Idea for 2D-mixing

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Ahornberg
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17 Jun 2018

what about an RE like that:



In reason, each mixer channel has CV inputs for volume and pan.
I think of an RE with a large 2D area for about 32 mixer channels.

If there are serious interests I get start coding.

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Loque
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17 Jun 2018

I am waiting for a RE allowing me to position my channels in 3D since years. Creating pseudo 3D spatial, filtering, reverbs and stuff. Guess it is time to check the VST market...
Reason12, Win10

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Ahornberg
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17 Jun 2018

This is the only RE I know so far that can create pseudo 3D spatial https://shop.propellerheads.se/rack-ext ... -surround/

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Ahornberg
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18 Jun 2018

A brief outline what I have in mind:

The area for mixing should be as big as a fully expanded Thor in the rack.
So vertically the logest faders ever seen in Reason would become possible.
32 channels could be mixed regarding to level and panning on the horizontal space for 11 mixer channels (3 times more faders on the screen).

Drawbacks:
You have to cable up all the channels and label them manually.
A combinator would't help here because mixer channels can't be put into a combinator.
Fader moves on the original channels are not reflected in the RE.
No way to get sends into the RE because it only works on CV signals.

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Ahornberg
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20 Jun 2018

I got another idea to do this by using Remote codecs and an RE with no inputs and no outputs (only a GUI).

advantages:
* every remoteable butoon, knob, trackname, whatsoever can/could be controlled by the RE
* absolutely no wiring up cables requires

disadvantages:
* you need an external MIDI loop like loopMIDI on Windows or something similar on Mac
* you might/would encounter a light latency/jitter
* only the first 64 mixer channels can/could be supported

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selig
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Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

20 Jun 2018

Ahornberg wrote:A brief outline what I have in mind:

The area for mixing should be as big as a fully expanded Thor in the rack.
So vertically the logest faders ever seen in Reason would become possible.
32 channels could be mixed regarding to level and panning on the horizontal space for 11 mixer channels (3 times more faders on the screen).

Drawbacks:
You have to cable up all the channels and label them manually.
A combinator would't help here because mixer channels can't be put into a combinator.
Fader moves on the original channels are not reflected in the RE.
No way to get sends into the RE because it only works on CV signals.
You can get sends to work with CV, just not the built-in sends. You’d have to create sends in the insert (so inserts would have to be “post everything” to work), which is simple to do.

Since sends in the inserts would be pre fader, you’d have to link them in the control software (no problem), which actually has one advantage: you can have a front/back option where moving the channel towards the listen reduces the reverb ratio, and moving it back increases it.

You could still do this with your second idea, using remote (and you wouldn’t have to link them for normal operation), so it’s still a valid idea either way.


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Selig Audio, LLC

jimmyklane
Posts: 740
Joined: 16 Apr 2018

20 Jun 2018

Ahornberg wrote:
17 Jun 2018
what about an RE like that:



In reason, each mixer channel has CV inputs for volume and pan.
I think of an RE with a large 2D area for about 32 mixer channels.

If there are serious interests I get start coding.
This is similar to the engineering art of “soundstage”. There are a few schools of thought on this that are (very roughly) divided into two camps:

1: “The Band on Stage”....this will place the sounds into a single environment, and balance the tracks in all three dimensions, “tall, deep, and wide”, with a vocalist up front, and the various elements placed close to what they would be on stage. The exceptions are usually kick, snare, and bass. As you know, we tend to run these up the center. Units like the Quantec Yardstick and (more modern) the Bricasti M7 are really really good at this sort of mixing style. Many classic rock records are mixed with this concept in mind.

2: “Every Sound has a Space”. A great example of this is something like “Owner of a Lonely Heart” where each individual sound has a defined space in the mix. This is accomplished with different reverb/delay/micro-shift/etc, along with levels and EQ set for individual sources as opposed to the band as a whole. This is my personal technique for my own music, as well as my production style (unless I’m working with a really classic-type rock band....vocalist, two guitars, perhaps keys, bass, drums....that also plays very tight. I’ll record the whole band live in a great room and be sparing with the overdubs). This type of technique allows for a very stylized mix, where processing and effects are more tailored and sculpted....pretty much an extension of sound-design at the mix stage.

