Logic finalising

darius

Logic users…
How do you finalise everything in your projects?
Once you’re happy with every track, mix and ready to output the final version.
Interested in your workflow for bouncing, bounce in place, with/without effects, stems, plug-ins, track organisation, file storage, formats.
Theres a million options, I can’t find any good basic guide.

poopot

Bounce it as a stereo wav @48k ;

import that into a new project for mastering.

darius

Ok yes I’ve seen that recommended, not sure why it’s better?

My OP could have been clearer. I was interested in how you leave every track in the project, for future proofing and finalising. 

Eg midi tracks, audio tracks with lots of plug-ins. 

poopot

Once you have a mix you are happy with… bounce as above and leave the original project alone… 

No reason you cant leave all your plugins on your tracks…

If I want to do a different mix I will duplicate the original project and work with the duplicate… if that mix is better great, if not I still have the original project to go back to…

the album we just released, I have 15 projects backed up onto 3 different RAID disks…

I also have a master project (also backed up) with the 15 stereo bounces on separate tracks. All the mastering is done in this project… once I’m happy with the mastering (all consistent etc) then I bounce a final stereo wav of each song for release from the master project.

but… at any time I can go back to the original if I need to change a mix…

andy_k

Just a couple of further thoughts,
As part of a final mix, I would be working from audio files created from any midi / VST instruments, and would also usually bounce any FX tracks to audio.
At least this way, a project can be archived as audio files, and any obsolete midi FX or instruments do not prevent me from revising the project at a later date, on a different machine.
Audio is cross platform / cross OS, a lot of midi instruments are Logic only.
Taking this to an extreme, as Albini does, would have all audio stored on tape to ensure future proof reliability.
Once a track is 'completed' there should be no need to go back really, it's done, but who knows what we will be wanting to do with our stuff a few years down the line, with VR and the Metaverse being pushed heavily.
I predict some form of virtual mix, where a user can do his own mix of a particular track, which will require a certain format of stem file, probably ultra high quality.
Already we are seeing 5.1mixes of classic albums, at least they might have some original sources to work from, all we will have will be 48k 24 bit wavs, if we are lucky.

darius

More details of this please. 

How do you organise all bounced tracks in a project? What plug-ins/fx do you leave on or turn off in a track bounce?

andy_k

I'll try and keep this simple, by roughly explaining my own workflow, I use Reaper, but the same principles would apply to any DAW.
Say I am starting a song from scratch, with some drum midi, I would flesh out a rough arrangement of parts for the full song using sections, and get a sound I like via a drum VST ( SSD, Logic drummer).
I would build on this idea with bass, and instrumentation, via midi instruments, or live recording, until the project was fairly refined, and usually at this point my machine will be running fairly flat out with all that processing, so at this point I would be creating a group of folder tracks, and start bouncing out audio of the different elements, drums, bass, guitars etc.
This allows me to continue working (mixing ) using audio files of the same length, and the midi elements can be muted, and VST's taken offline, freeing up memory and allowing different types of process to take place on audio tracks, eq compression etc.
I try to get used to leaving a project in a state with as many VST, and VSTi instances offline as possible, try it to compare load times.
Ahyhoo, as the mix progresses, I am relying more and more on audio tracks to build up the song, and my folder of audio tracks is now called STEMS, these stems can be exported into a fresh project for final mix, or can be used in any DAW if I need to share the project, and eventually my final mix ( either in original project, or a new one ) will be done from a set of stem tracks that are as near to the final result as I can make them, so it could be as few as 4 tracks in a final mix, drums, bass, guitars, vox.
I am oversimplifying things a bit here, just to get the idea across, but you should get the picture.
The final mix of the song is usually saved as 48k 24 bit audio, with about -6db of headroom to allow for some mastering, which can either be done on a single stereo version of the track, or on a few stem versions, this allows for different versions of the same track, ie instrumentals or extended versions ( easier to edit and loop sections of individual instruments )
I find this method of working to a final version allows me to keep a project organised in such a way that if I did need to go back in and change anything, even down to the midi level, I can easily get back to it, and at the same time, I will have full length audio tracks that build up to the full song when combined, this is called consolidation in PT, and is also something in the Logic menu.
I learned a few lessons in this the hard way, when I was using Logic to record a track once, which somehow lost all of my recorded and edited audio , because I was working with a track that had not been bounced to a new audio file, my edits and recordings were lost at a late stage while I was mixing, due to a bug somehow, lesson learned.
This concept, can be extended to having FX on a guitar track, or reverb on a drum track, saved as a full length audio version, if the effect does not need to be baked into the track itself, and a set of stems can be quite a large number while mixing, but eventually the idea can be condensed to as few as are needed for a final mix session.
I like to keep everything in one project, but I also like to have a fresh, simplified project to work on for a final mix, and s separate project devoted to mastering, this helps to keep the mind on the task at hand, and avoids the temptation to get back into the details of a particular track, otherwise, a track will never be completed, there will always be something to fix. Always.