so far i've been exporting finished mixes and then chopping off the leadin in audacity as well as adjusting the level of the final wav for cd burning.

can't see a problem as the bit depth and sampling shouldn't change but is there a more elegant solution especially now as i'm fumbling my way round mastering with Ozone 9 and levels should be spot on for cd?

as the last track i record is the vocal and my songs have an instrumental intro i suppose i could simply select all tracks in RB and cut the lead in and close the gap.

what do more expert users do that i could copy? would it work if i selected all tracks and set the 'from' and 'to' fields before i export?

For the work in my DAW in Pro Tools, I never even cut off any count-ins/lead-ins. When I do final rendering to a .WAV or .MP3, it allows me to just select the parts I want to export. So I select the whole song and drag the start just past the lead-in, eliminating it on render.

I Cut/Paste the count in to new track (so it is available again if needed), and when it isn't needed I simply mute that track with the count in on it.
This way you can also make count in louder/softer as needed without affecting the rest of the drums.

thanks rharv - that's a good tip but when you render a wav of the final mix with the count in muted don't you get two bars silence? that's what i'm trying to avoid .

Yes, you get the 2 bars of silence.
Open the result in any audio program (including just open the wav in RB or Audacity)
Cut the start/finish.
Save to file ..

If you are trying to avoid this, then your previously mentioned method of cutting every track avoids this step, but then again I don't try to mix/master at the same time.
I end up not being able to focus on one or the other sufficiently, or worse, one distracts me from correctly fixing the other.

For me, that final cleanup on the actual final wav is going to happen anyway for any wav file that means anything.
YMMV

thanks rharv. i finish mixing before mastering with ozone so the two processes are discrete. but i've posted another query as you'll see.

Hi all, when starting your song if you set your Bar Offset to 0 (instead of the default -2) and set your Start to bar 1, then RB will not generate a count-in. See the screenshot below.

You can change the default offset from Options > Preferences > General > Default Measure Offset.

Thanks Simon. I thought a top program like RB would allow me to do what I want. Simple now you point it out.

sadly Simon that didn't work. My settings were -2 offset with start at bar 1.

setting offset to 0 just made the start bar bar 3 and the drums still played.

If you set the starting bar to bar 1, that'll do it. You have to set Offset to 0 and Start to 1.

ok i must still be doing something wrong. screen shots but i still get the drums

asking the obvious; you get it when rendering, or when playing?

both rharv. tried rendering and got the count in. tried offset zero and start at bar 1 and then offset zero and start at bar 3. both gave me a count in on the wav file.

i wonder if i'd be best exporting the final mix i like to wav, opening in RB, cutting the intro and then mastering that wav file with Ozone for cd burning.

Yes.
That would be the normal process here.
Well Ozone and a couple other tools, mainly meters.

thanks rharv, at least i know what i was going to do is endorsed by someone hwo knows what they are doing

I don't need that kind of pressure; I only suggest what works for me.
Doesn't mean I 'know what I'm doing'. <grin>

It works better for me to separate the two, trying to do both at the same time makes too many balls in play.
While mastering, I do NOT want to change a given track to compensate for the mastering I'm doing, which is easy to do when you do both at once.
At least for me