The plugin you’ve shown the video for seems to cater to the first style of mixing, but I can see a lot of utility regardless of style. How would this work for multiple tracks inside of Reason? We’d need 8-16 audio inputs to it and the ability to either automatically grab the track label or to label them manually. I’m not a coder, can you think of another way? This seems like a great tool, and I think it would be cool to allow for inserts into the audio path of each track....an insert before this plugin would sound different than if we had it built in, post processing. In addition, would you be building in an ambience generator to give a depth impression or is this simply a visualization and level-setting device? I can see the plugin allows for stereo spread, which seems pretty cool as well.

Interested to hear your thoughts on this!
DAW: Reason 12

SAMPLERS: Akai MPC 2000, E-mu SP1200, E-Mu e5000Ultra, Ensoniq EPS 16+, Akai S950, Maschine

SYNTHS: Mostly classic Polysynths and more modern Monosynths. All are mostly food for my samplers!

www.soundcloud.com/jimmyklane

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Ahornberg
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21 Jun 2018

jimmyklane wrote:
20 Jun 2018
Ahornberg wrote:
17 Jun 2018
what about an RE like that:



In reason, each mixer channel has CV inputs for volume and pan.
I think of an RE with a large 2D area for about 32 mixer channels.

If there are serious interests I get start coding.
This is similar to the engineering art of “soundstage”. There are a few schools of thought on this that are (very roughly) divided into two camps:

1: “The Band on Stage”....this will place the sounds into a single environment, and balance the tracks in all three dimensions, “tall, deep, and wide”, with a vocalist up front, and the various elements placed close to what they would be on stage. The exceptions are usually kick, snare, and bass. As you know, we tend to run these up the center. Units like the Quantec Yardstick and (more modern) the Bricasti M7 are really really good at this sort of mixing style. Many classic rock records are mixed with this concept in mind.

2: “Every Sound has a Space”. A great example of this is something like “Owner of a Lonely Heart” where each individual sound has a defined space in the mix. This is accomplished with different reverb/delay/micro-shift/etc, along with levels and EQ set for individual sources as opposed to the band as a whole. This is my personal technique for my own music, as well as my production style (unless I’m working with a really classic-type rock band....vocalist, two guitars, perhaps keys, bass, drums....that also plays very tight. I’ll record the whole band live in a great room and be sparing with the overdubs). This type of technique allows for a very stylized mix, where processing and effects are more tailored and sculpted....pretty much an extension of sound-design at the mix stage.

The plugin you’ve shown the video for seems to cater to the first style of mixing, but I can see a lot of utility regardless of style. How would this work for multiple tracks inside of Reason? We’d need 8-16 audio inputs to it and the ability to either automatically grab the track label or to label them manually. I’m not a coder, can you think of another way? This seems like a great tool, and I think it would be cool to allow for inserts into the audio path of each track....an insert before this plugin would sound different than if we had it built in, post processing. In addition, would you be building in an ambience generator to give a depth impression or is this simply a visualization and level-setting device? I can see the plugin allows for stereo spread, which seems pretty cool as well.

Interested to hear your thoughts on this!
Thank you for your ideas and concepts on mixing.

My approach for wanting to have something rather similar to the Izotope VST above is much simpler. I like to mix in the rack, not in the mixer because for me, the GUI of Reason's mixer is a pain to work with. The design is copied from a large hardware desk, and on hardware it makes sense to have long and narrow channel strips and using both hands gives acces to more than one channel at the same time. On a screen using a mouse where I can turn only one knob/button at a time, I find it overwhelming and distracting and on smaller screens it's not possible to view a whole single channel strip.

Actually I address this issue by using the Console 1 hardware controller but after testing the Izotope plugin above (it has way too much CPU load and requires a lot of setup) I thought, why not having an RE like this?

