Dive Into 'The Pool'

Swimming In The Deep End.

 For a lot of Studio One users one of it's most powerful features constantly gets overlooked. In fact most of us don't even realise it's there at all. Let me take this opportunity to introduce you to 'The Pool'. At first you'll be disenchanted but once you realise the hidden power that lies beneath the surface you'll be diving into 'The Pool' far more often.

So what's so great about this 'Pool'? 

Well lets dive into some of it's more powerful features. The first thing you need to know is that Studio One operates under a 'non destructive editing' basis. 

 What does that mean?
Simply everything you record, edit, add plugins to, use melodyne on, and everything else is held on record in the Pool. That means no matter what you do the 'Pool' keeps a record of it. 

 So what's the big deal?
Well say you've tracked a Di guitar, for instance, you've added some plugins, you've transformed to audio, to save CPU power and you've did a little editing there after too, but you find you hate everything you've just done and wish you could go back to the beginning. You could hit [Ctrl+Z] 'til the cows come home or access the [Edit; History] feature, but a more efficient way is accessing the original file from the 'Pool'. That is a very powerful feature right there and one we should be taking advantage of more and more.

Accessing the Pool.

To open the Pool, first open the Browser by clicking the [Browse] button (bottom right), then click on the[Pool] tab. You also can press [F10] on the keyboard to open the Pool directly.

Navigating the Pool.

The Pool displays audio Clips as waveforms. Clips can be sorted using the Sort by tab...options at the top of Pool.
The following sorting options are available:

• Flat: View all Clips with no order.
• Track: View Clips by the Track on which they are currently used or were previously used.
• Type: View Clips by Clip Type (Audio or instrument-oriented Sound).
• Location: View Clips by the storage location in which they exist on your computer.
• Record Take: View Clips by the order of record takes within your Song.

File Management in the Pool Tab.

[Right]/[Ctrl]-click in the Pool Browser window to select from the following commands:

• Rename File: Rename the file associated with the currently selected Clip.
• Locate File: Locate a file for the currently selected Clip (e.g., to find a missing file).
• Show in Explorer/Finder: Open the file location for the currently selected Clip in Windows Explorer/Mac Finder.
• Select on Track: Select any Events associated with the currently selected Clip in the Arrange view.
• Remove from Pool: Remove the currently selected Clip from the Pool. This does not delete the file.
• Delete File Permanently: Permanently delete the file associated with the currently selected Clip.
• Delete Attachments: Permanently delete any attachments associated with the currently selected Clip.
• Convert Files: Convert selected files in the Pool to the current Song’s sample rate and bit depth. The Convert Files menu appears, with file options. A new file is created for each selected file, replacing the original file in the Pool. The original file is retained in the current Song’s Media folder.
• Refresh: Refresh the contents list of the Pool to reflect the current state of your Song and computer.
• Locate Missing Files: If any files are missing in your Song—usually this occurs because the files were moved—use this command to locate the missing files.
• Remove Unused Files: Remove any Clips from the Pool that are not currently used in the Song. This does not delete the files.
• Show Media Folder in Explorer/Finder: Open the Media Folder for the current Song in Windows Explorer or the Mac Finder.

You can read more about the 'Pool' on age 200 of the unofficial Studio One Manual here;
PDFmanualS1

In the video below I promise not to dive in too deeply but show some examples of why you may wish to incorporate using the 'Pool' into your daily mixing and editing.

The Importance Of Recording Di Tracks

Keeping Your Options Open.

In a world of audio production, were no-one wants to commit to a sound and the choices are infinite, it becomes increasingly clear that a Mixer's work load has increased substantially. Engineers loathe it when they pull up a session they've been sent and find 100+ tracks and no clear distinct path has been chosen for the song. Nothing as bad as auditioning endless guitar, vocal, bass and drum tracks trying to make sense of a jumbled mess. Sometimes these sessions don't even have a finished demo and it's left to the Mixing Engineer to somehow put the jigsaw altogether and create a masterpiece.

So how can you make it easier for all those that come after your tracking and recording, with what you believe, to be the best song in the world? Simple, start recording Di tracks. What are Di tracks? They are simply the dry, unprocessed audio signal without any added effects.

The power of the Di track is several fold. 

 For one if you find out later in the mix that what you believed to be the most awesome capture of your guitar though your favourite amp, is in fact actually unusable or just not fitting the mix, then no problem. If you recorded a Di track it can be re-amped and brought back into the mix. You simply couldn't do this without a Di. You would have to painstakingly re-record everything from scratch. Now you might say what's the problem? Well imagine you were in the moment and you just played the greatest guitar solo you ever played, by having recorded a Di track you can simply be re-amped, recovered and saved. Without the Di all would be lost and trying to remember the exact notes, let alone capture that same feeling and vibe you had originally, is impossible.

