Eddie, my thought is - once rendered to .wav its pretty much written in stone until your new host program modifies it again. Thereby, it doesn't rely upon RB's FX.

I don't use RB but the first thing I do in a BIAB tune is to neutralize the effects and panning. Sonar or Reaper covers this area more to my liking.

No offense intended to Eddie or PG Music.

The underlying question was answered by the first one. One I import those wav files into another DAW there is no "undo" button that will remove those effects so I would need to reopen the SEQ file, remove the effects, send them to wav again, and then rinse and repeat.

Given this I will now start saving a copy both dry and wet so I can always go back to the dry starting point.

Hi Eddie,

I agree, once you've render to wav the effects are rendered as well and Sonar isn't going to know what you've used.

If you are going to do your final mix in Sonar and not RB, it's best to render the wavs dry and then apply the effects in Sonar.

Even though I have Sonar LE, I use PowerTracks (it was my first DAW and I know my way around it fairly well now) for my mixing, if I import wavs from another program they are always dry. I then use VST plugins for the effects.

To paraphrase the above advice, you can take an audio file into a DAW and add more effects if you want to, but you cannot remove the ones that are there. Thus exporting the dry unpanned original audio from BIAB is best if you have effects available in the DAW.

I just paid attention and saw the fine print behind the merge audio to stereo wav file which says right there it will save the wav and all vsti effects. Yet another "Duh" moment...

You might also want to export your MIDI tracks as plain MIDI, and not rendered VSTi tracks.

Again, the reason is flexibility. Your DAW can likely play back MIDI using the same VSTi, and you get more flexibility in editing the MIDI.

And to add more options ..
While in RB save the effect settings as a preset. Then export the track dry.

Then in Sonar, open the same effects for those tracks that you had in RB, set up the presets, and you have full control again. The effects in RB should work in Sonar.

Learning about options I didn't know were there!!

Dave, I have yet to even use a MIDI track, but that's an FYI for me to remember.

Harv, as I start using Sonar more, and when I KNOW going in that I am going to end up there, I won't put any effects on anything in RB, just generate tracks, play sweetening tracks, do the singing and export them.

I did some experimenting last night (with my extra hour!!) after installing Sonar X1 and the effects make more sense now as I see how Sonar uses them. I played with adding something then removing it over and over.

Still no "Sinatra" plug-in....

Eddie. RB is a full fledged DAW.

I have one very important question for you and this is for you only not anybody else.

What do you use or plan to use Sonar for that you can't do in RB?

You said it yourself, you don't understand this stuff yet and right now you missed one of the most basic of basic's. When you export to wav all the effects are written to that wav. A wav is a wav is a wav. What are you doing with a new DAW when you don't understand something as basic as that?

Learn what you have first before even thinking of trying something else.

Again,

What do you think Sonar will do for you that RB won't?

Bob

Maybe I missed that thread but I've been very consistent with my explanation and recommendation. I learned Cakewalk products (and now SONAR) long before PG Music came out with a DAW, so I stayed with what I know well. For someone new, I recommend they learn RB because of the inherent advantages.

Bob, that is best answered in the other direction. When I came back to music, it was 16 years since I had gotten out of it. In 1994, a lot of what we have now did not exist. A lot DID exist, but I was just a keyboard player in a band. I had no desire to be on the business end of a mixing console. We had people for that.

In 2009 I wanted to get some of these songs that were written on napkins and envelopes and the back of paper placemats recorded. I bought a TASCAM 8 track direct to disc recorder, a Mackie mixer, a bunch of synths and a drum machine. After many months of that, I decided it was time to get into this century and got Sonar, and of course the interface to use it, and dove in. I got to where I could make it play MIDI sequences back, and went on about my business. At this point though, I was still doing everything outboard, adding reverb as I played it in, doing EQ as I played it in.... all into that multitrack direct to disc deck. At this point I HAD Sonar, but rarely even launched it because I didn't have the time or energy for a second job, and learning Sonar from scratch, by yourself, was just that.

Then my friend Steve showed me BIAB. I borrowed his old version for a month and played with it. Then I bought a copy because it was so cool that the software would write background music. When I retired (New Year's Eve of 93 into 94 was the last time I played) I had no idea there was such a thing because I had no reason to care if there was or not.

Okay that gets you up to about 6 months ago when I wanted to use those MOTU boxes to mix on a mixer with sliders (again, what I knew). That worked okay, but I was still recording those mixes as a separate process. Enter the Behringer control surface, exit the MOTUs. However, as Matt pointed out, the control surface does not interface with RB. I want to be able to record those mixer moves, not sit and select 4 bars, raise it 2db, gain change to cresecendo and decrescendo.... in Sonar I can just slide the fader up and then down and the software records that move. That is why I export to wav and use Sonar to mix down.... the ability to boost here, leave it there for 8 measures, and then cut it back to where it was. All with the ease of a slider.

So to answer the question, it need to be asked in the opposite way. Don't ask me what Sonar does that RB doesn't. Ask what RB does for me that Sonar doesn't. And the answer is "compose".

When it gets to DAW vs DAW, you are in the same place as Ford vs Chevy. RB, Sonar, Protools, Logic..... at their core, do THEY really do anything different? The answer is no, so why does each flavor of DAW have the loyal following they have? All through these threads people are praising some different flavor of DAW. Ryzard is always talking about Reason. I don't even know what that is, but he likes it. Others like Protools....

Well, I'm obviously not Eddie. But I'll answer.

When I got BB my previous experience was with a 4 and an 8 track recorder and I had been out of home recording for a while. I was lost in the DAW world. I tried Reaper briefly but RB came out and Ray T did a tutorial so that was my first real DAW that I learned somewhat how to use. Then I got Tracktion for $20 on a deal mainly to get Final Mix. At first I hated the interface of Tracktion but it is so easy to do so many things with it like splitting clips and volume changes - and that's just to name a couple. It's a whole different approach that now I'll really hate to give up - sadly it's no longer supported so that day will come. So I go from BIAB to RB to Tracktion and probably will as long as Tracktion works - it's just easier for me. But I love RB for generating and editting real tracks AND I prefer recording into RB over Tracktion because it plays nicer with my interface making recording fast and easy with no hassles.

I don't see a problem with using whatever DAW or combination works. To me it's not which is better - they each do different things well - apples and oranges.