Need some help finding a mixing / mastering solution ....

[Dave Elyzium]

Ok this is the score - I'm producing using Reason 2.5, sampled VSTi's sequenced from Cubase SX or Orion Pro, and I have all he usual suspects in the way of sound editors ie Wavelab, Soundforge, Cool Edit etc....

Basically the computer I'm running this on is a 600mhz AMD Duron with 448 megs of RAM...Obviouslet thus system struggeles to run reason through cubase using rewire and it just cant cope with that much audio processing.

I'd really like to be able to rewire Reason through Cubase to mix my track but I really cant afford any sort of upgrade at the moment so could anyone please give me any tips or ideas on mixing / mastering with this current setup as obviousley the effects in Reason are not up to scratch compared with alot of plugins nowadays but I can gt some wicked results with alot of tweaking followed by running the mix through T-Racks mastering software.

I imagine getting a basic mix up in Reason and exporting each seperate track ie kick, bass etc to Cubase and mixing from there would be a good idea but most of my tracks usually use about 15 tracks or more so again, processor power is in question here...

Also, can anyone suggest any good online reading on the subject of mixing / mastering, especially for techno and hard dance music?

Thanks!!

[Dave Elyzium]

anyone?

[tocsin]

anyone?

I used to have a similar problem to you. My main machine was a PIII-500 with a whopping 128 megs of RAM. I pretty much did it exactly as you described. I'd solo each track and render it down to one long wav file. Then, I'd pull each of them up in a multi-tracker and EQ/Compress from there. One program I had good success with as far as not crapping out on playback with the EQ settings and such was Sonic Foundry's Vegas. I probably still have an old copy of Vegas lying around on disk if you'd like to try it. The newest version would probably be hell on your computer. But, I probably still have 1.0 lying around somewhere. It has some native EQ/compressor plugs I believe which don't seem to be too intense on the CPU like loading up a bunch of separate VST/DX plugs. Though, I'm no expert on how that program works so it might not offer any advantage over Cubase for the same thing.

[acidsaturation]

I'd say the Vegas Idea's def worth a go - That's how I used to (and soemtimes still) do it. If you just use the native eqs and compressors in vegas - (they're not the best, but they do the job and are easy to use) you may just manage it - even with 15 or so tracks. It's gonna be worth a try.

[John Vella]

Also, can anyone suggest any good online reading on the subject of mixing / mastering, especially for techno and hard dance music?

Honestly mate, you've found one of the best resources for tips right here!

Check alot of the older posts....

You'll find quite a bit of quality info on here!

-j