Here's a quick draft of what I have in mind. The connection from and to the Reason mixer would be established by Remote. It could be done as RE inside Reason or as a separate app, maybe located on an external touchscreen device.
2d_mixer.jpg
2d_mixer.jpg (173.84 KiB) Viewed 1764 times
By using only CV connetions instead of Remote it would have to be an RE inside Reason and only the available CV inputs on a mixer channel can be used.
2d_mixer_cv.jpg
2d_mixer_cv.jpg (76.96 KiB) Viewed 1764 times
Coming back to your “The Band on Stage” and “Every Sound has a Space” approaches, I think it depends on the genre. For ambient music, as I do the most, I use FX not only to place a sound in an imaginary space but also and foremost to create the sound. By placing mixer channels on a 2D-area (with the risk of overlapping) I want to use the space on the screen in a more efficient way. The 2D-area could also be replaced by a matrix of buttons to select one or more mixer channels to work on with the given knobs/buttons/faders. This would not force someone to think about placing sounds in an imaginary space.
2d_mixer_buttons.jpg
2d_mixer_buttons.jpg (158.13 KiB) Viewed 1764 times

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Ahornberg
Posts: 1904
Joined: 15 Jan 2016
Location: Vienna, Austria
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21 Jun 2018

selig wrote:
20 Jun 2018
Ahornberg wrote:A brief outline what I have in mind:

The area for mixing should be as big as a fully expanded Thor in the rack.
So vertically the logest faders ever seen in Reason would become possible.
32 channels could be mixed regarding to level and panning on the horizontal space for 11 mixer channels (3 times more faders on the screen).

Drawbacks:
You have to cable up all the channels and label them manually.
A combinator would't help here because mixer channels can't be put into a combinator.
Fader moves on the original channels are not reflected in the RE.
No way to get sends into the RE because it only works on CV signals.
You can get sends to work with CV, just not the built-in sends. You’d have to create sends in the insert (so inserts would have to be “post everything” to work), which is simple to do.

Since sends in the inserts would be pre fader, you’d have to link them in the control software (no problem), which actually has one advantage: you can have a front/back option where moving the channel towards the listen reduces the reverb ratio, and moving it back increases it.

You could still do this with your second idea, using remote (and you wouldn’t have to link them for normal operation), so it’s still a valid idea either way.


Sent from some crappy device using Tapatalk
Thank you for the idea how to build additional sends!

There are 8 CV inputs for the insert section plus the 2 inputs for pan and volume makes 10 cables to be connected for every channel. I think practically this can only be handled by using a template song with pre-wired channels.

On mixing up Remote and CV connetions I encountered a problem when someone starts to change the order of the channels in the Reason mixer.

I think it needs a lot of prototyping to get a practical solution.

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selig
RE Developer
Posts: 11685
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

21 Jun 2018

jimmyklane wrote: This is similar to the engineering art of “soundstage”. There are a few schools of thought on this that are (very roughly) divided into two camps:
I have a different view…

There are many schools of thought as to how to see production, including the two you mention. I don’t think tools like this necessarily lead to one approach or another. In fact, if you want to give every instrument it’s own space, one could argue a tool like this would be ideal to insure nothing was occupying the same space.

I would also suggest the “every sound has s space” approach begins with the concept and arrangement, not with the mix. You can take the tracks for Owner of a Lonely Heart and try to mix them differently but because it so dramatically switches between concepts from one section to the next you could never put that entire mix on a “soundstage” IMO.

Ironically, seeing that tour and hearing that song performed by a “band on a stage” was amazing, no different than the record really! [emoji6]

I’m sure we both could use a tool like this to mix ANYTHING and not have the tool lead us in any particular direction at all!

All to say, folks suggest Reason leads you to a certain sound (it doesn’t), Live leads you to a certain sound (it doesn’t), samples and assembling a track leads to a certain a sound (it doesn’t), recording a band in a great live room leads to a sound (it doesn’t).

Those classic “soundstage” mixes were done with the same consoles as “every sound has a space” mixes used - It’s not the tools…it’s the vision.


