Hi,
I'm in the middle of a project recording a vocal ensemble. The setup is 2 people per mic, 8 mics to 8 tracks, every mic is isolated from the others, so blending can be fixed in the mix. I have to record all 8 tracks simultaneously because the director wants it that way.
I'm getting a little confused while dealing with recording multiple takes, especially when we only need to re-record part of a tune. The manual didn't help though I read many times the sections
Recording into an empty track
Recording into a time selection
Recording into an event
Recording into an event with a time selection
Assume the "main event" is the keyboard accompaniment for the entire 4 minute song. Assume I need to re-record the tenors and basses for verse 2.
I made a time selection to cover the verse 2. I could not find a way to move the cursor ahead (earlier in time) of the time selection - so that when I hit record we would have playback of the keyboard to get everybody started, and then automatically punch in to record the 4 vocal tracks when we hit the time selection.
What ended up happening is that when I hit record - it started recording immediately (ahead of my time selection) and the newly created event kind of "hides" the good stuff that I thought was going to be pre-roll. And when I hit the end of the time selection - it kept right on recording the new event to "cover up" the good stuff that followed the time selection.
I figured out how to grab the pre-roll and post-roll stuff that I accidentally "hid", but seems like this should not be so hard.
Do I really need to split the vocal tracks into 3 events? I guess I can concept that...
* I make a time selection for just the piece I need to rerecord
* split the vocal events to create a pre-event, recordit-event and post-event.
* Select the record-it events with ctrl-click on the events on all 4 tracks to be rerecorded.
* Move the cursor back into the pre-event so I have a pre-roll leading to the selected events.
* Arm the 4 tracks for recording
* hit record
* This causes playback of all unmuted tracks including the 4 armed tracks.
* Once the cursor crosses into the selected events in the time selection, they stop playing back what they contain, but start recording what the singers are doing now.
-
Am I on the right "track" with this?
-
A related question. During experiments with multiple takes I got something odd. In "take 2" I rerecorded 8 vocal tracks. On playback of the newly recorded events, I seemed to have both the new version and the old version playing simultaneously. What is that called, sound with sound or something? I think maybe I did not "select" the events to be recorded over - could that have caused it? If so, it actually could be useful... Now I'm extra careful to make sure all 8 tracks worth of events are selected before I hit record. Learning the hard way!!!
-
By the by, my old PIII machine with 512meg of ram finally hit the wall with about 27 tracks on the time line (44.1kHz 24 bit mono tracks). Even with no plugins or automation active, I couldn't do anything to the track headers (like mute a track or adjust the playback gain) while recording. I had to split the project into two - accompaniment with strings and accompaniment with vocals. I can reduce the project complexity later when I combine all the strings to one track, all the vocals to 1 track and so on, that should eliminate about 18 tracks. But really, I guess its time for a new computer. Amazing how any studio got by with just 8 tracks TOTAL. I'm spoiled. Now need to find a fast and small computer I can haul around. The tower is getting to be a nuisance due to its size and weight.
Best regards, Marc
I'm in the middle of a project recording a vocal ensemble. The setup is 2 people per mic, 8 mics to 8 tracks, every mic is isolated from the others, so blending can be fixed in the mix. I have to record all 8 tracks simultaneously because the director wants it that way.
I'm getting a little confused while dealing with recording multiple takes, especially when we only need to re-record part of a tune. The manual didn't help though I read many times the sections
Recording into an empty track
Recording into a time selection
Recording into an event
Recording into an event with a time selection
Assume the "main event" is the keyboard accompaniment for the entire 4 minute song. Assume I need to re-record the tenors and basses for verse 2.
I made a time selection to cover the verse 2. I could not find a way to move the cursor ahead (earlier in time) of the time selection - so that when I hit record we would have playback of the keyboard to get everybody started, and then automatically punch in to record the 4 vocal tracks when we hit the time selection.
What ended up happening is that when I hit record - it started recording immediately (ahead of my time selection) and the newly created event kind of "hides" the good stuff that I thought was going to be pre-roll. And when I hit the end of the time selection - it kept right on recording the new event to "cover up" the good stuff that followed the time selection.
I figured out how to grab the pre-roll and post-roll stuff that I accidentally "hid", but seems like this should not be so hard.
Do I really need to split the vocal tracks into 3 events? I guess I can concept that...
* I make a time selection for just the piece I need to rerecord
* split the vocal events to create a pre-event, recordit-event and post-event.
* Select the record-it events with ctrl-click on the events on all 4 tracks to be rerecorded.
* Move the cursor back into the pre-event so I have a pre-roll leading to the selected events.
* Arm the 4 tracks for recording
* hit record
* This causes playback of all unmuted tracks including the 4 armed tracks.
* Once the cursor crosses into the selected events in the time selection, they stop playing back what they contain, but start recording what the singers are doing now.
-
Am I on the right "track" with this?
-
A related question. During experiments with multiple takes I got something odd. In "take 2" I rerecorded 8 vocal tracks. On playback of the newly recorded events, I seemed to have both the new version and the old version playing simultaneously. What is that called, sound with sound or something? I think maybe I did not "select" the events to be recorded over - could that have caused it? If so, it actually could be useful... Now I'm extra careful to make sure all 8 tracks worth of events are selected before I hit record. Learning the hard way!!!
-
By the by, my old PIII machine with 512meg of ram finally hit the wall with about 27 tracks on the time line (44.1kHz 24 bit mono tracks). Even with no plugins or automation active, I couldn't do anything to the track headers (like mute a track or adjust the playback gain) while recording. I had to split the project into two - accompaniment with strings and accompaniment with vocals. I can reduce the project complexity later when I combine all the strings to one track, all the vocals to 1 track and so on, that should eliminate about 18 tracks. But really, I guess its time for a new computer. Amazing how any studio got by with just 8 tracks TOTAL. I'm spoiled. Now need to find a fast and small computer I can haul around. The tower is getting to be a nuisance due to its size and weight.
Best regards, Marc