Panning mono audio channel - how?

[Stephanie]

I've looked through the online manual but I must have missed it...

Using Metro LX, I'm trying to mix down 10 mono audio tracks (8 microphones, plus left and right from a keyboard). The recording has already been done; these tracks have been imported from 24-bit .wav files.

Everything is panned dead centre. I've routed audio output for all tracks to my Edirol UA-25 so I can use headphones for those late-night mixing sessions. I have been able to get the mixer to give me individual level controls, but panning does nothing to move the track within the sound field, as I think it should.

Other oddities: I see no meter activity in the mixer except for the master level. Mute buttons in the mixer do nothing. Pressing any Solo button in the mixer mutes everything. However, in the Tracks window, the level meters work and reflect the mixer faders. The mute and solo buttons in the Tracks window also work normally.

What am I missing? Please tell me Metro LX can do this, since the $69 GarageBand can.

[Jerm]

Hello Stephanie,

Panning does work!

I think the problem may be in the routing. Each track should be routed to a unique output so that track 1 is assigned to an output named 'Edirol UA-25-1', track 2 assigned to 'Edirol UA-25-2' etc. etc. Then in the mixer window the panning knobs will work as expected. If you do not already have the 10 audio outputs needed to do this go to the 'modify outputs and busses' dialog (from the special menu) and create 10 outputs on port 'Edirol UA-25'. The assignments can be performed in either the tracks window or the graphic editor.

If you create the number of outputs you expect to be using and save preferences then Metro LX will default to those outputs the next time you start it up.

[Scoot]

Definitely the modify outputs and busses menu option in the Special menu.

You can also control how many outputs you want to see in the mixer if you added new outputs and used the 'replace existing' option.

Make sure the popup for 'outputs on port' is selecting the Edirol, add 10 outputs with the tick starting with channel 1 and you can even name them UA-25.



In the graphic editor is there a single waveform per track or a Left and Right? Might be fixed with output config'ed correctly.



Metro has the ability to let you hear audio or midi without displaying VU's signal...........it's sort of hearing whats coming IN without having to set where you want it outputed to.


I have a type 0 midi file that imported can play with no signal even on the master fader or tracks window. As soon as you expand by channel the meters in the tracks and mixer windows respond to it allocated to Internal Outputs (quicktime).

[Stephanie]

Hey, it works just fine! I think I'm going to have to draw myself a picture of how the routing works, just to get my mind aound it!

Thanks for the tips!

[Stephanie]

Hey all, thanks for the help so far. Please believe me, I'm trying to find this stuff in the online manual and it's eluding me very successfully.

I have 10 tracks playing into 10 outputs and they're pannable and mixable and life is great till I want to add effects. I add AUMatrixReverb to 8 tracks and all of a sudden my poor little Mac is gasping for air on playback - it hasn't even got time to think about mouse clicks or keystrokes.

Is this something that busses can help me with? I'm thinking: assign the 8 tracks to a bus and apply the reverb to the bus. Is that how it works?

I've tried rendering the reverbed tracks to a new track and it kinda works, but every time I tweak one of the original tracks (pitch, cut/paste) it seems I have to re-render.

[Jerm]

You most likely do not want to add the reverb to all 8 tracks but rather as you suggest, add one reverb to an aux buss and then route audio to the aux buss. Check out thequick aux tutorial if you have not already.

[Scoot]

Download Jerm's link rather than open it in a web browser..........otherwise you only see page one (of 2).

[Stephanie]

Hi Jerm and Scoot:

Metro never ceases to amaze me. There's something useful around every turn. Still looking for the Overclock menu so my Mac can keep up with all the things I want it to do

Hmm... Scoot, Safari with either the PDF viewer plugin from Schubertit or Adobe's own plugin displays both pages just fine.

Now, another question: I've mixed all 10 tracks and none of them clip (as in, trigger the indicator). I run the 8 vocals through an Aux buss to add in some reverb. The auxes and output master don't clip either. Yet when I mix to a track, I get very low levels on a burned CD, yet really rough sound, like it's clipped. Any guidance from the experts?

[Scoot]

Hi Jerm and Scoot:

Metro never ceases to amaze me. There's something useful around every turn. Still looking for the Overclock menu so my Mac can keep up with all the things I want it to do

Hmm... Scoot, Safari with either the PDF viewer plugin from Schubertit or Adobe's own plugin displays both pages just fine.

Now, another question: I've mixed all 10 tracks and none of them clip (as in, trigger the indicator). I run the 8 vocals through an Aux buss to add in some reverb. The auxes and output master don't clip either. Yet when I mix to a track, I get very low levels on a burned CD, yet really rough sound, like it's clipped. Any guidance from the experts?

For a little bit more speed.........(this thing may be in LX)
Setup Menu - Digital Audio / Advanced - click the blue car to quit the finder.

Also don't leave a track with a RECORD setting on it if you're not recording. It saves you a bit of CPU power.


My safari only displays the first page........it ain't the latest and greatest OSX or I don't have the magic plugins.


The master fader currently doesn't show a clip.....so you have to make the judgement its not maxing out the signal by eye. If a choir of voices on the tracks are all near clipping I would assume run together the master must be over or on the verge and would need turning down.

Low volume has me beat unless it is to do with the mac's own volume.
You could have metro maxing out faders all over the place but with the mac volume down or even muted it would just be a bunch of pretty lights.

If working with soundfonts or other virtual instruments, when rendering, the quality of the 'bit' used has a lot to do with the clarity of the sound.....but probably not the volume. Use 24bit instead of 16 and leave the packet size at 512.........experimentation may be needed.

