Topic: New to Matricing......

[Brian G]

Hello all,

I know this is probably a repeated question.

I am starting to do 4 channel recording with the R-44.  What software do people reccomend to do the matricing?  I have Soundforge, Acid Pro.

I did a seach on the site, I have seen people are using Wavlab. Will what I have do it ( can't find anything in the manuals about it), or do I need to pick up more software?

[Roving Sign]

Audacity will do it easily for free...

[easy jim]

Audacity will do it easily for free...

That may be true, but it is like carving a turkey with a cleaver and a butter knife.  Audacity is fine to start out learning, and for basic or quick & dirty mixing; but, it is very clunky and does not have a lot of the tools that you would be able to use on other (better) multi-track editing software.

[Brian Skalinder]

Audacity is fine to start out learning, and for basic or quick & dirty mixing; but, it is very clunky and does not have a lot of the tools that you would be able to use on other (better) multi-track editing software.

Given that price is often a major issue for people when it comes to multi-track editing software, do you have recommendations for free or inexpensive alternatives?

I'll offer my usual:  Samplitude SE (~$65).  And for reference, SAM version differences.

Since the OP mentioned WaveLab -- it will work, too, but it's much more expensive, has a clunkier interface, and may or may not (I don't recall) offer object-oriented editing (which I find a big plus in SAM).

[easy jim]

^ I wish I could offer suggestions in the 'budget' range, but I am not aware of many for multi-track editing.  It seems to me that starting out with Audacity is a good option for getting one's feet wet; but that you'll want to move on to something with more functionality and that is easier to fine tune if you develop a knack and interest in mixing.

Samplitude SE seems like a good option for a PC user.  Most fully functional multi-track software (w/ automation, more detailed/advanced editing tools,etc.), for both platforms, is going to cost at least a few hundred dollars.

[Brian Skalinder]

Samplitude SE seems like a good option for a PC user.  Most fully functional multi-track software (w/ automation, more detailed/advanced editing tools,etc.), for both platforms, is going to cost at least a few hundred dollars.

I'm not very familiar with some of the other fully functional multi-track apps.  What's lacking in SAM SE that those apps provide (and that might be useful to someone working with, say, a 4-ch mixdown of mics or mics + sbd)?  It's replaced everything I've needed to do in the past with WaveLab or Audition, but then again I've never done any heavy multi-tracking, other than the occasional 4-ch mixdown.

[easy jim]

^ For straightforward mixes from 4 tracks, it looks to be a real bargain with an excellent bang:buck ratio.  It should do quite nicely for most things regarding which I find Audacity lacking.

It seems to me that SAM SE has almost all of the functionality I use in Digital Performer; just less FX options, no EQ automation, and some limited file processing capabilities and limitations on the numbers of buses and plug-ins you can run.  To get the same functionality out of it that I currently use in DP, I'd probably end up upgrading to the SAM 10 full or pro version.

[Brian G]

Thanks for all of the help. I deceided to start with Audicity. Its pretty easy.  Good to get my feet wet with.

[ghellquist]

Do try Audacity.  It is limited and awkward, but free.

My long time favourite is Samplitude. Check the feature list, especially if you want to burn directly to CD which some of the versions do. As for sound quality and stability it is up there with the best.

Another program to test is Reaper. It is fairly complete already and does evolve rapidly. Not expensive, you get to test it for free on downloading.

// Gunnar

[mblindsey]

Another program to test is Reaper. It is fairly complete already and does evolve rapidly. Not expensive, you get to test it for free on downloading.

I am a big fan of Reaper.  It is solid and cheap.

--Michael

[tgakidis]

I use Sony Vegas Pro, real cheap if you know where to look 

[boojum]

I started with Cool Edit and then on to SAM SE.  I am now with SMA 10.2 Pro.  The nice thing about SAM SE is that it is a good piece of DAW software and the entry point to the whole Samplitude/Sequoia family of great DAW software.  You can start with the SE package.

Cheers

[heyitsmejess]

Another program to test is Reaper. It is fairly complete already and does evolve rapidly. Not expensive, you get to test it for free on downloading.

