Video Transcript
Advanced Recording & Playback
7m 15s
0:07
Welcome back. In the previous video we showed you how to record tracks using the TouchMix and an external hard drive.
0:14
Now that you have the recorded tracks, let's show you the different things you can do with them.
0:18
Let’s start with Playback. Once you’ve recorded a session, you can playback any number of the recorded tracks.
0:24
Just go to the Record/Play screen, deselect arm, and turn on “Track" for each track you want to hear.
0:31
This will override the channel’s XLR or Line Input with the channel’s recorded track from the hard drive.
0:37
A Playback indicator will appear for any fader that’s in Track mode.
0:40
Take a look at the Transport and Control bar at the bottom of the screen.
0:44
You can see the total duration of the session on the right,
0:47
and you can adjust your location on the Timeline by moving the Play indicator.
0:52
The Locate indicator lets you mark a point that you can return to later.
0:56
If you tap the Set button, the Locate indicator will move to your current Play point.
1:00
You can adjust either of these indicators by dragging it on the screen, or by using the Master Wheel.
1:06
If you want to move the Play indicator to the Locate point, simply tap “Go To." Overdubbing
1:11
Now is a good time to talk about overdubbing.
1:13
Let’s say that you have an additional track that you’d like to add to a live recording.
1:16
Let’s say that your band has a recording of a song with an electric guitar,
1:21
and you’d like to layer in an acoustic backup on one of the available channels.
1:26
Well, let’s do an overdub. First, find a point in the session just before the song starts
1:31
and set the Locate point. Next, make sure that all the channels are set to Track as their source.
1:39
Arm the acoustic guitar channel, and set up the headphone mix for the guitarist.
1:46
Once the guitarist is comfortable with the mix, return to the beginning of the song by tapping “Go To,"
1:52
and touch the Record button. The TouchMix will play the recorded tracks,
1:56
and record your new tracks at the same time.
1:59
When you’re done with that take, touch Stop. And that’s it. You’ve done an overdub.
2:04
You could also use overdubbing to replace a portion of an existing track,
2:08
rather than adding a new channel.
2:10
Let’s say your guitar player messed up a couple of bars in an otherwise awesome performance.
2:15
You want to fix those mistakes.
2:17
Plug the guitar into the same channel it was originally recorded on,
2:21
and locate a point before the section you want to replace.
2:28
Tap the Record button. When the section arrives, arm the channel and play the part better this time.
2:38
When the passage is over, you can disarm the channel or just touch Stop.
2:42
When you overdub a channel, TouchMix works like tape.
2:45
Tape was this stuff that people used to record audio on,
2:49
it came on big reels and got loaded onto big machines.
2:51
Oh, I think my grandpa told me about that once. Exactly. If you playback the track now,
2:55
the section you overdubbed will completely replace the old audio on that part of the track.
3:00
Basically, only the last take can be played back on the TouchMix.
3:04
But don’t worry, those other takes are still in there if you need them.
3:08
In fact, let’s take a moment to look at how files are saved on the hard drive.
3:13
If you prefer to do your post-production editing with a DAW,
3:16
then it’s helpful to understand the TouchMix file structure works.
3:20
Each session will be in its own directory labeled [its name].tmRecord.
3:26
If you’re doing a lot of recording, we recommend labelling your sessions starting with the date,
3:30
so that you can quickly find your session chronologically.
3:34
Inside each session folder are 22 subfolders, or 14 for the TouchMix-8, one for each channel.
3:41
Every time you stop and restart recording,
3:44
a new WAV file will be created in each folder that represents an armed channel.
3:49
The WAV files will be named “Region-1", “Region-2", etc.,
3:53
so you can find your previous takes for overdubs in these files.
3:57
There will also be a document named “DIRECProject" that contains the header data for the session.
4:02
This will be useful when importing your tracks to edit in a DAW.
4:06
Different DAWS handle multiple takes in different ways,
4:09
so you’ll need to check the documentation for your software.
4:12
Follow the procedure your DAW uses to import digital audio files, and you’re set.
4:17
To make it easier to move files back and forth between your DAW and your TouchMix,
4:21
QSC provides a free DAW utility program that runs on both Windows and Mac computers.
4:26
You can download this for free from our website. When going from TouchMix to DAW,
4:31
the DAW utility consolidates all the tracks into a single folder,
4:35
which makes it more convenient to import into most DAW software.
4:39
And, if you’ve got a DAW that doesn’t handle the TouchMix 32-bit floating point WAV files,
4:44
this program will convert from 24 or 32-bit integer format.
4:39
But what if you’ve got some tracks that you made on your DAW,
4:52
maybe some backing vocals with a click track, and you’d like to use them in your live show?
4:58
Well, you can’t just drag and drop these files onto the hard drive
5:01
and expect them to play back properly on the TouchMix.
5:04
Once again, these files must be in 32-bit floating point format,
5:08
and they must be saved with the right XML header files, in the correct file structure.
5:14
Well, the new DAW utility takes care of that too.
5:17
Just change to “DAW to TouchMix," and you can easily export them to use on your TouchMix.
5:23
All you have to do is select the tracks that you want,
5:26
and then choose which TouchMix channels you want to play them.
5:30
Once again, you can download the free DAW utility from the TouchMix page on qsc.com
5:35
Did we mention it’s free?
5:38
Here’s a workflow tip: after the gig, it’s a good idea to log your session.
5:42
A simple spreadsheet with one column with a start time, and another for the song title,
5:47
and then maybe one more column for your notes or a rating system.
5:51
So now, let’s finally talk about what to do with these recorded tracks.
5:55
Your session tracks can be really useful when it’s time to teach someone how to use your sound system.
6:00
Let’s say the TouchMix is in a house of worship,
6:02
and you need to teach a volunteer how to operate your rig.
6:06
Well, rather than bring in the whole band for the sake of one training session,
6:09
you can use the recorded tracks to play back and then show the volunteer how to mix them.
6:14
You can also use the tracks for a virtual sound check.
6:17
But remember, the mix of the playback track is going to be different than the mix
6:21
of actual instruments making noise on stage.
6:24
Plus, tracks won’t feedback the way live microphones can.
6:27
Another thing you might want to do is get your session mixed down to a single stereo track
6:31
with each song as a separate file.
6:33
One way to do this is to simply connect the analog stereo output of the mixer
6:38
to the analog inputs of a recording device, for example, your favorite DAW.
6:42
The TouchMix has all the processing for a fine mix,
6:45
and your DAW can deal with all the cutting and saving to MP3s or WAV files.
6:49
Our last bit of advice is actually a serious disclaimer. Mixing on your TouchMix recording is highly addictive.
6:57
You may start off with just wanting to do a quick mix of last Saturday’s gig,
7:01
but before you know it, you get wrapped up with experimenting and perfecting
7:06
and fine-tuning your mix for hours.
7:08
So don’t say we didn’t warn you. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next time.
Lesson Description
Advanced Recording & Playback
7m 15s
Learn advanced methods of recording audio, dubbing, playback and manipulating files created on the TouchMix.
Downloads and Links
Advanced Recording & Playback
7m 15s