Sound devices Mix Pre 3 settings separate channels

[Vino]

Sorry for this stupid question: is there anyone who could tell me how to record SEPARATE channels of audio from the mix-pre3?
Thought separate tracks was default but I learned the hard lesson it was not. And now I cannot find the way to correct it in the manual....
(Used it the other day and all three XLR input tracks ended up in one stereo-track.... could separate input 1 and 2 left and right but input 3 was in the center all the time.... Not ideal :-))

best
V

[Alex H.]

So, do you mean you only recorded the L/R mix, and didn’t record the ISO tracks?

You need to arm your ISO tracks (press the fader for any input, which will take you to that input’s menu screen, and then tap “ARM” on the screen).

The MixPre will not record individual files, though. It will record everything as a poly wave file. You’ll still have all your individual tracks in there, just encapstulated as a single file.

Also important is whether you have your MixPre in Basic mode, or in Advanced mode. In Basic mode, the input fader is on a unified gain setting that makes the ISO track post-fader, meaning any adjustments made during recording are not only recorded in the mix but also to the ISO track.

[David W. Jones]

I have not used this device, but at a quick glance I would think your best bet would be to put the unit in advanced mode and use the wingman app.

EDIT: n the time it took me to post this Alex has answered your question.

[Rick R]

You could be playing back the 'mix' file, though I am not intimately familiar with the MixPre series recorders.

[Jim Feeley]

The MixPre will not record individual files, though. It will record everything as a poly wave file. You’ll still have all your individual tracks in there, just encapstulated as a single file.

Breaking a polyphonic WAV file into a set of monophonic WAV files (with one file for each channel) is fairly easy. Lots of apps can do it. If you just have one or two files to convert, software such as Adobe Audition will let you Extract Channels to Mono Files. If you have a lot of files to convert, you could use the free Wave Agent utility from Sound Devices. https://www.sounddevices.com/product...gent-software/ . It's available for both Mac and Windows, though installation on Mac Catalina takes a couple more steps and the current version of Wave Agent doesn't support 32-bit files. (Hopefully an update will come someday...but don't hold your breath). So you may already own software that'll make poly files work for you.

And then follow Alex's notes i̶f̶ y̶o̶u̶'d̶ r̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ n̶o̶t̶ h̶a̶v̶e̶ t̶o̶ m̶e̶s̶s̶ w̶i̶t̶h̶ p̶o̶l̶y̶ W̶A̶V̶ f̶i̶l̶e̶s̶ i̶n̶ t̶h̶e̶ f̶u̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ (̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶t̶ t̶h̶e̶y̶ c̶a̶n̶ e̶a̶s̶e̶ f̶i̶l̶e̶ m̶a̶n̶a̶g̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶)̶ [I missed the bit about the MixPre recording a bunch of mono WAV files wrong (I'm rolling a different Sound Devices recorder) Thanks for the clarification, Alex].

[Vino]

So, do you mean you only recorded the L/R mix, and didn’t record the ISO tracks?

You need to arm your ISO tracks (press the fader for any input, which will take you to that input’s menu screen, and then tap “ARM” on the screen).

The MixPre will not record individual files, though. It will record everything as a poly wave file. You’ll still have all your individual tracks in there, just encapstulated as a single file.

Also important is whether you have your MixPre in Basic mode, or in Advanced mode. In Basic mode, the input fader is on a unified gain setting that makes the ISO track post-fader, meaning any adjustments made during recording are not only recorded in the mix but also to the ISO track.

Thank you all for the response and help. That ARM thing seem to be the solution. Thank you! (and I guess I will just import them as separate mono files in Premiere right, Jim? Will try later on. Best /Viktor

[Alex H.]

Thank you all for the response and help. That ARM thing seem to be the solution. Thank you! (and I guess I will just import them as separate mono files in Premiere right, Jim? Will try later on. Best /Viktor

This will record as a poly wave file. The MixPre has no option to record individual (split mono) wave files. You can, as Jim suggested, use Wave Agent to split the poly wave into individual, mono files before importing. You can work with poly files within Premiere, though.

[puredrifting]

FWIW, the poly .WAV files work like a dream in FCP X too. I just arm the ones (almost always the ISO tracks) I wanted to use and unarm the others in the FCP X audio panel and life is good.

[Run&Gun]

For what it’s worth, I have a 664 and 633 and most of my dedicated audio guys run either 664’s, 633’s or 688’s and I don’t think we’ve ever recorded mono WAV’s. Only poly (and mp3 for transcription, but some guys don’t even do that anymore and instead record the wav to both cards as a safety and just do a conversion afterwards for MP3’s, if wanted).

[Jim Feeley]

Ya, poly wavs make file management so much easier for film/video. But I'll still roll mono files sometimes for music; whatever the client prefers.

(And again, sorry for my mistake about the poly/mono features on the MixPre II models... I assumed they were more similar to the features in SD's 6-series. Thanks Alex for correcting that).