Question about DSP and bouncing

[dBHEAD]

I'm sort of a rookie with PT, so I hope you'll excuse me for not knowing the answer to this -- it's no doubt a no-brainer to some of you PT vets.

Here's the deal: I'm planning out my recording strategy for a band I'll be doing a CD for. I'm using a close mic technique on the drums, and they'll take up eight tracks. When I mix down, one of the first steps will be bouncing the drums down to a stereo pair. As I'm bouncing, I want to use some plug-ins on some of the individual drums. The system I'm using has limited DSP, and the plug-ins on the drums alone will have the DSP capacity just about maxed out.

The problem is that I want to use more plug-ins later in the mixdown. On the mixer screen, it seems like once you've assigned a plug-in to a track, you can't take it off. You can bypass it, but you can't actually remove it. So here are the questions:

ONE. When you bypass a plug-in, do you get the DSP power back which that particular plug-in on that track was using?

TWO. Is there any way to actually delete a plug-in from a track?

THREE. Is there any way to actually delete a track? I'm not talking about removing information FROM the track, but literally deleting the track itself, such that mixer screen might be reduced from, say 25 tracks down to seven or eight? If there is, would I permanently remove any audio recorded on the track, or would I still be able to pull it out of the reigons list?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Why not just bounce the plug in processed 8 tracks over to 8 new ones and mute the old ones. Why limit youself to 2 drum tracks so early on, thats an 8 track analog recording mentality, isn't it?!? You might like to try getting kik n snare bitchin, with a heap of plugs, then get round to the rest of the kit after...
dunno
Jules

[Disco_Doctor]

dBHEAD - You need to skim through the manual a little bit and get a better understanding of what your system is capable of. Unless you have very little hard disk space, you pretty much NEVER need to delete tracks from a session. I don't know if you have a d24 system or a Mix system - but at the minimum you have 32 tracks available (plus a pretty much infinite number of playlists). Here's an alternative solution to your DSP shortage:

1) Record your drums to 8 tracks.
2) Don't worry about blending the drums yet. Just get the best rough mix you can within the limits of your DSP.
3) Record everything else that you need to record.

Then, after you're finished with the production phase and ready to mix, get a good blend on the drums. When the drums are sounding good relative to the rest of the track, bounce the drums to 2 new tracks with all the EQ and compression and reverbs you've added. DON'T delete the original 8 drum tracks. Make safety copies of them with the playlist feature (refer to the manual). Then save all of your plugin settings, manually document what plugins were on what tracks in what order, and only then remove the plugins from the 8 drum tracks to recover the DSP.

Finally, if necessary - which it probably isn't, delete the 8 tracks that the drums were on (look under the File menu for "Delete tracks").

That way, later on when you discover that your original blend is not exactly what you wanted, you can restore everything and try it again.

You never need to permanently remove audio from a session, and you definitely don't want to try spotting your audio back to blank tracks from the region bin, especially if you have lots of takes. Use the playlists.

Good luck!

http://www.digidesign.com/ubb/images/icons/smile.gif


[This message has been edited by Disco_Doctor (edited 10-07-99).]

[Rail Jon Rogut]

You can also reduce screen clutter by hiding tracks which you don't need to see... also look at your memory locations which can save a preset for which tracks are hidden and which are shown for easily switching between groups of visible tracks.

Rail

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Recording Engineer

[Robert U]

Answer to your questions:

ONE:No, you don't!

TWO:Yes, just choose NO INSERT situated in the menu before the one where you select plug-ins...

THREE: Yes there is. Highlight the tracks which you wanna delete by clicking/shift-clicking and the choose FILE->Delete selected tracks.The audio will still be in the regionlist.

Good Luck!

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Robert

[dBHEAD]

Thanks, Robert, Julian, Disco Doctor and Rail Jon for the answers. Not only have you answered the questions, but now I'm reconsidering my mix strategy. I might not need to mix the drums down to stereo at all (except, of course, in the final mixdown with everything else).

You're right about the manual, Disco_Doctor. I need to know it better. The problem is, the facility I'm working with is at a university and the only copy of the manual is in the studio. I can get time in the studio totally free, but I have to sign up for it, and there is definitely competition for that time. Maybe I could persuade them to provide a check-out copy.