracks, let’s take a pause to discuss the difference of each. They are NOT the same thing. Nor do VCA’s and routing folders function at all the same way.

VCA’s are a single fader controlling a group of source tracks (audio, aux, inst, midi) that are ultimately bussed to a destination such as a Subgroup, 2mix, or any other output path.

VCA’s control these source tracks from faders of each individually contained group of that VCA.

Routing Folder tracks are a dressed up AUX track. Each individual track contained in a routing folder should have its output bussed to the input of their parent folder. The individual faders of these child tracks (tracks within the folder) are NOT controlled by the parent folder fader. The parent folder fader simply controls the processed output of the all the child tracks combined.

Therefore, while you can spill both VCA’s and Track and Routing Folders from any of the Avid control surface. Signal flow wise, they do not operate the same.

I think most of the participants in this thread were already aware of most of this, but it's a good clarification. Could even be elaborated further, I think. Thanks.

[its2loud]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

I think most of the participants in this thread were already aware of most of this, but it's a good clarification. Could even be elaborated further, I think. Thanks.

I would disagree based on the OPs original question

Originally Posted by swethington

I'what (if any) benefit would there be to using VCAs rather than routing folders for those 'mains' folders? My understanding is that one benefit is that if I group all 3 guitar folders to a VCA and mute/solo the VCA any sends I have on those individual guitar folders will also mute/solo. That seems handy, but the trade-off is that the VCA doesn't allow processing on that bus. I guess I could have a routing folder and a VCA for the same group of tracks but that seems overly complicated for minimal benefit.

Is there something fundamental that I'm missing about VCAs that might make them more useful than routing folders? Or am I overthinking this and looking for a solution to a problem I don't actually have? It certainly wouldn't be the first time!
!

Hence the need to clarify the very specific distinction and behavior of both. Thanks

[Tweakhead]

For OP . . . watch these two VCA tip videos from Mike Thornton on Pro Tools Expert.
old videos, but still relevant - especially the coalesce explanation. It's something many SSL engineers would do back in the day, and still can be useful for Pro Tools control surface users.

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/hom...s-in-pro-tools

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/hom...n-in-pro-tools