[Danny T]

I have to track some stuff at Sound Stage Studio in Nashville. They
use protools to my understanding and I use Cubase 4. All I need is to
do is import tracks but there will be the usual punches. Will all of
that import directly and smooth or is there something I should do
before the import to insure it will work?

Thanks

[[email protected]]

On Sep 30, 5:58 pm, Danny T wrote:
I have to track some stuff at Sound Stage Studio in Nashville. They
use protools to my understanding and I use Cubase 4. All I need is to
do is import tracks but there will be the usual punches. Will all of
that import directly and smooth or is there something I should do
before the import to insure it will work?

Thanks

WHATS YOUR NAME

[Lucky[_3_]]

wrote:
On Sep 30, 5:58 pm, Danny T wrote:
I have to track some stuff at Sound Stage Studio in Nashville. They
use protools to my understanding and I use Cubase 4. All I need is to
do is import tracks but there will be the usual punches. Will all of
that import directly and smooth or is there something I should do
before the import to insure it will work?

Thanks

WHATS YOUR NAME


Is it a Lynyrd Skynyrd song?

[Danny T]

On Sep 30, 9:21*pm, " wrote:
On Sep 30, 5:58 pm, Danny T wrote:

I have to track some stuff at Sound Stage Studio in Nashville. They
use protools to my understanding and I use Cubase 4. All I need is to
do is import tracks but there will be the usual punches. Will all of
that import directly and smooth or is there something I should do
before the import to insure it will work?

Thanks

WHATS * YOUR * NAME

danny

[Danny T]

On Sep 30, 9:26*pm, Lucky wrote:
wrote:
On Sep 30, 5:58 pm, Danny T wrote:
I have to track some stuff at Sound Stage Studio in Nashville. They
use protools to my understanding and I use Cubase 4. All I need is to
do is import tracks but there will be the usual punches. Will all of
that import directly and smooth or is there something I should do
before the import to insure it will work?

Thanks

WHATS * YOUR * NAME

Is it a Lynyrd Skynyrd song?

Little girl - won't you do the same?

[Phil W]

Danny T:

I have to track some stuff at Sound Stage Studio in Nashville. They
use protools to my understanding and I use Cubase 4. All I need is to
do is import tracks but there will be the usual punches. Will all of
that import directly and smooth or is there something I should do
before the import to insure it will work?

There are several options to transfer the projects from PT to Cubase.
Although, I don´t deal with this regularly, I´ve done it a few times in the
past - in similar situations as you described above...

1) Export the PT project to "OMF". Either everything (a "basic" project file
+ all audio files) into one big OMF file, or (IMHO better) a separate small
..OMF project file + all individual audio files. The latter is basically the
same as copying a Cubase project by simply burning the complete project
folder (including the .cpr project file + individual audio files) to a CD or
DVD.
Don´t expect too much from OMF - all fx and their settings get lost. The
main advantage of OMF is, that the original positions of punch-in
events/clips are maintained. That means, you can easily copy everything to
your computer and open the .OMF file in Cubase without the hassle of having
to move events/clips of punch-in recordings to the correct positions. Been
there, done that - simply unnecessarily time-consuming.

Anyway, if that doesn´t work as intended, you still have the individual .WAV
or .AIFF audio files for "manual" import into a Cubase project...
Just choose the separate .OMF project file + individual audio files option
on export. The .OMF project file itself will be very small (maybe some few
hundred kB), so it´s definitely worth a try. It will not cause you any
trouble with disc space.
BTW: Cubase can import/export OMF version 2 files, which offer some more
options than OMF1.

2) PT has a function to export information on ALL audio files used in a
project to a plain-text .txt file, which is readable on any OS. This allows
you to re-align punch-in events/clips to their correct positions. Of course,
that needs to be done manually for every single file, so it takes time. But
it can be a real life-saver, if everything else fails. ;-)

I´d suggest to use this in any way, just as a fallback security option! A
small .txt file takes up even less space than a .OMF project file...


