Tips & trix

[Ben Jenssen]

I have kind of a scrap book with stuff I’m finding on the DUC.
Thought maybe some of this could be of use to others too. Here’s a few things:

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Mac OS memory. The amount your memory will increase is dictated by your current DAE Playback Buffer setting.

Drop a cursor in a track and hit CONTROL + the HYPHEN key. This will toggle between volume view and regions view.

Select all traxks in a group: click to the left of the groups name ("drums") in the "groups" window

Nudge Change- Apple Option plus or minus

Chop the bass note at the beginning and end. Put the cursor at the kick drum's attack and control click (mac) or start click (windows) the bass note region with the grabber tool. The bass note snaps to the kick.

To fatten up a kick drum without adding EQ:
Use the signal generator to make either a 52Hz or 60Hz sine wave at about -6dB on an audio track. – Send the kick out to a buss prefader at 0dB. – Now put a gate on the Sine wave and have it be keyed by the buss. – Set the settings so that the tone peaks thru as tight as needed.

Wah Wah Effect
Make two Mono Aux ins and set both inputs to your guitar inputs.
Now on both tracks put a Trim plugin then a Focusrite 4 band.
Set one of the trim plugs to invert the phase. Now you should have no sound.
Take one of the EQ's and boost the mids about 10 to 12 dB. You may have to turn the input on the EQ down to compensate for the boost. Turn the input down on the other EQ also.
Now sweep the Freq and adjust the Q to taste.
Buss both auxs to the input of the track you want to record to.

Burning whole files with several songs on (Live recordings with applause f.ex.)
If you have defined index points in your SoundDesigner II files,
Toast recognizes them and writes them to the disc. To read the
markers in your sound files, select the marker type from the Index
pop-up menu. Choose Text Markers or Numeric Markers depending on the type of
markers you defined. The number of markers is then displayed in
the track list. Note: Index-points are seldom used, because most audio CD
players cannot use them (or even see them).
Not all CD writers are able to write index-points in track-at-once
mode (the mode used by Toast). If your writer does not support
index points, a dialog box is displayed to warn you when you try to
write the CD.

Create an Aux Input (mono will do). Name it 'Drums Master' or something similar. Assign NO INPUT and NO OUTPUT. Make this part of your group that you want to control. Save a Track Show/Hide preset called "Show SubMixes Only", so that just the dummy faders come up on your mixer. This will then be more like operating your Hard Groups on an SSL. (ie they will control the levels etc, but no audio will pass thru them). It is still not the same thing however as the automation for the hard groups on an SSL acts independently from the faders they control.

Do not buy the quicksilver 733 or 800. both lack L3 cache which speeds up the processor considerably. So either buy a used 867 mhz or a 933 mhz. Of course you can buy the DP:s, they too have the L3 cache.

I discovered something really interesting while working on a snare track recently.
It was sounding overly "pop-y" and I was looking for something to add both crispness and character. After trying a few different things I happened upon the Lo-Fi plug-in in the D-Fi collection. All I did was add a little of the "noise" effect (about 10-15%) and it did the trick perfectly.

Video edit window. This track is useless and known to slow processing in a drastic way. Use only the movie window, hide that stupid video track.

I don´t use T Racks for anything else than dithering the master from 24 to 16 bits. There is a CLEAR, audible difference between processing the same through PT dither or T Racks dither. T Racks sounds much cleaner and better, no doubt about it. Idon´t know why, but it is so. I simply prepare 24 bit master (with L1 without dither), bounce it to stereo interleaved, then put into T RAcks dither and process it (few seconds). Results great. Ready for an audio CD.
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Maybe you have some too?

[mentalmusic]

Hey Ben, nice job starting this thread. (I'm definetely a fan of the adding a sine wave to the kick drum!) You've always been one of the most helpful people on this site that I have come across. Hopefully others will add some "tips & trix" of their own. I'll try to think of some myself...
As far as the 733 thing goes, I've always wondered how much the L3 cache has to do with PT's performance. I have a 733 obviously. Is there any way to upgrade the L3 cache?

[jdavis74]

Hi, good tipe, but one question. I have the 733 quicksilver.

Are you saying that no matter what, it doesnt PT well? Mine works pretyy good, but I have noticed that my cpu meter tends to be a little high all the time (a tad over the middle mark) and if I use any plugins like Renissance reverb or sansamp, my ram hits the roof. I have 384 megs of ram, but I just bought another 256 today, hoping to eliminate some of that problem.

Any thoughts as to how with this computer, I can avoid my ram and cpu from peakin out so quickly

[Ben Jenssen]

Do not buy the quicksilver 733 or 800. both lack L3 cache which speeds up the processor considerably. So either buy a used 867 mhz or a 933 mhz. Of course you can buy the DP:s, they too have the L3 cache.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

Originally posted by jdavis74:
I have the 733 quicksilver. Are you saying that no matter what, it doesnt PT well?
Any thoughts as to how with this computer, I can avoid my ram and cpu from peakin out so quickly

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">These tips are not from me.
I think the point of this was that one should look for level 3 cache when buying a mac for PT. Its supposed to mean more to performance than pure mHz. Just like you dont look for dual prosessors as long as PT doesnt support it.

[woodywho]

Originally posted by jdavis74:
I have noticed that my cpu meter tends to be a little high all the time (a tad over the middle mark) and if I use any plugins like Renissance reverb or sansamp, my ram hits the roof. I have 384 megs of ram, but I just bought another 256 today, hoping to eliminate some of that problem.Any thoughts as to how with this computer, I can avoid my ram and cpu from peakin out so quickly

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hey Jdavis, I use the same terrible 733 L2 cache mac.....it works flawlessly 4 me! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
I have (3) 512 sticks of memory in my box and the cpu gauge can barely be seen!! $.02

[DBX165]

Great Thread Ben,
I always print out DUC goodies so over the weekend I'll hunt threw them and post some.

[mentalmusic]

This is a cool tip&trik that I must admit I got from reading one of Ben's posts that he admitted he had gotten from someone else on the DUC a few years ago or so. It's a trick for getting automatic talkback from the studio into the control room:

1)Create a new mono audio track and set it up to have no input and an output to an unused mono bus.

2)Audiosuite a sine wave(100Hz works) across the entire track (make sure it is longer than the entire song)

3)set up a mic in the studio (preferably a omni cardiod) and set up an AUX track to recieve the mic.

4)Insert a "Digi"Limiter (uses less CPU) on the AUX track and set the ratio as high as possible and the threshold as low as possible, and then set the "Key" input of the limiter to be the bussed Sine wave track.

THE OUTCOME: During playback the mic is automatically muted. After playback, you get automatic talkback from the studio.

You can also do this with a mic in the control room for talkback going back to the studio, but be sure to mute it before yawning or mentioning Autotune to anyone else in the control room.

[kimaguresound]

hey
anyone ever try the triggered sub-bass OSC, but using white noise triggered by SN? i've been messing with that. good for simulating a bottom mic.

takecare

[kenhawkins]

one short but sweet...

apply this to any track to get a ghost-like or sucking in sound.

reverse track
bounce/import add reverb
reverse again.

i found this little gem helpful for scaring the kiddies...

[Faux Pas]

Something I never knew till yesterday. If you use IE, open the "Scrapbook" and hit "add" to save pages like this. I LOVE it.