I am a big fan of Reaper.  It is solid and cheap.

--Michael

[goodcooker]

I do all of my 4 track mixdowns with Audio Montage in Wavelab5

I use Adobe Audition for multi-tracking (more than 4 tracks)

Audacity never really caught on for me....I don't really know why.

[bugg100]

Wavelab v5 won't open 4 channel files. Soundforge 9 will but can't mix tracks.

[momule]

Wavelab v5 won't open 4 channel files. Soundforge 9 will but can't mix tracks.

ya it will.  use the montage function

[BayTaynt3d]

I'm going to second Vegas Pro, it is so freakin' awesome and flexible it blows my mind why it isn't more popular than it is.

You get basically as many audio and video tracks as you want (it'll eat four chans of audio for breakfast), full vst plugin support (add delay to the SBD, hard limit applause, mild compression, EQ, etc.), easy panning/level controls and polarity button on every track, multiple bus support for both audio buses and video buses, can real-time edit so many audio/video formats it's not funny (you can even drop FLAC files directly on the timeline), full track automation of any automatable built-in feature (ride the levels, change panning over time) and plugins (ride the threshold of your compression over time, bring in more or less EQ over time, etc.), and the ability to drop video files or even photos right onto the timeline (panning/zooming over photos using keyframes), blah, blah...

And the best part of all is the completely NON-destructive workflow. I can FLAC my original sources right out of the gate, drop them on the timeline, do all the editing/mixing/mastering/tweaking I want, save the project file (usually under 100k), and then render out a master for listening in whatever format I want. Then, later, no matter what happens, as long as I keep the original untouched originals and the vegas file, I can easily render out a new copy to any format needed down the road (or even tweak my original mix again years from now without having to redo everything). And even if Vegas became obsolete, I kept the untouched originals, so you could always remix.

Anyway, just plugging that app, sick...

[tgakidis]

I'm going to second Vegas Pro, it is so freakin' awesome and flexible it blows my mind why it isn't more popular than it is.

You get basically as many audio and video tracks as you want (it'll eat four chans of audio for breakfast), full vst plugin support (add delay to the SBD, hard limit applause, mild compression, EQ, etc.), easy panning/level controls and polarity button on every track, multiple bus support for both audio buses and video buses, can real-time edit so many audio/video formats it's not funny (you can even drop FLAC files directly on the timeline), full track automation of any automatable built-in feature (ride the levels, change panning over time) and plugins (ride the threshold of your compression over time, bring in more or less EQ over time, etc.), and the ability to drop video files or even photos right onto the timeline (panning/zooming over photos using keyframes), blah, blah...

And the best part of all is the completely NON-destructive workflow. I can FLAC my original sources right out of the gate, drop them on the timeline, do all the editing/mixing/mastering/tweaking I want, save the project file (usually under 100k), and then render out a master for listening in whatever format I want. Then, later, no matter what happens, as long as I keep the original untouched originals and the vegas file, I can easily render out a new copy to any format needed down the road (or even tweak my original mix again years from now without having to redo everything). And even if Vegas became obsolete, I kept the untouched originals, so you could always remix.

Anyway, just plugging that app, sick...

I also use it to run real time comps.  You can mix the two sources and mute one alternately every 15 seconds.  You can also resample/dither when rendering.  You can even mix different bit/sample rate sources and render down to 16/44.1.  I have mixed three souces easily (Card/Blumlein/SBD) and rendered as one stereo file.  It also works in tandom with Soundforge and shares the same info files.

[stevetoney]

This comment isn't related to software per se, but FWIW the first concept I didn't understand when I got my first matrix was that your two sources (mic source and SBD source) won't always be aligned precisely at the same point in the time code and one of the pairs might need to be moved forward or back a couple of milli-seconds in the final mix-down.

IOW, the two sets will have the same overall time code duration, but they might be offset froim each other slightly because of the time delay between a signal going trhough the SBD and the sound getting to your mics.  If your mics are say 30 feet back from the stage, there will be I think 2 to 3 milliseconds of offset.  (does sound travel at 1 ms per 10 feet or 1 ms per 30 feet...I can't remember)

If you don't adjust the mic pair of tracks backwards by that 2 or 3 milliseconds, your matrix will sound reverb-y because of the phasing created by the offset.