3) Another fallback option is to record to "Broadcast Wave" files. These
files include SMPTE information of the starting time of a recording. Some
DAW programs can read this timestamp when importing Broadcast Wave files and
automatically place them according to the SMPTE timestamp. Cubase SX3
unfortunately seems to not offer this option directly when importing, but
IIRC other DAW programs (Sonar or Samplitude) do.
But at least, there´s a work-around for that in Cubase: select an event/clip
in the arrange window and go to Edit - Move - Move To Origin
This also works for multiple files, so you can simply import all audio
files, select them all and move each file to its original positions by one
action.


So, OMF is the most direct option for transferring the basic (but partly
most relevant) information in a PT project file to Cubase. Still, I would
use a combination of all 3 options described above to have maximum
"security". As long, as there are no punches and all files have the same
0:00:00 starting time, it´s less problematic since you can simply import
only the audio files and there you go. But as you wrote yourself, it´s
pretty common to have "the usual punches" in a studio recording. Therefore,
it makes good sense to use all the fallback options available.
When I deal with tracks consisting of several "punched" clips, I usually do
bounces of the raw final tracks. Makes life easier, as there´s only one file
per track required and I have a "backup" of the edited punches. As a
side-effect, it takes some work off the computer´s HDD, since it´s not
required to read (parts of) several files per playback track.


Another good thing to do in advance, is to ask the studio staff which
version of PT they´re using. Then, download the according manual PDF from
http://digidesign.com (user registration used to be required for this, but
it´s free anyway) and look up, how the various export functions work. Print
these few pages out and take them to the studio with you - just in case, the
operator doesn´t know how it´s done. Of course, such folks should know that,
but you never know - good preparation is better than noticing stupid
problems afterwards. ;-)


Hope, this helps!

Phil

[Danny T]

On Sep 30, 11:26*pm, "Phil W" wrote:
Danny T:

I have to track some stuff at Sound Stage Studio in Nashville. They
use protools to my understanding and I use Cubase 4. All I need is to
do is import tracks but there will be the usual punches. Will all of
that import directly and smooth or is there something I should do
before the import to insure it will work?

There are several options to transfer the projects from PT to Cubase.
Although, I don´t deal with this regularly, I´ve done it a few times in the
past - in similar situations as you described above...

1) Export the PT project to "OMF". Either everything (a "basic" project file
+ all audio files) into one big OMF file, or (IMHO better) a separate small
.OMF project file + all individual audio files. The latter is basically the
same as copying a Cubase project by simply burning the complete project
folder (including the .cpr project file + individual audio files) to a CD or
DVD.
Don´t expect too much from OMF - all fx and their settings get lost. The
main advantage of OMF is, that the original positions of punch-in
events/clips are maintained. That means, you can easily copy everything to
your computer and open the .OMF file in Cubase without the hassle of having
to move events/clips of punch-in recordings to the correct positions. Been
there, done that - simply unnecessarily time-consuming.

Anyway, if that doesn´t work as intended, you still have the individual .WAV
or .AIFF audio files for "manual" import into a Cubase project...
Just choose the separate .OMF project file + individual audio files option
on export. The .OMF project file itself will be very small (maybe some few
hundred kB), so it´s definitely worth a try. It will not cause you any
trouble with disc space.
BTW: Cubase can import/export OMF version 2 files, which offer some more
options than OMF1.

2) PT has a function to export information on ALL audio files used in a
project to a plain-text .txt file, which is readable on any OS. This allows
you to re-align punch-in events/clips to their correct positions. Of course,
that needs to be done manually for every single file, so it takes time. But
it can be a real life-saver, if everything else fails. ;-)

I´d suggest to use this in any way, just as a fallback security option! A
small .txt file takes up even less space than a .OMF project file...

3) Another fallback option is to record to "Broadcast Wave" files. These
files include SMPTE information of the starting time of a recording. Some
DAW programs can read this timestamp when importing Broadcast Wave files and
automatically place them according to the SMPTE timestamp. Cubase SX3
unfortunately seems to not offer this option directly when importing, but
IIRC other DAW programs (Sonar or Samplitude) do.
But at least, there´s a work-around for that in Cubase: select an event/clip
in the arrange window and go to Edit - Move - Move To Origin
This also works for multiple files, so you can simply import all audio
files, select them all and move each file to its original positions by one
action.

