Electronic Studio Resources I:  DP Mixdown

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Digital Performer Mixdown

Producing the final product from a Digital Performer project can be quite involved. Below are tips that cover various situations you might encounter.

The basic idea is that you must convert into an audio track every track in your project that is not already an audio track — namely K2600 and virtual instrument MIDI tracks. Then you use the Bounce to Disk command to combine all the audio tracks into a master mix. If you have a quad project, you need to bounce your sequence to a single, interleaved quad file or to four mono stems, suitable for placement in a new project for playback. (Note that multichannel pieces must be submitted to festivals as multiple mono stems. Festivals almost always want a stereo mix for adjudication, so make one before you forget how your project works.)

Converting K2600 MIDI Tracks to Audio

To convert K2600 MIDI tracks into one or more stereo audio tracks, follow the instructions given here.

Be sure you’re aware of the K2600 effects “studio” you’re using. The best strategy is to make this setting on the K2600...

Effects > CNTL > FX Mode = Master
then choose an effects studio, and stick with it.

Converting Virtual Instrument Tracks to Audio

This is the most foolproof method of converting virtual instrument tracks — such as MachFive, nanosampler, and Absynth — to audio tracks.

  1. Create a new stereo audio track in DP (Project > Add Track > Stereo Audio Track).
  2. Set its INPUT column to an unused stereo bus pair.
  3. Set the OUTPUT column of the virtual instrument track (not the companion MIDI track that drives it) to this bus pair.
  4. Record-enable your new audio track.
  5. Press the Record button.

    The sound the virtual instrument makes when you play your sequence will be recorded into the new stereo audio track. While recording, you may not be able to hear anything from the virtual instrument track. Don’t worry about this; its sound will be recorded.

  6. Mute the original virtual instrument and companion MIDI tracks, so that they don’t make sound while you play the new audio track.
This also works for converting Riverrun output into an audio track.

Note that there is also a Freeze Selected Tracks command on the Audio menu. This automatically performs the same steps as above. (The reason not to use this command is that we have seen it fail in certain circumstances.)

Bouncing to Disk

  1. If you recorded a Kurzweil or virtual instrument track into an audio track, then you probably have that track set to stereo output.

    Set these stereo tracks to quad output: Analog 1-4. Then pan them, maintaining the stereo image by keeping the panning “puck” in the horizontal center.

  2. If you don’t have one already, add a Master Fader track, and set its output to Analog 1-4.
  3. Make certain that all audio track outputs, and all Master Fader track outputs, are set to Analog 1-4.
  4. Play the sequence, and make sure that no meters, including the ones on the Master Fader track, show clipping. Make any final level adjustments.
  5. Play-enable all the tracks you want to include in your final mix, and disable (mute) the ones you don’t want to include. Master Fader tracks must be play-enabled for the tracks feeding them to be heard.

    Sometimes you will find that tracks mute and unmute all by themselves. This is because at some point you inadvertantly automated mute changes. You can get rid of all these by selecting everything, then issuing the Region > Clear Mute Automation command.

  6. Edit > Select All, and be sure that the end of the selection is where it should be. You can use the Selection Information view (Studio menu) to fine-tune the time range you want to capture. Usually, you’ll want the entire length of your sequence, plus a few extra empty measures to accommodate any reverb or echo ring-off.
  7. Choose Audio > Bounce to Disk. Use the following settings in the dialog that appears.

    Interleaved means that there will be a single file containing all four channels. Setting Channels to Same as Source will result in a quad file in this case, since the output source is Analog 1-4.

  8. Press the Choose Folder button, and navigate to the Desktop.
  9. Press OK. Another window may pop up, but you can just OK it. Your mix file will appear on the Desktop.
  10. Close this project, and create a new one. This is just so you can listen to your quad mix file and be sure it works. Add a quad input track (Project > Add Track > Surround > Quad). Open the Bundles window (from the Studio menu), and create a quad output bundle, as you did when setting up your final project for quad mixing. Assign this bundle as the output for your quad track. Drag your quad mix file into the track. Listen to make sure everything is okay.
  11. Give your quad mix file a name that includes your own name, and copy it to the CECM server. Put the file in the “finalproj” folder for this semester, in the “/Users/Shared/K503” folder.
  12. As mentioned above, conference and festival submissions require individual mono stem files. They also require a stereo mix for adjudication purposes. You don’t have to have these ready by the final project due date, but please make them before the end of the semester.

    To make the quad stems, you must bounce your project again. Here’s how to set up the bounce.

    All the other settings should be the same as for the interleaved bounce. This will generate four mono files, with “.L,” “.R,” “.Ls,” and “.Rs” suffixes.

    If you drag one of these four quad stem files into the Soundbites window, it will grab all four files and pretend that they are a single multichannel file. To make the stereo mix, we need for these files to be on separate tracks. So you have to make them look like independent mono files to DP. To do this, rename the stem files: edit the names to get rid of the suffixes that DP recognizes — e.g., replace “.L” with “.Left,” “.Ls” with “.LeftSurround,” etc.

    Most festivals will ask for a specific naming convention for stems, so you may have to rename these files again later.

    Here’s how to make a quick stereo mix.

    1. Make a new DP project with four mono tracks, named “L”, “R”, “Ls”, and “Rs”.
    2. Drag each renamed mono stem into the appropriate track.
    3. Set each track ouput to stereo (“Analog 1-2” in the studio, “Built-in output” in the Music Library).
    4. Pan the tracks this way:
      • L: all the way left
      • R: all the way right
      • Ls: at 9 o’clock on the pan dial
      • Rs: at 3 o’clock
      Experiment with the Ls/Rs panning width, but keep it symmetrical.
    5. Make a Master Fader track. It will probably be necessary to turn this down slightly, because adding the rear speaker signals to the front ones might cause clipping.


©2008, John Gibson, Alicyn Warren