Mixing & Mastering with VSTi or Dry Audio

O.T.G.

New member
i feel like the question is mighty straight-forward.

:rolleyes: would it be advisable to mix and master my songs in pro tools (or ableton, my arrangement daw) as dry audio or as the more flexible - composition-ally - vst sittin' on a track.

yes. i realize if you do your mixing and mastering on a vst track you can tweak a wrong note or noodle around with cutoff. but the reason i ask is cpu usage.

ableton live is currently sitting at 94% cpu on mac book pro at 1009 samples (i keep raising it). its getting old. and i cant see adding more processing like compressors and equalization making it any easier on my laptop.

the benefits of audio to me, are what it means. it means everything is perfect. it has to be, its audio, inflexible, unchangeable audio. this alone would make me pay more attention to my compositions and such pressure would probably bolster the quality of my musicianship. :p

furthermore, cpu usage would be minimal and more processing could be applied creatively...instead of just getting by with the eq and breathing limiter.

yet another reason would be the minor issue of latency. in terms of mixing and mastering latency isnt really an issue but it is still annoying. with audio everything would be crisp, predictable and constant. also mixing on the road wouldn't instantly nuke my battery life like running vsts in ableton does.

so lets say i decided to go the audio-only route. :pointing:

is dry audio really the greatest choice? of course in my ableton sessions i have reverb already on it. i could technically strip it dry, rebus everything in pro tools and reprocess every effect i had going on in ableton. and if it doesnt work out i could go back to ableton.

it seems like a better choice. its how records were made in the past and those turned out just fine. people who program modular synths like deadmau5 and justice, i assume, do it since you cant have multiple instances of a modular or even save patches easily. and their stuff sounds awfully good. am i missing something?

if anyone is wondering the reason my sessions are so huge it is because im using tons of crazy bussing and various instances of ace which on 'quality' mode can take up to 50% cpu with a raw saw wave. it sounds nice though!
 
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I do both , I always make copy's of my project files though, so I can always go back and make a change in notes/vsti , then rerender that to audio.
 
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