Please Help! - Bouncing and Input Levels

Guitarist2112 · August 29, 2008, 05:08:46 AM

Hi there and help!,

I have not long had a Micro BR, and I am currently attempting to Record my first serious project. I am doing so as a compulsory part of the music course I am taking. I have to write and record my own composition. I am using guitar, digital drums (can't work those on Micro BR satisfactorily) and Bass.

First I want to simply bounce two tracks to one. I've looked at tutorials, but they go on about stereo, mono etc - I don't understand. All I know is that I have recorded everything on the highest quality available (HiFi MT2). It would also be good to know if once I have bounced two tracks together, if I can undo them if needs be and try again.

Second, the drums came out a bit distorted, if i had the input so that the screen did not read 'OVER', things were too quiet to work with. Is it possible to clean up the distortion without recording again?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Learning how to simply bounce two tracks to one is my greatest priority now.

Cheers, Guitarist2112

Indiana · August 29, 2008, 05:50:39 AM

Quote from: Guitarist2112 on August 29, 2008, 05:08:46 AMFirst I want to simply bounce two tracks to one...
... It would also be good to know if once I have bounced two tracks together, if I can undo them if needs be and try again.

There is an 'undo', pg 49 owners manual. But, when you bounce,
you'll record to a different track/vtrack. So you'll have your original tracks to try again as much as you like.

TheMohawk · August 29, 2008, 12:15:12 PM

I just learned today how to bounce. Im not sure about your distortion problems. There is two different levels you have to change to sort that out. There is the input level and the sns level thats all i know bout that so far. Anyway on the bouncing.

I found the manual quite useless and i dont know why they didnt use a simple example rather than the ridiculous complicated example of recording onto 2 virtual tracks in stereo! Whats the point in that?

Anyway.......what i did was..... firs of all when you have your song loaded and you are on the play screen, press one of your track buttons. This brings you on to the record screen, then maybe you know already if you scroll over with the cursor to the right it brings you through the track level screen, the track pan screen, the track reverb screen and lastly the virtual track screen. You will see eight little squares for each track with maybe the first of each used and the rest empty. There is also a little cursor under those v-tracks showing you which one you have operating on each main track.

When you play back a song, each track will play whatever virtual track that little cursor is under. So for example, you may have guitar on track 1 virtual track 1 and bass on track 2 virtual track 1.
If you move the little cursor on track 1 virtual track1 to the next virtual track, when you play the song you wont hear the guitar because within track one you have now switched to an empty virtual track. (This is actually handy if there is one track you dont want to bounce you can simply put that track on empty).

Basically now what you want to do is make sure you have the 2 tracks selected that you want to bounce. Say for example Track 1 VTrack 1 which is your guitar and Track 2 VTrack 1 which is your bass. Make sure you have the little cursor under the correct virtual tracks. Again you press one of your track buttons on the main screen and scroll over to the right with the cursor button to get to the virtual track selection screen.

Now press exit to go back to the main screen. Press Exit and Utiliy together, then the bounce box will light at the top left of the screen. And now this is where the manual failed to make it simple because it actually is simple. You see in the manual on page 50 part 4 where it says above the time counter, it says "34v2" that means in that example they are recording to both Track 3 and 4 Virtual track 2. But you can simply change that, all you have to do is as use you cursor buttons again to bring the cursor back up under where that "34v2" is in the book and change it using the value buttons. The number in front of the V is the track number, use the value button to select a single track and the number after the V is the virtual track number, just rember to use an empty virtual track. so say you can use Track 1 Virtual Track 2 because that is empty. So that will appear "1V2" on your screen with a little empty square beside it to say that it is empty. when you have that done simply press record and then play and then the 2 tracks you have playing will be bounced onto Track 1 Virtual Track 2. (You will also see that the small nuber 1 will be flashing at the bottom of the screen telling you which track is active rfor recording).

And rember you wont lose the 2 original tracks because they are on different virtual tracks. And when you want to play back your new bounced track, make sure to get out of the "bounce mode" by pressing exit and utility together twice, and you will be back to your main play screen, remember again by pressing one of your track buttons you can scroll over to your virtual track screen and make sure that on each of you tracks you are playing the correct virtual track. so for this example you would have track 1 on virtual track 2 where you bounced and on track 2 you will place you cursor on an empty virtual track so when you press play all you will hear is your bounced track!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope that helped! I know it was long but i wanted to get it right!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tackium · August 30, 2008, 05:11:17 AM

Quotei dont know why they didnt use a simple example rather than the ridiculous complicated example of recording onto 2 virtual tracks in stereo!

They did this because this is really the most useful type of bounce. If you bounce multiple tracks to a single track you loose any stereo effects and pannings. If on the other hand you wish to move a single track to a different location then you can use either copy, or move (utility-trk-copy/move). No need to bounce for that.

There can be an advantage to bouncing single tracks if you wish to add effects or mastering corrections individually.

TheMohawk · August 30, 2008, 05:15:37 AM

Yes definitly bouncing single tracks is exxential for individual effects etc.... i still think the manual could have began with a simpler example of bouncing just to get the concept acrosss.

What is in the manual is no use to a beginner at all. Once you get the concept down then at least you can begin to experiment yourself on different types of bounce.