I didn't understand this concept the first time I pulled a matrix and thought I had some weirdness going on in my hardware at first.

Course, if your mics are located at the stage-lip, this shouldn't be an issue.

[BayTaynt3d]

What he said above. QFT.

And like tgakidis said above too, another GREAT thing about Vegas is that you can drop both sources to the timeline, highlight a region, click loop on, press play and have it just loop that spot. Once you're looping and hearing it, you can zoom way into the timeline and easily "nudge" the SBD source forward/back in time WHILE LISTENING to how it affects the overall mix. You can easily hear the echo/delay come in/out as you nudge the SBD source around. Also, sometimes you need to flip the phase on one of your sources in a matrix (depends on how things got setup and sound obviously), and in Vegas, it's one non-destructive click of a button away. So nice. And if you need to adjust the L/R balance on one or both sources, you can just use the panning control right there (make sure it's set to 0 db center by right clicking the pan knob first though).

[goodcooker]

This comment isn't related to software per se, but FWIW the first concept I didn't understand when I got my first matrix was that your two sources (mic source and SBD source) won't always be aligned precisely at the same point in the time code and one of the pairs might need to be moved forward or back a couple of milli-seconds in the final mix-down.

IOW, the two sets will have the same overall time code duration, but they might be offset froim each other slightly because of the time delay between a signal going trhough the SBD and the sound getting to your mics.  If your mics are say 30 feet back from the stage, there will be I think 2 to 3 milliseconds of offset.  (does sound travel at 1 ms per 10 feet or 1 ms per 30 feet...I can't remember)

If you don't adjust the mic pair of tracks backwards by that 2 or 3 milliseconds, your matrix will sound reverb-y because of the phasing created by the offset.

I didn't understand this concept the first time I pulled a matrix and thought I had some weirdness going on in my hardware at first.

Course, if your mics are located at the stage-lip, this shouldn't be an issue.

It's roughly 1ms delay per foot. You can use that as a starting point and go forward and backward from there. I use the comb filtering in the low end to get me in the ball park then tweak it to the hi hats till they dont sound "washy". I have had to add up to 10ms of delay to a stagelip pair in a 4ch matrix before. The mics on the drums and guitar cabinets were roughly 10 ft from the stagelip mics. It made the drums and guitars sound right on but the bleed from the vocal monitors sounded a little fuzzy but the monitors sounded like crap in the first place.

One thing I cant explain - I did some 4ch at Wakarusa last year and for three diff sets recorded from the exact same spot I used very different delays. Up to 15 ms difference between some of the sets.
Maybe SPL level affects it...PBS was way louder than Cornmeal for instance.

My preferred method (thank you frtower for showing me this)
Open Wavelab Audio Montage
Add two stereo tracks in files tab
in clips tab you can adjust start time of sbd channels (add ~1 ms per foot to sbd), gain... etc
Put in some fades with the volume envelopes and render...you are done

[BayTaynt3d]

One thing I cant explain - I did some 4ch at Wakarusa last year and for three diff sets recorded from the exact same spot I used very different delays. Up to 15 ms difference between some of the sets.

Was it outside? If so, wind can play a serious role, gets all crazy phasy and whatnot. Was it really windy one day and not the other?

Also, another thing I've learned from doing tons of matrices, is I actually usually prefer the soundboard to be a tiny (TINY!) bit earlier than the ambient. Sometimes, when you get the AUD and SBD perfectly aligned, say by matching a sharply identifiable waveform b/w sources, just the slightest tweaks can cause real phasy weirdness. I've found if you bring the tighter SBD source just a tiny bit ahead of that crazy area of phasiness, it really opens up and sounds sweet. I guess my main point is that I've found that absolute perfect alignment isn't always what sounds best, so keep that in mind.

[dmonkey]

Nice discussion. Thanks for the Vegas recommendation. I'll have to check it out. I've been using Audition lately, but I'm always open to better ways of doing things.