How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

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Plyphon
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How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by Plyphon »

Heya,

I've always wondered how other people do this, what routing etc they use.

So I use Ableton.

I have the kick and bass just going to the master buss
I have all other percussion going into a drum bus with some saturation. Each Porc channel also goes to a send with reverb
I have all other synths/sounds/"music" into a synth bus again with some saturation. Each channel also goes to a reverb send.
On the master I have some light compression as per Voidloss' tips, a final high pass EQ around 35 just in case, and a limiter to bring final level up for soundcloud listening

What does your setup look like?

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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by OHADOHAD »

Too lazy to write, so I uploaded a photo of my Ableton session so you can just have a look... You can see all the I/O and on the bottom that's the last chain before print.
If you have any questions, go for it...

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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by Lost to the Void »

I start a project with and instrument, and I make a beat or a melody or a sound.
Then I add a part to compliment it, and I continue to add parts and group stuff until I feel I have enough to jam out a track, then I jam it out.
Every protect starts with a blank slate.
Every painting starts with a blank canvass.
Templates lock you down a path.
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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by OHADOHAD »

Lost to the Void wrote:I start a project with and instrument, and I make a beat or a melody or a sound.
Then I add a part to compliment it, and I continue to add parts and group stuff until I feel I have enough to jam out a track, then I jam it out.
Every protect starts with a blank slate.
Every painting starts with a blank canvass.
Templates lock you down a path.
My template is there mainly to just route audio, I make 95% of the music part on the machinedrum and octatracak... then Aalto and obxd are my go to synths at this moment for pads/arps/bleepy stuff.
I'm still free to add samples on every channel instead of the routed audio and the auxes are again just for the wired hardware.
Everything is routed in a way that I can just press record on Ableton and every single channel is recorded separately and the pre and post mix bus.
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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by Lost to the Void »

Oh sure it makes more sense when you work hybrid.
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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by Plyphon »

Super interesting, OHADOHAD - thanks for sharing.

Do you have FX at every "grouping" buss (Eg: Synths, Ref, Print, Final in that chain) or is a lot of it for organisational purposes?

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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by OHADOHAD »

Plyphon wrote:Super interesting, OHADOHAD - thanks for sharing.

Do you have FX at every "grouping" buss (Eg: Synths, Ref, Print, Final in that chain) or is a lot of it for organisational purposes?
Mainly organisational purpose, plus extra control over frequencies, I can deal with a single instrument or deal with a group of frequencies.
I have Satson channel on every channel and Satson Buss on every Buss, other then that the known trick of reverb kick is always there if I need it, and compression on the kick and on the Drum bus (but still playing with sending the kick to that bus as well or sending it straight to the Ref...) it's a sound/vibe thing...
On the Auxes I have DP/4 split to 2 auxes, so I have 2 separate fx chains on the machines, I have an aux for a long rhythmic delay and an aux for parallel distortion.. that's it.. reverb will be per bus/channel depends on my needs.
on the general Ableton out I have only meters and spectrum analyser if I need it.
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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by Kromasome »

Lost to the Void wrote:I start a project with and instrument, and I make a beat or a melody or a sound.
Then I add a part to compliment it, and I continue to add parts and group stuff until I feel I have enough to jam out a track, then I jam it out.
Every protect starts with a blank slate.
Every painting starts with a blank canvass.
Templates lock you down a path.
I was going to ask a question on templates the other day - this pretty much answers it I think.

My initial reason for doing it was so that I could quickly get some sounds going without messing about with all the nuts and bolts (and losing motivation/inspiration before I'd even started with the fun stuff), but lately I have felt like the template has been more stifling than enabling so I have gone back to starting mostly from scratch.

Also agree that starting in different ways can lead to different (sometimes better, sometimes worse) results. I normally have drums already going before I do anything else but have recently started just with the musical content first then added what sounds right after, as opposed to trying to find something to fit the same drums I'd been using for the previous 50 projects...

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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by Críoch »

I have span & smexamamascope(??) On the master.

2 sends with a delay & a reverb. Rarely use the basic delay on the buss. I have it there to preview what something could sound like with delay. I'll more often than not, then put some kind of delay in a rack on the channel, possibly running parallel dry/wet.

