I just did the same thing, but it was for a live recording of multiple performers, all in one big long wav file. In that case the simplest solution (for me) was to create regions and export stems by region, then import the stems into new projects, one for each performer.
If I’ve understood correctly what you’ve done and what you want…
I’d do the general mix on the whole thing, then save as many snapshots as you have tracks, named so you can identify them easily.
Then open each snapshot, trim the regions down to the track you want, and edit individually from there.
Each track will have its own .ardour file, but everything will be working from the same set of long .WAV files, but that’s not a problem as the .WAV file contents are never changed.
I work exactly the same way. Just as a piece of advice, don’t go into the single tracks too early. In a live recording, the big part of the work is often “corrective” adjustments, like pulling certain annoying frequencies, and these should be pretty much the same for all the songs.
My workflow: Put a Hipass on almost everything. Try out Lowpass Filters for better channel separation. Normalize, get an initial balance using the trim knobs, do the editing for the whole show. The Audition feature (a) and the split (s), trim start (j) and trim end (k) command are your friends here. Create region markers for each song and label them. Polarity, basic EQ. After that, set up gates and compressors. Use the region gain feature (Alt+6/Alt+7) if there are drastic changes in level between the songs.
In the Master Bus, I usually put a spectrum analyzer, a multiband compressor, a normal compressor and a limiter before even starting editing. But that’s a matter of taste.
Only after having done all these things, I save individual snapshots for each song. In my experience, this saves you a lot of work and helps to achieve a more consistent sound throughout the show.
I assume you’re using Mixbus, not Ardour, right? The Audition feature doesn’t seem to be in the official Ardour release, only in Mixbus; it’s the main reason I use Mixbus for most things instead of Ardour as being able to audition by typing “a” is such a time-saver. Especially great when doing comps but useful in general. I assume we need to wait for verion 6 for it to be incorporated in Ardour, although I imagine it must be in the nightly builds.
You’re right, I’m mainly using Mixbus. The Audition feature was introduced about 2 years ago, so I didn’t check if it had already been implemented in Ardour. Sorry for that.