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Selig Audio, LLC

RobC
Posts: 1833
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

25 Jun 2018

Loque wrote:
17 Jun 2018
I am waiting for a RE allowing me to position my channels in 3D since years. Creating pseudo 3D spatial, filtering, reverbs and stuff. Guess it is time to check the VST market...
I've spent 4 years with creating 3D effects that work for everyone.
Had a quite good idea, that I could have turned into a RE, but since I don't have money to run a company, let alone start one, that won't happen.
I can, however make an 'okay' combinator with Reason's tools, so I might do that.
Sharing that for free and making it possible for people to donate (which nobody will, because human xD). #StarveToDeathBusiness

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Loque
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25 Jun 2018

RobC wrote:
25 Jun 2018
Loque wrote:
17 Jun 2018
I am waiting for a RE allowing me to position my channels in 3D since years. Creating pseudo 3D spatial, filtering, reverbs and stuff. Guess it is time to check the VST market...
I've spent 4 years with creating 3D effects that work for everyone.
Had a quite good idea, that I could have turned into a RE, but since I don't have money to run a company, let alone start one, that won't happen.
I can, however make an 'okay' combinator with Reason's tools, so I might do that.
Sharing that for free and making it possible for people to donate (which nobody will, because human xD). #StarveToDeathBusiness
You do not need much money for a company. Here in Germany it is about 20 bucks or something like this for registering. And you need to make a tax computation for your company - and their might start the little problems. As long as you do not earn money or are under a threshold you do not need to pay taxes or can hold them off because of too high bills and stuff. If you do not earn enough within 3 years, you may lose your company. But since a few years we have a 1-man-company style, that makes things a little bit easier. Dunno in which country you live, but creating a company is pretty cheap. Having employs and infrastructure (office, hardware, online, marketing, ...) that can get quite expensive pretty fast. One problem may be liabilities, but hey, therefore we have disclaimers.
Reason12, Win10

RobC
Posts: 1833
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

25 Jun 2018

Loque wrote:
25 Jun 2018
RobC wrote:
25 Jun 2018


I've spent 4 years with creating 3D effects that work for everyone.
Had a quite good idea, that I could have turned into a RE, but since I don't have money to run a company, let alone start one, that won't happen.
I can, however make an 'okay' combinator with Reason's tools, so I might do that.
Sharing that for free and making it possible for people to donate (which nobody will, because human xD). #StarveToDeathBusiness
You do not need much money for a company. Here in Germany it is about 20 bucks or something like this for registering. And you need to make a tax computation for your company - and their might start the little problems. As long as you do not earn money or are under a threshold you do not need to pay taxes or can hold them off because of too high bills and stuff. If you do not earn enough within 3 years, you may lose your company. But since a few years we have a 1-man-company style, that makes things a little bit easier. Dunno in which country you live, but creating a company is pretty cheap. Having employs and infrastructure (office, hardware, online, marketing, ...) that can get quite expensive pretty fast. One problem may be liabilities, but hey, therefore we have disclaimers.
Hungary! xD Here it's about 276 EURO per month including everything for a 1 man company - and that's one of the best possibilities! To get an idea, here minimum wage is less than 2 EUR per hour. A quick google search says it's about 8 EUR there, so that you can feel how it goes here, we can multiply that 276 EUR by 4 which would feel like 1104 EUR per month there.

Hungary was one of the leading countries where people commit suicide. Dunno about now.

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theshoemaker
Posts: 595
Joined: 21 Nov 2015
Location: Germany
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25 Jun 2018

