How do people record on one DAW and mix on another one?

C

Captainjazz123

New member
I've been recording on hardware for several years and now I'm migrating to software. The changes are much more dramatic than I had expected it to be. I have Logic Pro 9 and I'm planning on getting Ableton very soon. Say for example I want to make my instrumentals on Ableton and transfer them to Logic so I can mix, and vocals and instruments on them. How is this possible? I've heard of Rewire, but I can't really understand it. Can you record on one DAW while it copies the vocals in real time? This is all too confusing for me. Any help or advice will do!
:)
 
You can do all sorts of things, but the best approach is to track out/bounce out individual tracks to (mono) wav/aiff and then load those into protools or any other daw.

I put mono in parentheses as some folks will say everything should be tracked out to stereo. I disagree unless the sound source has specific stereo imaging information in it - i.e. the sounds moves across the stereo over time as an intentional design.
 
bandcoach said:
You can do all sorts of things, but the best approach is to track out/bounce out individual tracks to (mono) wav/aiff and then load those into protools or any other daw.

I put mono in parentheses as some folks will say everything should be tracked out to stereo. I disagree unless the sound source has specific stereo imaging information in it - i.e. the sounds moves across the stereo over time as an intentional design.
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Ah, thank you!
Do I need to bounce them without effects?
What are stems?
 
the phrase stems is another way of saying bounced/tracked out - the individual sound sources as a wav/aiff file

It is up to you whether you bounce them with or without effects. The pros are that you have the sound that you want when begin to mix; the cons are that you have a fixed sound that cannot be changed if the effects are found to be interfering with the mix phase. I'd go one step further and consider not having any eq on them either, unless it is part of the actual sound design.

Personally, I prefer clean tracks/stems, as there is no limit to what I can do in the mix phase.
 
Logic is one of the best d.a.w's out there for mac anyway if I was you I would just stick with that instead of wasting money on getting a different d.a.w. Thats just my opinion though. In logic you have access to all kinds of sounds it's crazy how much you can do. I have logic, pro tools and fl studio but when I'm not using fl I'm using logic haven't even really touched pro tools.
 
h3ad tr9p said:
Logic is one of the best d.a.w's out there for mac anyway if I was you I would just stick with that instead of wasting money on getting a different d.a.w. Thats just my opinion though. In logic you have access to all kinds of sounds it's crazy how much you can do. I have logic, pro tools and fl studio but when I'm not using fl I'm using logic haven't even really touched pro tools.
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The only reason I'm getting Ableton is because I'm getting the Push pad with it. Plus a friend of mine has hardware for Ableton only and he's giving it all to me. My biggest question is, is it possible to make beats or instrumentals on Ableton and put them on Logic for additional mixing?
Thanks for the advice anyway.

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bandcoach said:
the phrase stems is another way of saying bounced/tracked out - the individual sound sources as a wav/aiff file

It is up to you whether you bounce them with or without effects. The pros are that you have the sound that you want when begin to mix; the cons are that you have a fixed sound that cannot be changed if the effects are found to be interfering with the mix phase. I'd go one step further and consider not having any eq on them either, unless it is part of the actual sound design.

Personally, I prefer clean tracks/stems, as there is no limit to what I can do in the mix phase.
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Man, you are amazing. I've seen you answer other questions on here before. Thanks a lot. If you don't mind me asking, what DAW do you use and why do you prefer it?
 
bandcoach said:
I put mono in parentheses as some folks will say everything should be tracked out to stereo. I disagree unless the sound source has specific stereo imaging information in it - i.e. the sounds moves across the stereo over time as an intentional design.
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Why? Super curious here...
 
Yeah you can use ableton and then go and mix in logic. Just make sure you save each individual track as a wav file or bounce it down to wave not sure how ableton works but I'm sure it would be the same as any other d.a.w ableton is the only one that I haven't used and all the others allow you to track out so I wouldn't see why ableton wouldn't let you do so. Hope the information in this thread has helped you out bro.
 
Captainjazz123 said:
Man, you are amazing. I've seen you answer other questions on here before. Thanks a lot. If you don't mind me asking, what DAW do you use and why do you prefer it?
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I use in no order of preference

Cubase studio 5.5.3 - been a cubase user since the early days of Cubase VST 2.0 - Cubase has been through two cycles of the version numbers 1-5 and this version VST2.0 is from the first run through - I own Cubase VST32 Score 5.1.2rc2 and legally use Cubase SL3 as a condition of owning the 5.5.3 version - I have stuck with Cubase simply because of compatibility issues - I have several hundred original compositions and arrangements all done in the older versions of Cubase that I still need to be able to access - it also has its roots in Pro24 for the Atari, which I have used since 1986 and Pro12 and Pro16 for the Commodore 64 and Vic20 - the underlying MIDI code has changed little since those days, adding audio support and improved score representation

Reason 6.5 - I just like the way this makes me think about writing and designing sounds - been using it since version 4 and Record 1.0

Audacity - quick, easy to use for big picture alterations to files

Audition - comes with creative suite Master collection and has some nifty tools in it as well, still learning it's true potential

Finale Notepad 2k5+ - quick dirty sketching tool with notation as the interface - I learnt to write music the old fashioned way with my ears and my eyes using notation as the medium of recording and communicating ideas.

PureData - great for designing MAX like synthesis engines and automata

Band-in-a-Box - long term user of this as well - great for bashing out arrangements to a deadline - last few versions are really excellent although I still mainly use this as quick sketch arranging tool than a utilise it's full potential

Hammerhead - Bram Bos's great contribution to the world of hip-hop - a trx0x replica with six channels that you can load your own sounds into or use one of several preset libraries with

In a nutshell I prefer to use tools that are designed for the job at hand rather than trying to use one tool to do everything

---------- Post added at 08:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:55 PM ----------
JGrisly said:
Why? Super curious here...
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I actually said it in the post - if there is no stereo imaging for the source why duplicate a channel that is simply two lots of mono? Better to have the mono channel and then position in the stereo field as needed during the mix....
 
Its all a preference thing...
What helps with your workflow really...
I kno some ppl who compose n mix n fl...
Other compose in reason n mix n cubase...
It's watever floats your boat
 
I build my project in Logic Pro X and then bounce every individual track from beginning to end so that the stems match the original project completely, Import the audio into pro tools and begin the mix, its always best practice to mix audio over midi as audio uses much less CPU.
 
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