So, OMF is the most direct option for transferring the basic (but partly
most relevant) information in a PT project file to Cubase. Still, I would
use a combination of all 3 options described above to have maximum
"security". As long, as there are no punches and all files have the same
0:00:00 starting time, it´s less problematic since you can simply import
only the audio files and there you go. But as you wrote yourself, it´s
pretty common to have "the usual punches" in a studio recording. Therefore,
it makes good sense to use all the fallback options available.
When I deal with tracks consisting of several "punched" clips, I usually do
bounces of the raw final tracks. Makes life easier, as there´s only one file
per track required and I have a "backup" of the edited punches. As a
side-effect, it takes some work off the computer´s HDD, since it´s not
required to read (parts of) several files per playback track.

Another good thing to do in advance, is to ask the studio staff which
version of PT they´re using. Then, download the according manual PDF fromhttp://digidesign.com(user registration used to be required for this, but
it´s free anyway) and look up, how the various export functions work. Print
these few pages out and take them to the studio with you - just in case, the
operator doesn´t know how it´s done. Of course, such folks should know that,
but you never know - good preparation is better than noticing stupid
problems afterwards. ;-)

Hope, this helps!

Phil


Thanks Phil, this does help and covers what I need to do. I didn't
think about getting their version of PT - just assumed they would be
the latest update but on second thought, its dumb to assume.

[Phil W]

Danny T:

Thanks Phil, this does help and covers what I need to do.

Fine! :-)

I didn't
think about getting their version of PT - just assumed they would be
the latest update but on second thought, its dumb to assume.

Well, I don´t know about the situation in Nashville nowadays, but regarding
the costs of always updating to the latest version of a PT system... Studios
are getting less clients, thus less income and less money to spend on new
stuff...
Just call them or drop them a short email message, to ask which particular
software version of PT *they* are using. Costs nothing, but can save some
nerves. ;-)

My former band and I have learned this the hard way. We recorded at the
local SAE school a few times. Always with folks who needed a band with one
song for their "graduation". The advantage for us, that we didn´t have to
pay for getting the possibility of recording in a good room with good
equipment. The downside was, that these guys usually seemed to know less
than we did (after a few years of home-/practice space-recording
experience). We all had been in studio recording situations before, but only
as musicians, not operators. They also had no real experience with this
particular studio setup, due to the fact of too little "practice" in there.
Anyway, we actually just wanted to do the recordings and get the raw files
(recorded on PT) to mix them ourselves (in Cubase). More than once, that
turned out to give us unnecessary work. They had managed to not start
recording everything from 0:00:00, but a bit later. So, we had to move
around the clips for bass and guitars, until it sounded right in time with
the drums. It worked out somehow, but we were never really sure, if it
really was, how we original played it (one after the other).
Of course, these clueless folks just gave us the .WAVs and the PT project
files. Great, we couldn´t afford a PT system to open these project files, so
we had to work our way around it.

Now, I´ve learned my lesson and have looked for better work-arounds. ;-)
It´s actually not even that complicated or time-consuming. You just need to
think of it at the right time.

The best option, also for archiving, is to have ALL files start at the same
time. This makes it possible to open the files in any DAW program later. No
problems with newer program versions, that can´t read project files from
older predecessors or whatever; or to give someone else a copy to do a new
mix...


Have fun recording,

Phil

[Geoff]

Phil W wrote:


A cute trick of Digidesign is to make it as difficult as possible to migrate
work to/from other systems. For example AAF file transfer requires a $495
add-on program to achieve, where it is native in most other DAWs (which cost
less than the 'translator' !).

Boycott Digidesign wherever possible.

geoff

[Phil W]

geoff:

A cute trick of Digidesign is to make it as difficult as possible to
migrate work to/from other systems.

