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Posted by echosystm on Jul-31-2004 02:03:

Just A Few Questions

Ok, well, I purchased t-racks today cause i heard how much everyone loves it. However, I have practically no idea how to master. I mean, EQing is straigh forward enough, and limiting is aswell. BUT, compressing?! I just cant get to grips with it. Can someone please try to educate me on this please? I've tried reading all the other threads on it and they all just hurt my brain

Second question, I have t-racks standalone and vst. Do I export the entire song and then run it through the stand alone? Do I export individual loops, run them through the stand alone and then load them back into FL/Cubase? Or, do I use the vst on like... every channel or just the master (this sounds like it would use a lot of memory/cpu) ?

Ok, next question. I understand that before I start to master the track, everything has to be compressed/eqed/limited/whatevered properly. How does one know where things are supposed to sit in the mix? And how to get them there? I'd basically just like to know how you guys know when your bassdrum is "at 50hz" etc.

Final question. I'm planning on buying Cubase SX 2 soon. Being an FLStudio user, I was just wondering what is the best way to get samples into Cubase? Like in FLStudio you just drag them into a new channel, from what I understand you can't do that in Cubase?

THANKS heaps

Posted by moth on Jul-31-2004 02:12:

Cubase is a bit different with samples than fruity, But 100 times better. Instead of just draggin the samples in, you load all your samples into the 'pool', you can then drag any of those samples onto any 'Audio Track' in the sequencer. It will also give you the option to copy the samples to the project directory, handy, no?

Regarding all your other questions, please just search the forum and read your manual. This forum has a plethora of information and links to more information regarding compressing.

Posted by DjSimonB on Jul-31-2004 10:40:

Re: Just A Few Questions

quote:
Originally posted by echosystm
Ok, well, I purchased t-racks today cause i heard how much everyone loves it. However, I have practically no idea how to master. I mean, EQing is straigh forward enough, and limiting is aswell. BUT, compressing?! I just cant get to grips with it. Can someone please try to educate me on this please? I've tried reading all the other threads on it and they all just hurt my brain

T-racks comes with a lot of presets for compression (as for everything else), so I'd try messing about with them, experimenting with the different controls and so on. Read the manual too to see exactly what the different things do.

quote:

Second question, I have t-racks standalone and vst. Do I export the entire song and then run it through the stand alone? Do I export individual loops, run them through the stand alone and then load them back into FL/Cubase? Or, do I use the vst on like... every channel or just the master (this sounds like it would use a lot of memory/cpu) ?

T-racks is a mastering program, and the idea of mastering is to take the finished song and 'polish' it up so it sounds louder and more exciting. So mastering should be done to the song as a whole, either in the standalone program after exporting to wav/aif, or (i'm guessing, being a Reason user I don't know much about VST's) having the whole song play on FL/Cubase and putting it through the T-racks VST, with that being the last thing in your workflow.

quote:

Ok, next question. I understand that before I start to master the track, everything has to be compressed/eqed/limited/whatevered properly. How does one know where things are supposed to sit in the mix? And how to get them there? I'd basically just like to know how you guys know when your bassdrum is "at 50hz" etc.

Check out THIS LINK, there's a small guide to the uses of EQ and a table at the bottom with a guide to each instrument, and what frequencies can be boosted/cut on them to affect their sound. It's aimed at producers in general, not trance, so the info might not be perfect but use it as a guide, it should be helpful. Panning also helps things stand out, particuarly if, like me, you like a lot of different percussion in your tracks. It also makes you mix sound more alive if different parts come from different parts of the stereo spectrum.

Can't really help you much more with mixing, it's not really my strong point... and as for your other question, I'll leave that to the other guys, I've not got much experience with FL or Cubase...

Posted by echosystm on Jul-31-2004 11:10:

Thanks for your replies, I think i'm "starting" to get somewhere now