Comments

pwppch wrote on 2/12/2011, 2:42 PM
The most common application is a set of stem mixes

You could create stems for:

- Lead vocal tracks
- Backing vocal tracks
- Drums
- Bass and rythm guitar
- Lead guitar

You route your tracks to the appropriate bus.

You can then mix at the bus level, with all busses going to the master bus.

There is a lot more to it than this, but it is a way to work with groups of mixes so you are not constantly adjusting all of your track levels.

Peter
datman wrote on 2/13/2011, 12:37 PM
Thanks Peter,

I guess I should have taken more time to explain by problems. So I’m very appreciative you responded. It’s been difficult week.

For years I had been just a hobbyist and did DJ club recordings up to 4 ch 24/96 2 out of the mixer and 2 mic-ing the room. Very easy, never any problems.

A friend has a band and I said I could record them. My first go around I used my Echo Mona I tried a couple of instrument mics and line out of a Mackie for the vocals. The room is crap all kinds of feedback with the monitors but I got a couple of really good tracks that the vocals and guitars sounded good. This got me interested in doing more.

I got a Behringer ADAT and thought I could set up audio busses so I could run all 9 mics into my record interface and only send the needed vocal mics to the soundboard and monitors.

Well it didn’t work no matter how I set up Vegas all the mics were hot and the room had a lot of feedback. I was running out of setup time and was unplugging and replugging the outs from the Mona in to the Mackie while everything was powered up and next thing I noticed the Mona’s power and phantom power were blinking on and off and was popping and I had no signals. The Mona is damaged and I hope it can be repaired.

I am demoing an Echo audiofire 8 and so far it sucks but I did figure a few things out. I could have done everything I wanted to do in the echo control panel just by muting the channels I didn’t want to go to the monitors. The audio busses seem to be for play back and not for record monitoring.

Also I am demoing Vegas 10.0 and had lots of problems with the laptop. I’m not sure why but prior to getting the AF8 I loaded a fresh copy of XP pro and manually installed the laptop drivers and XP SP3. This should have been great because I only had OS and Vegas installed. The sound was crap the recording was worse. From an OS backup I put my old OS back and with Vegas 3.0 it worked much better. Still no where near as good as the Mona. I think the firewire connection is not as foolproof as the pcmcia on the Mona.


Thanks for the link on stem mixes
musicvid10 wrote on 2/13/2011, 7:33 PM
Welcome to the world of live recording.

If you are using Vegas as a DAW, you would record one input (or one premix) per channel, up to the maximum your sound recording interface allows, then adjust levels, pan, and compression, etc. etc. in the mix.

The use of busses usually occurs in the editing / output phase, not the recording phase, if I understand your question correctly.

With all sympathy for your dilemma, I can say that an ounce of planning is worth a pound of correction in post; I'm sure Peter can shed a little more light on your situation . . .
datman wrote on 2/13/2011, 9:30 PM
I think I have the basic idea on how to set this up now. Similar to how I set it up before except only one audio bus. Perhaps most important everything is connected then powered up! The only thing that has me worried is if it feeds back hard. The hard clip can’t be good for the gear.

This is really a simple record setup. I will run each mic to a mono channel for the recording. Mute all but the 3 vocal mics in the echo control panel. I didn’t know this does not affect the recording.

After I record it I can spend days playing with it in Vegas. I’m looking forward to using the plug-in chainer, something I rarely used before. I’m also thinking all I have to do to create a stereo mix down is pan one guitar 70 % to the right the other 70 % to the left the lead vocals near the middle and do something similar with the drums.

I was going to record the entire session in one take not knowing a better way to master each track and knowing what a trick bag cutting and syncing up all the tracks can be not to mention stopping and starting the recording during the session ending up with dozens of default titled tracks.

So I plan to listen and tweak each track then render the entire mix to 2 channels. Then copy each track and delete the rest of the render.

Thinking about it now I guess I could start and stop for each track and save a new Vegas file for each. Although I think once I get it recording correctly I may not want to stop for fear something will get whacked.

I guess I’m showing how much of a newbee I am. I just want to hear all the suggestions I can get. I should have come here first. My Mona would most likely still be working.