[MP]

Hi Stephanie,

Here are a couple of things you can try:

1. Does the Metro project sound clipped when you play it back (before mixing)? If so, try backing off all of your track's output levels to see if it fixes the problem. The amplitude (volume) of all of your combined tracks will be greater than that of the individual tracks. If that doesn't do it, your clipping may be happening in an aux bus (or busses). Change the mixer's view to show the aux sends you are using and try lowering the faders equally. It is important to note that the Master fader "scales" the output of the other faders, so you can essentially do the same thing by lowering it. However, it's a good idea to find out where specifically the clipping is happening.

2. Does the project play back ok but the mixed audio file is distorted? If so, try recording the mix in real time. Record enable an audio track, then from the tracks view, select "Output Master Direct L+R" from the InpSel pulldown. This routes any audio Metro is sending to your audio device back through an audio track - so you can record it. Be sure to either turn off Software Audio Thru or mute the new track before you start recording or you'll get a nasty feedback loop! Does the recorded track sound better than the mixed track?

3. Regarding the volume, are you comparing your burned CD with commercial CDs? Most professional mixes utilize dynamic compression to make the music "seem" louder. If the levels on your CD are substantially lower than what you expect, are you increasing the volume on your player/computer to make up the difference? If so, that could be a source of clipping as well.

Good luck.

Mike

[adrianlambert]

i had something like this today.....i may be way off but.....
i tried to mix down to a file from 3 tracks of 48khz/24bit audio to a stereo 41khz/16bit AIF file, which sounded quiet and very very very clipped, when i set it to export to 48khz/24bit AIF it sounded fine. tell me to shut up if i'm way off!!

[Jerm]

Trying to replicate this I just mixed 3 48k 24 bit audio files to one 44.1k 16 bit audio file and it sounded fine. Perhaps some more information is in order. What version of Metro are you using on what computer with what OS?

[Stephanie]

Running under Mac OS X 10.4.5 on a Mac G4, 466MHz. Metro lives on my system disk; the Metro documents and all related audio files live on a second internal IDE drive (160GB Maxtor, 7200rpm).

10 audio tracks were recorded professionally. Pops and other spikes were removed and levels normalised so there was no clipping on any of them. No other processing was done. The 10 tracks were delivered to me as 10 24-bit monaural .WAV files. The first eight were vocals, tracks 9 and 10 were left and right from my keyboard.

For my first try, I mixed everything down dry - no effects, no compression, just level tweaks. I tried to maximise levels as much as possible without clipping any single one, focusing on pulling down unwanted tracks rather than trying to boost faint ones. I kept the master fader at maximum and made sure it peaked only occasionally but never clipped. I automated the level changes to account for a couple of solos.

I mixed the whole thing to a file: 48kHz at 24 bits, AIF, and burned it to a CD with iTunes. It played fine and had what I thought were reasonable levels compared to commercial CDs. The only complaint our group had was that it was very dry. "Hey, Stephanie, it sounds just like us! Can't you make us sound good? "

Next pass: add reverb to the vocals. The Mac fell over dead until I learned to route the vocals to an Aux Buss and apply the reverb there instead of to each track.

To get the reverb to be audible, I switched to Aux 1 and maxed all the vocal faders. (I omitted the keyboard from this as it sounded fine with its own effects; it ran straight to the output master.) Nothing at this point showed any clipping, so I mixed to a file, same settings as before.

The resulting file was not nearly as loud as the dry one. The burned CD played much more softly but still had a very gritty, clipped quality.

I'm wondering: when you route a track through an aux buss does the original track get summed into the mix? Because that's what it sounds like.

Sorry for the really long post, but you DID ask for detail

[Scoot]

I know 10 tracks at 44.1k and 16 bit is ok on a 450Mhz machine with a second 7200rpm drive and 768MB of ram as I've done it myself, but I don't know if doing it at 24bit would be successful. That's an extra 50% of load on the system and considering a CD is 44.1k and 16 bit, where is the advantage?

In earlier Metro 6 versions under OSX it was pretty much pushing it....as the whole interface/experience was slow and bottlenecked, but it was a lot easier to perform under OS9....and an early G4 really screamed under that system.....just more likely to hang the machine every so often cause of OMS having a fit.

I think your clicks and distortions could be coming from overloading and probably on the CPU rather than the disk.........or both.


First option to try is take everything down to 16bit and continue doing everything as you were. With what you save, you could easily stick a second aux in with a EQ or compressor if needed. Go easy on the reverb or it will sound like a tin box. Thats where a EQ may help.

Second reverb all the tracks seperately and mix the reverb'ed tracks only.......very time consuming.

Third - shake $100 out of everyone singing and get a new imac.


My mac is now vintage. I'll probably replace it when it becomes obsolete.

[Jerm]

48kHz at 24 bits, AIF, and burned it to a CD with iTunes.

Note that when you do this iTunes has to convert the file to 16 bit 44.1k since that is what a CD is.

The resulting file was not nearly as loud as the dry one. The burned CD played much more softly but still had a very gritty, clipped quality.

I have no idea what this means. After mixing you should listen to the file. It should sound the same as the original as long as the master fader is all the way up and there is no master fader automation.

I'm wondering: when you route a track through an aux buss does the original track get summed into the mix? Because that's what it sounds like.

The main fader, the fader that appears in the mixer window when the popup to the right says 'main', always determines the amount of the original signal being sent to the mix.
The pre/post switch may help here. This can be used to determine whether the main fader will affect the amount of signal being sent to the aux buss. If set to pre, the signal being sent to the aux buss is completely determined by the aux send fader level, in post mode the value sent to the aux buss is scaled by the main fader.