The DijonStock Digital Home Recording Support Forum

let's say i have 4 to 8 tracks recorded for drums and in order to free up these tracks i want to reduce them to 2 tracks. what approach should i take to this in order to maintain stereo imaging?

Do a submix and bounce the tracks to one of the stereo pairs. Pan, EQ and treat with effects as you deem appropriate before you bounce. I sometimes do an additional submix of just the kick and snare, then compress the ba-jee-beez out of it. You then take this track and blend it with the rest of the mix to taste for some additional punch.

Gary

by sub-mix you mean literally sub-mix functionj on the G?
stereo imaging will remain intact as long as i don't mess with panning on the stereo pair? how are you bouncing - first to stereo then move to tracks or is there an easy way?



so you end up with 2 stereo pairs of drums?

There are two ways to do a bounce on the G. One is to use the bounce function, which will send your submixed tracks directly to the destination tracks. The other is to do a mix to the stereo track and then move that mix to where you want it.

I always do the latter because I find it much easier and more intuitive than dealing with the routing screen in the bounce function. A better reason to mix to the stereo track is that it will allow you to use the effects as sends or inserts. In bounce mode you can only use the effects as inserts, meaning a given effect can only be applied to a single track.

Further, it may sound like a bit of a pain to move the mix from the stereo track to where you want it, but in my experience it takes less time than it did to type in this sentence about it.

mcnewsxp,

I'd do it the way JM described. I have not mixed on the "G" in a long time (though I still track drums on the G, nothing better IMHO). All my mixing is done via PC/Adobe Audition. Yes, I have two stereo drum tracks.....one without buss compression, the other heavily compressed. I pull up the faders on the heavily compressed drum track until I achieve the "punch" that fits the song. This works great on heavier rock where you want the drums to drive the mix. You probably wouldn't need or want to do this on a softer rock tune or jazz.

Gary

I've always bounced the regular way. But, I gotta tell ya, you may have to go back once you record the other instruments. The drums might sound good solo, but make for mud in the final recording. So, my approach now is to submix the drums...be it bounce or by running them to the stereo track and moving them. Record everything else, submix everything BUT the stereo drum track (after having gotten everything set just right with the drums first present), bring that back to a stereo pair and go back to the original drum tracks. Now with everything present, I remix the drums.

_________________
Honor is a debt you owe to those that see it in you.

yes, can see the logic of that.

It goes to where everything must have it's place in the mix, and I believe the drums are the most complicated to get right. The kick stepping all over the bass, the snare resonating too long, the cymbals too shrill or lost against a synth, toms that seem to disappear. I've come to believe that you can't get the drums right by mixing them down before anything else is present. And even at that, the everything else may need to be adjusted too. Oh, to have a 48 track master where all the original tracks are present at the same time before any mixing. <sigh>

_________________
Honor is a debt you owe to those that see it in you.

Amen to that. .......or if you are rhythmically inclined, you can build the mix around the drum beat (ie: Peter Gabriel).

Gary