Loque wrote:
25 Jun 2018
RobC wrote:
25 Jun 2018


I've spent 4 years with creating 3D effects that work for everyone.
Had a quite good idea, that I could have turned into a RE, but since I don't have money to run a company, let alone start one, that won't happen.
I can, however make an 'okay' combinator with Reason's tools, so I might do that.
Sharing that for free and making it possible for people to donate (which nobody will, because human xD). #StarveToDeathBusiness
You do not need much money for a company. Here in Germany it is about 20 bucks or something like this for registering. And you need to make a tax computation for your company - and their might start the little problems. As long as you do not earn money or are under a threshold you do not need to pay taxes or can hold them off because of too high bills and stuff. If you do not earn enough within 3 years, you may lose your company. But since a few years we have a 1-man-company style, that makes things a little bit easier. Dunno in which country you live, but creating a company is pretty cheap. Having employs and infrastructure (office, hardware, online, marketing, ...) that can get quite expensive pretty fast. One problem may be liabilities, but hey, therefore we have disclaimers.
Starting it of like Loque said ist roughly 20 bucks. The one man limited is 200-300 bucks (and then you got a proper limited. But it's really not necessary. You go with the sample contract (Mustervertrag) to a notary and then to the trade office (Gewerbeamt). But then you have to do a proper tax balance.

The easy way is to register a small business (Kleingewerbe) . For an RE to sell you need a TAX Id (Umsatzsteuer ID) and at the End of the year you do a simple tax balance (Umsatzsteuererklärung). Projected sales numbers will be for the first or second year of course below the limite of ~ 17.000.

Tax and trade office will answer all the necessary questions.
:PUF_figure: latest :reason: V12 on MacOS Ventura

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Ahornberg
Posts: 1904
Joined: 15 Jan 2016
Location: Vienna, Austria
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25 Jun 2018

I just realized that this RE could also make it possible to store and recall different snapshots of the mixer.

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Ahornberg
Posts: 1904
Joined: 15 Jan 2016
Location: Vienna, Austria
Contact:

25 Jun 2018

theshoemaker wrote:
25 Jun 2018
Loque wrote:
25 Jun 2018

You do not need much money for a company. Here in Germany it is about 20 bucks or something like this for registering. And you need to make a tax computation for your company - and their might start the little problems. As long as you do not earn money or are under a threshold you do not need to pay taxes or can hold them off because of too high bills and stuff. If you do not earn enough within 3 years, you may lose your company. But since a few years we have a 1-man-company style, that makes things a little bit easier. Dunno in which country you live, but creating a company is pretty cheap. Having employs and infrastructure (office, hardware, online, marketing, ...) that can get quite expensive pretty fast. One problem may be liabilities, but hey, therefore we have disclaimers.
Starting it of like Loque said ist roughly 20 bucks. The one man limited is 200-300 bucks (and then you got a proper limited. But it's really not necessary. You go with the sample contract (Mustervertrag) to a notary and then to the trade office (Gewerbeamt). But then you have to do a proper tax balance.

The easy way is to register a small business (Kleingewerbe) . For an RE to sell you need a TAX Id (Umsatzsteuer ID) and at the End of the year you do a simple tax balance (Umsatzsteuererklärung). Projected sales numbers will be for the first or second year of course below the limite of ~ 17.000.

Tax and trade office will answer all the necessary questions.
I think it should be possible to distribute free REs without founding a company.

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Loque
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Posts: 11175
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

26 Jun 2018

Ahornberg wrote:
25 Jun 2018
theshoemaker wrote:
25 Jun 2018


Starting it of like Loque said ist roughly 20 bucks. The one man limited is 200-300 bucks (and then you got a proper limited. But it's really not necessary. You go with the sample contract (Mustervertrag) to a notary and then to the trade office (Gewerbeamt). But then you have to do a proper tax balance.

The easy way is to register a small business (Kleingewerbe) . For an RE to sell you need a TAX Id (Umsatzsteuer ID) and at the End of the year you do a simple tax balance (Umsatzsteuererklärung). Projected sales numbers will be for the first or second year of course below the limite of ~ 17.000.

Tax and trade office will answer all the necessary questions.
I think it should be possible to distribute free REs without founding a company.
That is that actually makes VCV very interesting. You can start with big bunch of stuff for free and everyone can jump on board. And till now the stability is quite good, only one crash under certain circumstances (but hey, its still beta or something). The performance could be better and i do not see multi core support, but maybe in the future. But the thing with the "company" at PH should protect the users from devices that are no longer supported, but actually we see several devs not being active, left the platform are died - so the problem still exist.
Reason12, Win10

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