scope newbie need mixing help

[bebecrystal]

hello im new to scope and have never worked with a mixer outside of cubase so kinna confused dont really know what to do regarding how to mix this way with 2 mixers. Should i keep all faders in cubase mixer at 0db and then rought tracks to scope and do all balancing there. how do u guys do it>? thanks

[Cochise]

Yes that's the way.
Sometimes i find usefull to assign several Cubase mixer channels to the same ASIO out(s) to have kind of subgroups.

[dante]

Heres how I do it :

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_01/cubase.htm

or with reason

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_04/propmast.htm

or some people prefer XTC mode

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_04/cub_xtc.htm

Level wise I normally keep Cubase mixer levels to about 1/2 way that gives good headroom in Scope STM mixer.

[bebecrystal]

thanks for the replys and that link with how to rought stuff is perfect! and so i keep all faders on in cubase mixer set at 0db. just one more thing about the levels,

Level wise I normally keep Cubase mixer levels to about 1/2 way that gives good headroom in Scope STM mixer.

could u please be a little more specific, about how much average peak levels (-"x"db to -"x"db )/maximum peak level ? thanks

[Cochise]

Imho, it couldn't be a relevant issue, once signals are in digital domain... just avoid clipping.

[bebecrystal]

and in scope mixer? is scope mixer still digital domain, that is working like cubase mixer? or does it work like outboard analog mixers?

[Cochise]

Signals coming from hardware inputs, and signals generated by software devices, are in digital domain until they go out through hardware outputs (except when they are routed to digital outputs like ADAT, AES/EBU, Spdif).

[Yogimeister]

Does anyone know the robustness of recording "On the fly" in Cubase ????


This was the main thing that put me off mixing thru Scope ...

I have a heavily-loaded Cubase Project outputting to Scope Mixer ....
The original advice I was given was to open wavelab on top of that and record it in Wavelab (Pressing play on cubase and record on wavelab).
The more straightforward option is to loopback to cubase of course ...

My question is - if cubase jump,skips,stutters or crackles - will it affect the recording?
Isn't it safer to mixdown "offline" (Through the export dialogue)?

Your thoughts appreciated. ...

Thanks,
Yogi

[garyb]

mixing in realtime, if your system works properly in realtime, is the way to go. waiting for an entire render and then having to listen to the thing after to discover that you forgot something that might've only required just the listening is actually slower than a realtime mix, even though offline seems like a faster process. mixing in realtime maintains that organic connection to the music being produced. if the music is meant to be completely sterile, then organic connections don't matter, of course.

your system needs to be stable in realtime, however. if there are a lot of tracks, a stable realtime system probably means mixing in Scope and recording(or freezing) your vstis, if you use a whole bunch of vstis.

[Yogimeister]

I see what you are saying but on fully loaded projects I like to enable those few extra plugs (Not to mentions x4 and x8 oversampling) and then do it offline (The project is so loaded it stutters a bit when I play it like that).

Then I put on the master FX on the bounced master track .... (Using the offline Export time to rest my ears a bit ...




At the peril of opening a can of historic discussions .... is there any real tangible benifit from mixing in the Scope mixer vs. internal in terms of "summing" or general audio quality ?

(Didn't really seem like it to me when I was trying ... )

Thanks,
Yogi

[astroman]

imho the question can't be answered without considering the track's sources.
You'll hardly hear any improvement on average VSTi synths, less than average mics and pure crap preamps.
(that's exaggerated intentionally and may not apply to your particular setup...)
In other words: a quick test using (for convenience) what's typically available out of the box (some demo stuff, freebies and the like...) won't get a magical glitter all of a sudden just by feeding it through another audio engine.

A broad spectrum of sources and in particular (quality) analog recordings will put much higher demands on processing.
Which may reveal some differences... but in the end I'd rather estimate the sources themselves being more important.
Cubase is said to have much improved in recent releases. (as boringly old-fashioned I stick with SW Studio)

cheers, Tom

[garyb]

yes, Scope mixes generally sound better, tangibly so. it's really up to the engineer, though.

[Yogimeister]

I'm talking about the summing aspect only ....

It's funny because it seems going into scope shelves a bit of the lows off .... and does seem to have more headroom in the highs ...

On the other hand .... I'm guessing that the dry-facts are on the internal mixing's side - as through scope you are summing 16/24bit channels and not 32float as you would native ....

Feel free to correct me if I'm right ...

[garyb]

"summing" alone is meaningless.
if you're talking about the "summing" of fx and many channels of audio, Scope wins, hands down.

Scope "summing" is at LEAST 48bit internally.

use your own ears and do what suits you best. what does it matter what anyone says if you are successful with whatever you use?

[Yogimeister]

I know ... I know .... Just sharing/checking/veryfing some cerebral-anal techno-blabber thoughts ....

And, of course - I imagine most of us are still on the adventure looking for a better-sounding mixdown ....

Was just wondering about your thoughts in a "10-year-after" scenario ... As I was faced with these questions about 10 years ago ....
(BTW - at that pre-Nuendo time, there was a bit of dissing on the cubase render engine .... (Though I personally couldn't understand how you could get the proverbial 1+1 wrong ...

P34CE,
Yogi

[Yogimeister]

BTW, I didn't know about the 48bit native summing ....

In my current experiments - I do see a lower noise floor in the Scope mix (Wasn't sure if it was lower noise floor/bit depth or just downward-dithering ...


Another thing I noticed (Though currently can't explain - besides aliasing maybe) - is that the Scope mix (Running through a few *additional* compressors and EQ) is much more mono compatible - preserving the M-L and lows .... *Shrug* .... I'll keep tinkering and see which is the best end result .... (Got two production versions I'm working on kindof in tandem ....

[garyb]

actually, if renders really used the best possible algorhythm, then it'd be a 1+1 situation, but it doesn't really work that way. your computer's cpu can't really do what real gear does and still run all the other processes that need to run in your computer, even offline, even currently. that's what dedicated processors like dsps are all about. a dsp based compressor does nothing else but be a compressor.

it's all about using the best tools for the job. if you have the budget, top quality real hardware will still SMOKE anything emulated. dsps still smoke native, in real mixes. this is all assuming that the engineer has the skills to take advantage of the gear and use it properly, that high quality, proper cabling is used and that the room is properly treated and the monitoring system is first rate.

it's pretty damned stupid to argue about 96k when the room is poor, the speaks are cheap(mackie speakers are cheap), the mic pres are consumer crap and the hardware mixer is a little mackie vlz. fixing those things is WAY more important than 44.1k or 96k. of course most people stressing over such minutae sell exactly zero copies of anything, so it doesn't even matter. hobbyists should just have fun with whatever rocks their world, but they have no business acting like any of this is important. something that will make the difference between 100 copies and 100,000 copies being sold is important.

since you added another post after i typed this, i'll add that being more mono compatible and better preserving the frequency response is TANGIBLE proof of the superiority of the Scope mix. things like that are exactly what define something like "better".

[dante]

Theres another (good) long and winding dissitation about this here :

http://www.xited.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=631

and another related link that stems from this :

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... angle.html