Acoustica User Forums

Hey Y'all,

I have a song that is close being finalized. It is a .MX7 file type consisting of the usual tracks (vocal, guitar, drums, and so on).

Now, I want to take this song and add a video track so that I can upload still images. In other words, I want to end up with two versions of the same song; the .MX7 project as it is currently, and also a .WMV version that includes pictures.

So, do I need to keep them separate by creating an entirely new project? Or, will the "mix down to .WMV become a new file that is added to my existing song folder?

I'm being cautious because I don't want to risk messing up my original .MX7 file.

Thanks in advance for all replies.

Barry

When you mix downyou have a choice of formats, so if you mix down to wave, even if a video is present you will get a wave file. Conversley if you mix down to WMV you will get a video.

However because you are using 2 different formats you may find as I have that slightly different approaches to mastering are necessary.

I don't do all that much video, but am in the habit of mixing down the audio first, importing that back into the project, muting the original tracks, and then mixing down to video.

I don't think there are too many ways to mess up your project in this area (especially if you do frequent saves) or I probably would have discovered it by now

Hey chibear,

Thanks for the response. The more I get involved in this hobby, the less I know about it. I think I'll be okay because I have all the backups for the original song.

chibear wrote:but am in the habit of mixing down the audio first, importing that back into the project, muting the original tracks, and then mixing down to video.

I don't understand what this means, or why it should be done. Do you only do this when video is involved? What does this do? Is this something I should start doing? If so, how?

Thanks again for the response.

Barry

Studio 919 wrote:Hey chibear,
I don't understand what this means, or why it should be done. Do you only do this when video is involved? What does this do? Is this something I should start doing? If so, how?

OK, so what I have been doing is mixing down all my VSTi tracks to new audio tracks so as to get as clean of a render for each track as possible and also concentrating all of my computer's resources on that track and the fx of that track

Then I mix the audio stems down to a 48/24 Wave file (will probably try 48/30 in the next prject) with the Master fx's, my almost final sound, except I mix to a lower level for headroom and to check for transient peaks. I might do this a couple of times to adjust the limiter.

I then import the wave file back into the project and normalise it for max volume, but still retaining the dynamic range. I then solo the wave file I brought back in and check it with the video, and finally mixing down to video.

Seems like a lot of extra work, but for me beats multiple mixdowns trying to get rid of a hard-to-find artfact in one of 40 or more VSTi tracks

Thanks for the explanation, chibear. I'll definitely look at this in detail when I start working on my video project.

Thanks again.

Barry

Studio 919 wrote:Hey Y'all,

I have a song that is close being finalized. It is a .MX7 file type consisting of the usual tracks (vocal, guitar, drums, and so on).

Now, I want to take this song and add a video track so that I can upload still images. In other words, I want to end up with two versions of the same song; the .MX7 project as it is currently, and also a .WMV version that includes pictures.

So, do I need to keep them separate by creating an entirely new project? Or, will the "mix down to .WMV become a new file that is added to my existing song folder?

I'm being cautious because I don't want to risk messing up my original .MX7 file.

Thanks in advance for all replies.

Barry

Just add a video track to the project and your images to it. If you want a wav as the final product, select wav when mixing down, if you want a video file, select wmv.

Thanks for the reply aj113. I wanted to try this yesterday but other things came up. Hopefully, I'll give it a try in a day or two.

My concern is losing, or overwriting my original song which is a .MX7 format.

Thanks again for the response.

Barry

.MX7 format is a MC project. In the project you will have:

a)All the stuff you already have
b)The new video track with the images.

Nothing will be lost or overwritten, and if you want to get back to how it was originally (apart from simply looking for and opening an automatically saved backup project in the backup folder) you can simply delete the video track.