#512303 - 04/15/04 01:33 PM
DAW's and silent tracks?
|
rc
Senior Member
Registered: 08/02/02
Posts: 34
Loc: MO
|
Offline
|
|
Hello,
Ok, I’ve recorded a live performance (I don’t mean in front of an audience, but the performance recorded in one take, no overdubs), of Guitar, Lead vocal and 2 back-up vocals (4 tracks total) directly into a DAW.
The majority of the song was Guitar and lead vocal with the back-up vocals only on the chorus. So, as a result, the back-up vocal tracks (3 & 4) are silent throughout most of the song. Normally what I would do would be set the level at “-INF” and only bring it up when needed (via volume envelopes).
What if I just created “clips” of the parts needed on tracks 3 & 4 and deleted the rest of the track?
Advantage: Easier on the computer. Because I believe, please correct me if I’m wrong, even though the track volume is “-inf” or even muted, the computer still processes the track and any associated effects.
Disadvantage: If, by some chance, the clips get out of sync, I would need to manually sync the clip to the proper position (as opposed to just setting the start time of each track to 00:00:00:00).
Of course with only 4-tracks, there would not be much advantage, but I imagine with 15-20 tracks, creating clips might benefit overall performance of the computer.
Any thoughts?
Thank you
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#512304 - 04/15/04 06:41 PM
Re: DAW's and silent tracks?
|
Jason Poff
Senior Member
Registered: 05/11/01
Posts: 330
Loc: Lexington, Ky.UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
In Digital Performer, there is a selection in the automation setup menu called " mute frees system resources." There is probably a similar choice in your app. When this is selected, the cpu does not process muted track. The problem is when you unmute a track, playback is interrupted. I circumvent this problem by doing just what you have described (removing all the silent parts and not using mutes at all). Be sure to mute all the tracks you aren't using in the mix to save cpu power. Sometimes the leakage in the tracks where nothing is happening adds to the sound in a pleasant way. You might want to check for this before you edit the tracks down. I do notice the cpu usage bar grows a bit when playback gets to a spot where an edited track begins, but it is minute compared to the resources gained by muting a track completely.
Jason
Jason
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#512305 - 04/15/04 06:45 PM
Re: DAW's and silent tracks?
|
Jason Poff
Senior Member
Registered: 05/11/01
Posts: 330
Loc: Lexington, Ky.UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
By the way if the tracks do get out of sync, you can use a command ( move to original timestamp in Performer) to move it to the original location.
Jason
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#512306 - 04/16/04 01:22 AM
Re: DAW's and silent tracks?
|
LawrenceF
Senior Member
Registered: 10/11/01
Posts: 481
Loc: ,,UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
If you're concerned about the part moving once you create clips add blank parts between the clips and paste them all together. In Nuendo you just click the draw tool and it drops an empty block on either an audio or midi track. Or add empty parts that snap to a bar position to hold the clip in place.
Be careful about using any "move to timestamp" option after you cut the clip. What could happen is that if a track is timestamped 0:00 but the performance you clipped starts at 00:45. Returning to timestamped position could move it to 0:00. In daws (that I've used) clips don't automatically create their own timestamps, they retain the stamp (starting time) of the original file.
What you want to do is create "parts" from the clips and then reset the timestamp for each individual part. Otherwise they'll all be stamped with the original time, if at all.
Muting doesn't stop (Nuendo at least) from actually reading the track during playback, it just doesn't play it. The disk still reads it which is why there's no glitch from mute/unmute.
It's also why there's a "disable track" function which stops a track from being read during playback.
Lawrence
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#512307 - 04/16/04 02:17 AM
Re: DAW's and silent tracks?
|
Jason Poff
Senior Member
Registered: 05/11/01
Posts: 330
Loc: Lexington, Ky.UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
It's move to ORIGINAL time stamp that puts the track exactly where it was when it was recorded. At least in Performer.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#512308 - 04/16/04 12:09 PM
Re: DAW's and silent tracks?
|
rc
Senior Member
Registered: 08/02/02
Posts: 34
Loc: MO
|
|
Offline
|
|
Well, the application in question is Sonar 3.1 and like other programs, a muted a track still requires processing. The only way to have Sonar not process the track is to mark the track as “Archive”. The track still exists but its just not processed and I don’t believe you can switch this on and off during playback.
As far as “move to original timestamp” or "inserting blanks" these would be helpful. I don’t know if Sonar has a similar functions, I’ll have to look and see.
Thanks for you suggestions.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#512309 - 04/16/04 12:34 PM
Re: DAW's and silent tracks?
|
LawrenceF
Senior Member
Registered: 10/11/01
Posts: 481
Loc: ,,UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
Originally posted by Jason Poff:
It's move to ORIGINAL time stamp that puts the track exactly where it was when it was recorded. At least in Performer.
Unless what you are telling me is that Performer will automatically, when you split an audio clip, write a new timestamp on the second portion of that clip which references to where the split was made, or the beginning time of that clip?
I have not seen a daw do that automatically. Remember that a broadcast wave file only has one timestamp which is for the ENTIRE file. It doesn't allow for multiple stamps for multiple segments of the file. The daw can accomplish that with some edit commands though.
Lawrence
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#512310 - 04/16/04 01:32 PM
Re: DAW's and silent tracks?
|
Loco
Platinum Member
Registered: 08/11/00
Posts: 1242
Loc: Miami Beach,FL,UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
Originally posted by LawrenceF:
Unless what you are telling me is that Performer will automatically, when you split an audio clip, write a new timestamp on the second portion of that clip which references to where the split was made, or the beginning time of that clip?
Back to the mute parts.... just delete whatever you don't need. The Hard drive will work less, and if you're working a native DAW, your effects will release CPU cycles.
_________________________
"There's no right, there's no wrong. There's only popular opinion" Jeffrey Goines
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#512311 - 04/16/04 02:16 PM
Re: DAW's and silent tracks?
|
LawrenceF
Senior Member
Registered: 10/11/01
Posts: 481
Loc: ,,UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
Very cool.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#512312 - 04/16/04 04:27 PM
Re: DAW's and silent tracks?
|
doug osborne
MP Hall of Fame Member
Registered: 08/15/00
Posts: 2638
Loc: Culver City, CA, US
|
|
Offline
|
|
Yes, just delete the parts you don't need.
One of the things I miss about Logic (damn you, eMapple) is Strip Silence. It removes all audio from a file below a chosen threshold, producing many little clips containing some audio, and then you can merge the clips in-place to one track.
This feature has, in particular, saved my noisy single-coil-near-CRT-monitor guitar first-takes, and no-headphone vocal roughs.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#512313 - 04/17/04 02:52 AM
Re: DAW's and silent tracks?
|
Loco
Platinum Member
Registered: 08/11/00
Posts: 1242
Loc: Miami Beach,FL,UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
Strip silence... I don't like it that much. It would be better if instead of deleting stuff, just muited the region so you would know what was there.
_________________________
"There's no right, there's no wrong. There's only popular opinion" Jeffrey Goines
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