 Secondly the Di track can also be advantageous if a studio or mix engineer has better quality gear than you had originally and this allows for re-tracking through their superior equipment without wasted time having to have your mix sent back and re-recording parts and then sending it back to the Mix Engineer again. Time is money after all.
 Thirdly a Di track can help when mixing in your Daw of choice. The transients and audio waveform are much more pronounced and more visual. This makes editing a lot easier to do as things are more precise and easily identified. See the difference below, you can see how easy it is to see the transients of the Di over the processed track.

 Fourthly and by no means lastly, blending in a Di 'd track can enhance the recorded sound and add some presence that may have been lost, adding more realism to the audio.  That's the example shown in the video below.

 As you can see the possibilities are endless but one of the most important things of all, the Di track allows you the musician, recording your composition, to commit to a sound. Having the Di recorded means the door is always open for re-recording without the need for re-recording so to speak. It takes the fear factor out of the equation and worrying 'what if I want to change this later?' question firmly put to bed.
 Committing to a sound will speed up your mix and advance your workflow as well as that of anyone who will work on it later. Believe me your Mix Engineer will love you for committing and offering a Di for any later editing needs or requests. This in turn leads to less tracks in your session and the work load, for the Mix Engineer, becomes greatly reduced.

 In the video I demonstrate blending in two Di tracks to add presence and more realism to two guitar parts originally tracked through a guitar simulation package (Overloud TH3). But this can be done even if you've tracked through quality outboard gear too.

Distortion v Saturation What's the difference

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.

With all these new tape emulation plugins currently saturating the market, no pun intended lol, it would seem to the uneducated that this is the magic fairy dust your mix has been waiting for. Lots of mis-information being branded about and for those who never worked with the real analogue tape machines the hype is being somewhat over hyped to say the least.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying these plugins are bad, but knowing a little bit more about how analogue tape was used, may shed enough light to help you be more subjective as to whether you need to slap one on your mix, or individual track insert at all.

 Now distortion and saturation can get quite complicated if we delve into the world of mathematical equations in trying to explain what they both do respectively but I would like to take a more simplified approach so everyone can understand without the need for owning a degree in quantum physics. So deep breath, here we go;

Distortion.

"Digital" and "solid state" clipping (Distortion) are essentially the same thing, hard cutoff of the top and/or bottom of the waveform. Lots of people are doing this to their final mixes using huge amounts of limiting trying for the loud mix (the dreaded loudness wars). This turns the waveform, of your mix, from having nice healthy transient peaks to a solid mass block wave form. You may have loudness but you certainly don't have dynamics anymore. Thankfully this trend is seemingly near it's end and we are getting back to the dynamic side of audio rather than how loud you can make your mix.
 Loudness sounds best only at first but it will finally become tiring on the ears and you will switch off quicker. Dynamics on the other hand sounds initially quieter but due to more natural fluctuations in the sound, it is pleasingly less tiring to listen to. If we were to volume level match a mix, one going for loudness using limiting and the other with less limiting leaving the transients more in tact, no hard cut off, you will choose the best sounding mix as 'the more dynamic one' every time. But don't trust me listen to Ian Shepherd (Mixing Engineer) show you in this video example 

click link here; Loudness v Dynamic.

Saturation. 

Tape Saturation, on the other hand, is much smoother, much like a vacuum tube going into saturation - waveform peaks are "smushed down" rather than suddenly cut off. It's still distortion, but doesn't have as ragged and piercing a sound as does the hard clipping of transistor and op-amp circuits. Because there is no hard cutoff, of your wave form, and the transients are more folded over, it sounds more pleasing to the human ear.

What's the difference.

 Think of Distortion v Saturation this way, the best analogy I can give is this, Take a slice of bread, now say you don't like crusts, you take a sharp knife and cut the edges off, that's distortion. Sharp hard cut edges. Take the same piece of bread and pour water onto it until it can soak up the volume of water no longer and it gushes out through the softened crust, that's saturation. Watery soft edges.

 In the 60's they didn't use compressors and limiters as much as we do now (maybe just on a master bus or tracking vocals like Lennon did with a famous Fairchild 660) - the medium (tape) itself did the trick for the most part. Tape gave natural compression and saturation both caused by tapes own limitations.

Examples of use.

So how can these two effects be utilised in Studio One? In the video below I will give two classic examples, one for using distortion and the other for saturation. These are not the only ways of using distortion or saturation but they are definitely the most common used, and  frequently applied in the world of mixing audio.