mixing tracks together

Getting Stuff Done How do I .... ?
#1

Hi,

i have recorded three different tracks with Ardour ( on Audio1, Audio2, Audio3). Now I want to mix all these tracks in one track (in Audio1). I want to be able to copy all what i have recorded in order to repeat it some times, that’s why i want to mix all tracks together in one track.

thanks
Linuxnewbie18

#2

not sure what you mean with the last statement, but mixing down within ardour can be done as follows :
open a new stereo track, assing the outputs of the 3 tracks to the inputs of the new track, arm the new track for recording, rec-enable ardour and roll on the transport (play button). Careful with monitoring, by default, everything is connected to the master bus inputs. You can disable the connection between your 3 tracks and the master bus. You will therefore only hear the new track (mixing down of the 3 tracks) while recording.

But as a side note, I don’t mix down like this. Usually, I connect groups of tracks to busses, apply different mixing tweaks, etc. These busses are connected to the master bus inputs. I output the master bus outputs to the mastering program jamin for global mastering and redirect jamin to a mixdown bus back in ardour. Then I export the session by deselecting the master bus in the export control windows and selecting only the mixdown bus for export. I am always careful in all this that I don’t end up with twice the audio of a given track to the speakers or the exported wav file (it’s easy to forget to disconnect some direct outs when rerouting things).

The result is a nice mixed down and mastered session. If needed, I can remaster the exported wav file at a later time.

#3

I don’t really understand what you wanna do:

  • mixing the 3 tracks ? that’s a summing of the sound’s amplitude contained in your tracks, the result will be a stereo or mono sound file as you wish.
  • make a 3 or 6 channel, with all the information of your original tracks ? this is non-sense until you want to mix surround or multichannel sounds

Are your tracks mono or stereo ?
If you want to mix them together, the thorgals’way is the good one

Please excuse my very bad english

#4

Thanks for your reply Thorgal, but I think I didn’t express my problem in the right way:

As I said; i have recorded three different tracks with Ardour ( on Audio1, Audio2, Audio3). Now, I want to make one Audiotrack out of the three Tracks; I want to “freeze” the three Audiotracks in one Track. This Track must display the “undulation” (is this word right?; im germang i mean the wave-form which is displayed on every Track) of all three Tracks.

thanks for reply

LinuxNewbie

#5

I want to make a Mono Track out of three Mono tracks consisting all the audio information of the three tracks.

By the way: How do I create a fade-out in ardour ? I didn’t find it yet in the menus of ardour.

thx

#6

hi again :slight_smile:
I really don’t know why you want to mix 3 tracks to a new track, a bus would be enough if what you want is to apply the same effects on the 3 tracks. On the other hand, you can export the 3 track session to a wav file, and import the wav file to a new track (thanks to the region menu that allows you to import external audio). That would be about the easiest way.

For the fade out, you have to create your own gain automation curve : display the track’s gain strip in the track editor window (click on “a” in the track menu and select Gain) and draw points along the timeline. Then enable the “Play” mode in the gain strip menu to hear the result when you play on your session (the default is Manual, and in this mode, you won’t hear the gain automation). Now, if you have a cross-fade, you can unmute it and edit it with given presets. All you need to do is right-click on the crossfade area (yellow area overlapping to regions in a track) and select Edit from the crossfade menu.

By the way : RT…M :wink:

#7

Hello, I understand that this topic is very old but I am working on the same problem that Linuxnewbie18 described in his post almost six years ago.

For me, the reason I need to mix tracks is following: during recording of the single guitar line I have made several tracks, e.g. in order to allow the guitarist to hear previously recorded part before he starts recording rest of track. Also there was some “let’s record it twice and select the best take” approach.
But ultimately these all tracks for a single guitar tracks (again: we’ve been recording just a single guitar line in multiple takes). I’d like to quickly mix this tracks down to a single tracks, which would contain a single region that is a mix of my tracks. This will be easier to handle in the future than the bunch of tracks connected to a bus (especially considering that this is just on of the multiple instruments).

In the Audacity this can be done with “Mix and Render” function (see http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/mixing.html#mix) and this is exactly what I’m looking for.

I’ve tried the approach that Thorgal described in his second post and it basically works but has the two drawbacks:

  • it’s unconvenient as it requires me to wait for the whole track duration
  • the resulting sum was slightly shifted related to original tracks - for me it has been advanced by about 500 samples (which is more or less the sum of my output and input latencies as entered in QjackCtl, I could adjust it manually but it makes this method even more unconvenient and also unreliable).

On the other hand, exporting to wave file and importing back has a drawback of requiring me to manually allign the region.

I’d be grateful for any suggestions on this. Is there a way to do this easily (maybe I’m missing something obvious)? Also, if this is not available - maybe somebody has some advice on why I shouldn’t need this.

Thanks in advance,
Adam

#8

Firstly, you can use playlist managment in order to monitor pre-recorded tracks, while tracking new material on the original track. Just create a new track and click the ‘p’ button, and select >Other…and find your guitar track. Your new track (name it monitor track or something) will now play the content of whatever track’s playlist you selected. As far as compiling all your guitar tracks into one comprehensive waveform… you can use a combination of crossfades and region muting to get your guitar track compiled, then grab your range select tool, drag it across your entire guitar track waveform(s), (this is assuming you have already put all your recording on ONE track and gotten all your crossfades and mutes set to your liking), right click the range and select consolodate. Done.

#9

im not really sure what you want to do.

is this a multi track project where you have record 1 instrument, then you have record a 2nd instrument playing along to the first one, and then agian a third playing along to the first 2.

Mixing it into 1 file is as simple as exporting to an audio file, by going to file, export, export to audio file. it should already be set to CD audio format and you just click export. This will export the export folder where your project is stored. Normaly the default is in your home directory which is /home/username/ardour/whatyoucalledyourproject/export

as for repeating parts, which i gather is a form of sampling. You would have to cut your tracks to exact samples then you can select the region copy and paste them.

this can be tricky, its best to use a click track so the tempo of your project matches what you are playing, so that the grid matches up and you can line everything up. The next problem though is that samples can sound a bit disconnected or cut of because the waves suddenly go from background noise to something playing or from the end of sound suddnely to the start of something else, but it can work if done right.

As for fades, you can use gain automation or fader automation. Check out ardours manual. Gain autiomation is pretty simple and you can draw it in to create fades easily, or you can record automation manually as the tracks are playhing which is a bit more tedious.