But the other makers do the same...

For example AAF file transfer
requires a $495 add-on program to achieve, where it is native in most
other DAWs (which cost less than the 'translator' !).

Just ridiculous, but there are obviously enough people stupid enough to pay
for such converters, rather than looking for a freeware alternative on the
web, that works just as well...
Anyway, Steinberg and Cakewalk also want money, if you want to encode MP3
files within Cubase or Sonar. It´s much less than Digidesign wants for the
AAF add-on, but the principle is the same.


Phil

[Danny T]

On Oct 1, 10:03*pm, "Phil W" wrote:
geoff:

A cute trick of Digidesign is to make it as difficult as possible to
migrate work to/from other systems.

But the other makers do the same...

For example AAF file transfer
requires a $495 add-on program to achieve, where it is native in most
other DAWs (which cost less than the 'translator' !).

Just ridiculous, but there are obviously enough people stupid enough to pay
for such converters, rather than looking for a freeware alternative on the
web, that works just as well...
Anyway, Steinberg and Cakewalk also want money, if you want to encode MP3
files within Cubase or Sonar. It´s much less than Digidesign wants for the
AAF add-on, but the principle is the same.

Phil

I use iTunes for MP3's. You just drag a file onto iTunes and it will
do what you have set it to.

[david correia]

In article ,
"geoff" wrote:

Phil W wrote:


A cute trick of Digidesign is to make it as difficult as possible to migrate
work to/from other systems. For example AAF file transfer requires a $495
add-on program to achieve, where it is native in most other DAWs (which cost
less than the 'translator' !).

Boycott Digidesign wherever possible.

geoff



What the heck is a "AAF file transfer"? Geez.

Anyone with a clue can export from or import into Protools. Just bounce
yours tracks all with the same start point. Drag them into any audio
program you want. Done.

Whoever brought up AAF probably meant OMF.






David Correia
www.Celebrationsound.com

[Danny T]

On Oct 2, 8:18*pm, Soundhaspriority wrote:
wrote in message





On Oct 1, 10:03*pm, "Phil W" wrote:
geoff:

A cute trick of Digidesign is to make it as difficult as possible to
migrate work to/from other systems.

But the other makers do the same...

For example AAF file transfer
requires a $495 add-on program to achieve, where it is native in most
other DAWs (which cost less than the 'translator' !).

Just ridiculous, but there are obviously enough people stupid enough to pay
for such converters, rather than looking for a freeware alternative on the
web, that works just as well...
Anyway, Steinberg and Cakewalk also want money, if you want to encode MP3
files within Cubase or Sonar. It´s much less than Digidesign wants for the
AAF add-on, but the principle is the same.

Phil

I use iTunes for MP3's. You just drag a file onto iTunes and it will
do what you have set it to.

Itunes? *Quite a professional, you are.

"I don't really have a career, it's a very gnawing thing"

Robert Morein
(310) 237-6511
(215) 646-4894

Robert Morein can be contacted at and his police
flyer is athttp://robertmorein.blogspot.com/

Uhmmmm...... Yeah, MP3's are professional and those that are listening
to them are really really picky about their audiophile -

[Danny T]

On Oct 2, 8:30*pm, david correia wrote:
In article ,

*"geoff" wrote:
Phil W wrote:

A cute trick of Digidesign is to make it as difficult as possible to migrate
work to/from other systems. *For example AAF file transfer requires a $495
add-on program to achieve, where it is native in most other DAWs (which cost
less than the 'translator' !).

Boycott Digidesign wherever possible.

geoff

What the heck is a "AAF file transfer"? Geez.

Anyone with a clue can export from or import into Protools. Just bounce
yours tracks all with the same start point. Drag them into any audio
program you want. Done.

Whoever brought up AAF probably meant OMF.

David Correiawww.Celebrationsound.com

No, they probably meant AIF which is a Mac audio file

Bouncing tracks is easy. Making it so you can access virtual tracks
under the top overdub is another thing all together.

