On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 5:46 PM, Ben Bell <bjb-linux-audio-user@deus.net> wrote:

On Thu, Apr 03, 2014 at 11:47:57AM -0700, Russell Hanaghan wrote:
> Looking for input on how you lay out your recorded material for an album in
> Ardour / Mixbus. Eg; 1 song per session? All tunes in same session?

In a nutshell, I go with separate projects for each song and mix down with
no fades, trimming or mastering, then import (link, not copy) those individual
tracks into separate project for arranging into an album.

This may be a bit of an overkill for some people, but the music I tend to
record is very much intended to be presented as a full album with segues
and a flow, so making too many decisions at song mixdown is too limiting.

Conversely, there's too many parts and too much complexity to have the
entire album in a single project. In fact, for the next album (when I
finally finish this one), I'm thinking of going one step further and, when
I've finished composing and recording, stem-exporting all the parts into
a fresh project for mixing from scratch to get a bit more perspective on
it.


That's the way I do it, too. In fact, for some songs that are long and comples and I am going full on prog (or different movements of something symphonic), I will record a bridge/extended instrumental section as a separate session also and assemble it in a timeline with the rest of the mixed tracks to prepare for mastering.

The real key to putting together an album is to plan out ahead of time as much as you can. I will create a quick MIDI mockups for a lot of stuff, just to get the parts worked out, tempos where I like them, etc., so when it comes time to record, I can focus on the music rather than trying to arrange on the fly. Of course, happy mistakes happen and you might stumble upon new ideas while mixing, as well.

--
Brett W. McCoy -- http://www.brettwmccoy.com
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"In the rhythm of music a secret is hidden; If I were to divulge it, it would overturn the world."
    -- Jelaleddin Rumi