That's about it.
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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by Lost to the Void »

Kromasome wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:I start a project with and instrument, and I make a beat or a melody or a sound.
Then I add a part to compliment it, and I continue to add parts and group stuff until I feel I have enough to jam out a track, then I jam it out.
Every protect starts with a blank slate.
Every painting starts with a blank canvass.
Templates lock you down a path.
I was going to ask a question on templates the other day - this pretty much answers it I think.

My initial reason for doing it was so that I could quickly get some sounds going without messing about with all the nuts and bolts (and losing motivation/inspiration before I'd even started with the fun stuff), but lately I have felt like the template has been more stifling than enabling so I have gone back to starting mostly from scratch.

Also agree that starting in different ways can lead to different (sometimes better, sometimes worse) results. I normally have drums already going before I do anything else but have recently started just with the musical content first then added what sounds right after, as opposed to trying to find something to fit the same drums I'd been using for the previous 50 projects...

I think what can be handy if you are doing an EP or Album, is to maintain elements for all the tracks in the EP or whatever.
So effectively use a templ8 for the EP to retain consistency.
That can really help.

I have a new project under a new name, and the music has a very particular dynamic and tone. So it has made sense to make a templ8. It's mainly the master channel processing and a couple of busses (for drums mostly), the processing is pretty extreme.
But I have to be very careful to make sure the music doesn't get trapped within it, and I am aware the project may lose its legs after a few releases.


I'm doing a lot of experimentation outside of the project so I have plenty of ideas to feed in to it.


It's a blessing and a curse I think.


I would say that if you are a confident song writer\music maker then you should have the experience to battle against getting railroaded by using a template.

If you are still finding your sound then it could stop you from finding it.
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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by dubdub »

I have a somewhat limited amount of synths/FX so I don't feel like having a big template is limiting - I'm going to use the same stuff regardless if I make UK Garage, Psy-Chill or Happy Hardcore.

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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by msl »

I don't have any busses set up in my template, I do them per track if needed. I don't really bus my drums, but I'll always buss vocals or guitars.

But I do have my favourite effect chain on my master, and I have midi/audio channels set up for my all my hardware, so I'm ready to record. I have a few drum channels set up with a simple kick and hat loaded and my favourite fx on them. And I have a few of my favourite Max instruments and effects loaded on empty channels, so they are there if needed.
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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by disparate »

Plyphon wrote:Heya,

I've always wondered how other people do this, what routing etc they use.

So I use Ableton.

I have the kick and bass just going to the master buss
I have all other percussion going into a drum bus with some saturation. Each Porc channel also goes to a send with reverb
I have all other synths/sounds/"music" into a synth bus again with some saturation. Each channel also goes to a reverb send.
On the master I have some light compression as per Voidloss' tips, a final high pass EQ around 35 just in case, and a limiter to bring final level up for soundcloud listening

What does your setup look like?
My sessions in Ableton normally end up pretty similar to that - kick and bass to master (or perhaps a group); Porc group and synth group; a few sends for reverb (Porc reverb, long 'effect' reverb, maybe one in between the two say for clap/snare...) I'll usually have some sort of processing on the Porc group and synth group but often that's just a bit of EQ, it's more just for keeping things organised. I don't tend to have anything on the master apart from metering stuff though, I'll leave that til I bounce the audio.

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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by WOLF! »

I have a template so I can quickly record all the external gear to separate audio tracks.
I also have midi tracks recording so I can capture the midi data and work with that afterwards.
Recently I added one track to send midi clock generated via a Usamo midi clock generator.

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Re: How do you guys set up your (DAW) mixers?

Post by ZenoSupreme »

I start out with no templates. most often i start by looking for the right kind of kick (+percusssion) and from there i work to the bassline and add more melody.

I try to group and arrange as much as possible while going along, but somethimes that distracts me from my creative procces, so I do that later. I uses the buss most of the time to monitor the output level on that group and for a bit of compression and somethimes a bit of EQ. My master channel remains empty till i finish the track, than i use a limiter and compressor on it, and again somethimes an EQ.


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