I brought up the question because I intend to track in one studio and
do ALL mixing and editing in mine, in a studio far far away. If I have
to do an output of each file it will take a lot longer then I want to
spend there. I want to import and be done with it. If I can't do that,
I will likely just track straight to my laptop in cubase via a little
replugging of firewire and such. I'd rather take the extra 1000 bucks
that would take me and spend it on bikini shots of Palin- Oh yeah
she's a hottie.

[hank alrich]

Buzard's Asshole wrote:

wrote in message

On Oct 1, 10:03 pm, "Phil W" wrote:
geoff:

A cute trick of Digidesign is to make it as difficult as possible to
migrate work to/from other systems.

But the other makers do the same...

For example AAF file transfer
requires a $495 add-on program to achieve, where it is native in most
other DAWs (which cost less than the 'translator' !).

Just ridiculous, but there are obviously enough people stupid enough to pay
for such converters, rather than looking for a freeware alternative on the
web, that works just as well...
Anyway, Steinberg and Cakewalk also want money, if you want to encode MP3
files within Cubase or Sonar. It´s much less than Digidesign wants for the
AAF add-on, but the principle is the same.

Phil

I use iTunes for MP3's. You just drag a file onto iTunes and it will
do what you have set it to.

Itunes? Quite a professional, you are.

Overlooking the source of this missive, I note that some heavy hitters
who participate in DAW-Mac also use iTunes for efficient MP3 encoding,
and it ain't like they don't have other options.

Of course, they're not jacking off in some Australian Baskin-Robbins
thinking they're making pro ice cream.

--
ha
shut up and play your guitar

[RD Jones]

On Oct 2, 9:52*pm, Danny T wrote:

No, they probably meant AIF which is a Mac audio file

Bouncing tracks is easy. Making it so you can access virtual tracks
under the top overdub is another thing all together.

I brought up the question because I intend to track in one studio and
do ALL mixing and editing in mine, in a studio far far away. If I have
to do an output of each file it will take a lot longer then I want to
spend there. I want to import and be done with it. If I can't do that,
I will likely just track straight to my laptop in cubase via a little
replugging of firewire and such.

2 more suggestions:

1. (if the platforms are different) On the ProTools session check
"enforce (Mac/PC) compatability"

2. make sure the files output from PT are broadcast wave .bwf,
rather than plain wave or AIFF. Cubase _should_ recognize the
time stamps.

rd

[Danny T]

On Oct 2, 9:57*pm, RD Jones wrote:
On Oct 2, 9:52*pm, Danny T wrote:

No, they probably meant AIF which is a Mac audio file

Bouncing tracks is easy. Making it so you can access virtual tracks
under the top overdub is another thing all together.

I brought up the question because I intend to track in one studio and
do ALL mixing and editing in mine, in a studio far far away. If I have
to do an output of each file it will take a lot longer then I want to
spend there. I want to import and be done with it. If I can't do that,
I will likely just track straight to my laptop in cubase via a little
replugging of firewire and such.

2 more suggestions:

1. (if the platforms are different) On the ProTools session check
"enforce (Mac/PC) compatability"

2. make sure the files output from PT are broadcast wave .bwf,
rather than plain wave or AIFF. Cubase _should_ recognize the
time stamps.

rd

Very good to know. Thanks

[Geoff]

david correia wrote:
In article ,
"geoff" wrote:

Phil W wrote:


A cute trick of Digidesign is to make it as difficult as possible to
migrate work to/from other systems. For example AAF file transfer
requires a $495 add-on program to achieve, where it is native in
most other DAWs (which cost less than the 'translator' !).

Boycott Digidesign wherever possible.

geoff



What the heck is a "AAF file transfer"? Geez.

Anyone with a clue can export from or import into Protools. Just
bounce yours tracks all with the same start point. Drag them into any
audio program you want. Done.

Whoever brought up AAF probably meant OMF.

No. Google AAF. 'Everybody' in the 'free world' uses it.

