Part VIII–Data Entry, System & File Management
170
TASCAM SX-1
Reference Manual
Chapter 21 – Mixdown, Author, Backup
The SX-1 and Mixdown Mode
The SX-1 has a built-in mechanism for mixing down
tracks (also known commonly as
bouncing
), useful
both for mixing down the final stereo or surround
mix or for combining (also commonly known as
comping
) tracks together.
Philosophy – how it works
Basically, in stereo mode, anything that comes out of
the L/R Buss can be bounced to a separate stereo file.
In surround mode, anything that comes out of the
surround busses can be bounced to a separate multi-
channel file. The control that modifies how this
behaves is the
Create Mix
button, which we will get to
in a bit.
For stereo, if Mixdown mode is enabled and record is
pressed, any audio coming out of the L/R buss is
bounced down to a stereo file. This bounce actually
creates two files, a Left and a Right (not a combined
stereo file, commonly referred to as an interleaved
file), which can be imported back into the session or
sent to the burning program for audio CD creation.
This provides a simple way to comp together a large
amount of tracks without having to go through a con-
fusing routing scenario. Imagine that you had 16
vocal Takes that you wanted to comp to two tracks.
All you would need to do is solo the tracks you want
to comp together, enable Mixdown mode and press
PLAY
and
RECORD
. After the transport is stopped,
the SX-1 will create a stereo file of your soloed
tracks—which you can import into your current ses-
sion. This would allow you to unload the vocal takes
you have just comped together, saving tracks and
lowering the mixing complexity.
When the
Create Mix
button is pressed, a new Mix will
be created and loaded upon exiting Mixdown Mode.
The resulting stereo file is loaded into Slots 1 and 2,
panned in stereo and routed correctly, making it pos-
sible to quickly check your mix simply by pressing
PLAY
. To return to the state the SX-1 was in before
you exited Mixdown mode, just reload the last Mix-
file.
Stereo Mixdown – printing your final mix or comping tracks
Obviously, there are a number of ways to use Mix-
down mode, with stereo mixdown likely being the
most common. When you have reached the point in
your mix where you would like to save it as a two-
track file (either for audio CD burning or other uses),
you can accomplish this easily by using this mode.
The first examples in this section will address the
way the SX-1 “mixes down to two”.
On the VGA
As has been discussed previously, the VGA
Track
screen has a number of tabs at the bottom. The
Global
tab contains the VGA’s Mixdown mode controls. The
Global
tab looks like this:
