So I am always trying to get my ultimate project template setup but im not quite there yet. So in the meantime I start projects with just a drum folder for my ez drums and then I start adding guitar tracks etc
So lets say I now have a few guitar tracks bass tracks and now I want to start adding all of my folders/busses to start building up the song. Whats the best way to do it? I mean, what order should things be done?
for instance I have my master tracks of course and then here is what i want to have under that:
2 Bus. Then going to the 2 bus I want āinstrumentsā and ātotal vocalsā and of course it breaks down further from there for instance under instruments will be ādrumsā āguitarsā ābassā and of course each of those will break down such as drums will break down into multiple folders ākick busā 'snare bus" etc etc
you get the idea. So do I start making folders from the top down or from the bottom up? for instance would I make a big overall ā2 busā folder with everything in it and then go into that and start subdividing up into smaller foldersā¦or start with the smallest folders first and work upwards?
I had a nightmare on a recent song with over 85 tracks where I had multiple levels of folders etc and somehow during the mixing I accidentally changed the order of a track or something and it was an absolute nightmare trying to get the folders back in order. Somehow the ātotal voxā had gotten under the guitar folder and it was hell trying to get everything straight
Thats where the confusion comes inā¦when one track can be the ālast track in a folderā but on like 4 different levels lol. For instance my lead guitar track will be the last track in the ālead guitarā folder, but also in the ātotal guitarā folder and then also in the āinstrumentsā folder etc
Whats the best method to set this up without a ton of headache??
I can never think of an instance where I needed tonal control over all instrument and all vocals. If you just want to be able to mute and solo them as 2 different groups, I recommend using a group clutch or assigning them to a VCA instead of creating a folder track.
My apologies. I keep forgetting what DAW youāre on. Pro Tools and Nuendo make you declare the label for the bus before you are able to create or route the bus. So it really depends on which DAW youāre using. Logic is totally different. You can just add and move busses around as you go.
With that many tracks, I would recommend getting your global FX busses in place first. This is going to save a lot of headache. I create them in banks of 16 because thats how my console is laid out. Then I start subgrouping from there.
So it totally depends on whats in your project. The only thing I can really say is other than your globals, try and just stick to only what you need.
Iām not sure what you mean by folder tracks. But any time you have the chance to fold ten backup vocals into one stereo pair, do it, then deactivate, then hide your ten mono tracks and shove them out of sight and out of mind.
Reaper. This is a copy of what I asked in the Reaper forum so its sort of assuming reaper knowledge but should be about the same in most DAWs
in Reaper, āfolderā is going to basically be the same as a bus. Any track can be made into a folder. the ātrickā to it is that you then have to go to the last track in that folder and click on it to make it the last track in the folder
So on any track you can make the track a folder or it can be the last track in a folder. the ācatchā is that sometimes a track may be the last track of several layers of folders at once
for instance lets say I have a guitar bus. Inside that i might have a rhythm bus and a solo bus since they will have totally different tones and processing etc. So the last track in the āsoloā bus will also be the last track of the overall āguitarā bus. Reaper shows them indented at different levels. of course in reality that last solo track will also be the last track in the overall āinstrumentā folder. So its the last track in 3 different levels of folder.
In the project I am working on I had already put in a drum bus and bass bus so in reality I had already started making busses sort of on the āmidā level of the overall architecture. I then went and added further sub busses like āsnare busā and ākick busā and then added the larger overall stuff like ā2 busā and ātotal vxā etc without too much issue
so in essence the question was probably unneeded but it still helps me to hear what others say.
i like the extra control, as u say, if nothing more than for muting or checking levels but also for instance maybe I want to mid/side process all of my instruments but not my vocals or do some sort of automation on all instruments but not vocals or who knows what else
Not sure if this is a response to me - I gather it isā¦ If it is, it appears you took offence at my reply. Perhaps my brevity of reply is at fault. I apologise if I somehow offended you - that wasnāt my intention. I was brief because I didnāt have much time.
In any case, the reason I mentioned VCAs being able to be used concurrently with Folders was because @Jonathan offered them as a possible solution, and I thought it might be helpful to know they could still be used.
The reason I mentioned that I donāt use either was because, as such Iām not familiar with their usage, and therefore canāt be of anymore help. I donāt āhateā them, and I wish you all the best in your efforts to find a workflow that suits you.
nah, takes a bit more than that to offend me. Then again i always do find it amusing when someone asks a specific thing and essentially they get told that the question is wrong.
like if someone asks āhow do I do such and such in Cubase?ā and the answer comes back ādude, omg, why use cubase?? studio one ruleZ$%ā
your comment of āpersonally I dont use eitherā might be classed in that category. Mustard vs Mayonnaise.
I have heard of VCAs and subprojects and IIRC glanced at them. I would guess that they didnt make perfect sense to me in 30 seconds so I lost interest. reaper seems almost infinitely deep
So far I dont see the need to learn yet 2 more ways to complicate things. I just want to find how to best use folders.
one thing I want the āinstrumentsā and āvocalsā folders for is to throw SPAN and other stuff into for easy analysis of just those section. yeah, im sure 10 people could do the same thing 10 other ways lol
Those are really 2 different tools. I did double check to confirm that the folders in reaper work like the āstacksā in Logic and the āfoldersā in Cubase. The folders in Ableton arenāt really folders in this sense though their sometimes referred to as folders.
Ok. The folders donāt obsolete the VCAās. They serve a different purpose. Though they share some of the basic functionality of a VCA, they are more for managing the visual layout of data, something the VCA canāt do. I use folders when I want to visually dispose of subgroups of tracks that I may want to be able to access with a quick button click. Rather than doing something like muting the regions and pushing them to the bottom of the screen, it may be easier to put all your original non-autotuned tracks in whatās called an X folder or a āstorageā folder and not have to think about them (out of site out of mind), rather than make them inactive then mute the regions, then hide the region. The problem this solves is that when you have over 100 tracks that have all been processed, but youāre required by the project supervisor to keep the originals data on the tracks, you NEED some way of organizing all that unused audio.
The advantage of the VCA is that you donāt have to keep toggling folders open and closed and the folder lane itself isnāt chewing up space on your DAW screen. Furthermore, you separate the audio lane from the VCA lane. You canāt with a folder. A folder requires the audio lane to be inside the folder. What I means is you canāt do this with a folder:
Example 1:
Kick
Snare
OH L
OH R
Guitar 1
Guitar 2
Guitar 3
Guitar 4
Drum VCA
Guitar VCA
Using folders you would have to do it like this
Example 2:
Drums folder
Kick
Snare
OHL
OHR
Guitar folder
Guitar 1
Guitar 2
Guitar 3
Guitar 4
Example 1 is by far the more commonly used method. Chris Lord Alge places his VCAās on the left of his console or to the left of his audio lanes when heās working in the box. I put my VCAās dead center on my console, but push my VCAās all the way to far right on my DAW even past my master fader because I donāt ever want to look at them on the screen. So really its about moving stuff around. I want them in the same place all the time, and the last place I ever want a VCA or folder is cluttering up the lanes in the main arrange window.
I hope that helps a littleā¦ No one has to use either. Its not a requirement. The folder tool and the VCA tool are there if you need them, but never in your way if youāre like Andrew and donāt have a use for them.