No need to **** around bouncing track, just export as AAF and they all
transfer with level pan and time-aligned as you'd expect..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Authoring_Format

geoff

geoff

[Danny T]

On Oct 2, 11:07*pm, "geoff" wrote:
david correia wrote:
In article ,
"geoff" wrote:

Phil W wrote:

A cute trick of Digidesign is to make it as difficult as possible to
migrate work to/from other systems. *For example AAF file transfer
requires a $495 add-on program to achieve, where it is native in
most other DAWs (which cost less than the 'translator' !).

Boycott Digidesign wherever possible.

geoff

What the heck is a "AAF file transfer"? Geez.

Anyone with a clue can export from or import into Protools. Just
bounce yours tracks all with the same start point. Drag them into any
audio program you want. Done.

Whoever brought up AAF probably meant OMF.

No. Google AAF. *'Everybody' in the 'free world' *uses it.

No need to **** around bouncing track, just export as AAF and they all
transfer with level pan and time-aligned as you'd expect..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Authoring_Format

geoff

geoff

but that is only digi design files to PT files so it would not make
since in this discussion. AIF is the standard format for anything mac
and in fact a wav file is nothing more then that with a tag.

[david correia]

In article
,
Danny T wrote:

On Oct 2, 8:30*pm, david correia wrote:
In article ,

*"geoff" wrote:
Phil W wrote:

A cute trick of Digidesign is to make it as difficult as possible to
migrate
work to/from other systems. *For example AAF file transfer requires a
$495
add-on program to achieve, where it is native in most other DAWs (which
cost
less than the 'translator' !).

Boycott Digidesign wherever possible.

geoff

What the heck is a "AAF file transfer"? Geez.

Anyone with a clue can export from or import into Protools. Just bounce
yours tracks all with the same start point. Drag them into any audio
program you want. Done.

Whoever brought up AAF probably meant OMF.

David Correiawww.Celebrationsound.com

No, they probably meant AIF which is a Mac audio file



No, geoff meant AAF. I had never heard of it before.

I've only dealt briefly with OMF. Had a client with a big name artist
who worked in Digital Performer. MOTU's OMF compatibility was close but
not perfect. I think Digi likes it that way.

Years ago I got the Digidesign DigiTranslator software as part of a TDM
system, and happily sold the software for a nice sum. Think the software
may have cost more than $495 a while back.





David Correia
www.Celebrationsound.com

[david correia]

In article ,
(hank alrich) wrote:

Buzard's Asshole wrote:

wrote in message

On Oct 1, 10:03 pm, "Phil W" wrote:
geoff:

A cute trick of Digidesign is to make it as difficult as possible to
migrate work to/from other systems.

But the other makers do the same...

For example AAF file transfer
requires a $495 add-on program to achieve, where it is native in most
other DAWs (which cost less than the 'translator' !).

Just ridiculous, but there are obviously enough people stupid enough to
pay
for such converters, rather than looking for a freeware alternative on
the
web, that works just as well...
Anyway, Steinberg and Cakewalk also want money, if you want to encode
MP3
files within Cubase or Sonar. It´s much less than Digidesign wants for
the
AAF add-on, but the principle is the same.

Phil

I use iTunes for MP3's. You just drag a file onto iTunes and it will
do what you have set it to.

Itunes? Quite a professional, you are.

Overlooking the source of this missive, I note that some heavy hitters
who participate in DAW-Mac also use iTunes for efficient MP3 encoding,
and it ain't like they don't have other options.

Of course, they're not jacking off in some Australian Baskin-Robbins
thinking they're making pro ice cream.

--
ha
shut up and play your guitar




I agree with the hippy ;

Fews years back I needed an mp3 converter for an important project that
need low bit rates (the RISD Museum). After spending a day banging away
on everything I could find in the Mac world, as a lark, I tried iTunes
on my son's Mac. I'd bought him an ipod a few months after they hit the
street cuz his mother and I were always buying batteries for his Discman.

For these low bit rates, and to my surprise, iTunes sounded the best.

I still use iTunes when I need a mp3 for something. Which lucky-for-me
ain't often.





David Correia
www.Celebrationsound.com