• SONAR
  • Pro Tools Export/Import (p.2)
2015/02/16 04:43:20
Falk
I've done multiple complex orchestral sessions (with different sections, layering, etc adding up to over 140 tracks in some cases) recorded in both Pro Tools and Nuendo, and done both OMF as well as simply importing broadcast wavs depending on the situation.
 
Some best-practices for mass-importing wavs in SONAR:
- Make sure your recording DAW is set to timestamp the wavs when tracking. That way when importing to SONAR you can have them automatically spot to the right place even if it doesn't start at origin. You may need to set your SONAR project so origin is 1:00:00:00 in SMPTE instead of 0:00:00:00 so it doesn't import 1 hour into the session.
 
- When dealing with multiple takes of multitrack recordings, it's a good idea to import one take, do some basic volume/panning/etc., put all the tracks in a folder, then save as a track template. That way whenever you want to import the same setup in e.g. a different project, or even the same one assuming doubling layers or whatever, you can just create another instance via loading that track template, then "Import Audio" on the first track in the folder and grab additional takes.
 
- When browsing hundreds of audio files created in the original DAW's audio folder, remember that sorting by "Date Modified" will almost always give you a very neat way to browse individual takes of a multitrack session. Also within each individual take, both Pro Tools and Nuendo will create/modify the files in a multitrack in a certain order, which is then reflected in the "Date Modified" sorting in explorer, which makes your life easy when importing considering the above bullet point about track templates. With a good (handwritten or otherwise) take sheet with actual real-life timestamps (e.g. time of day, not place in session) it makes finding the exact take you want to import extremely fast.
 
- If for whatever reason timestamped importing fails to put the clips in the right place, a good fallback is, if tracking to a concrete tempo map, to always start a recording on a downbeat of a certain measure, which is then noted in the take sheet. Turn off all DAW features that may mess with this (e.g. anything that pre-records, like punch-in for Pro Tools, or the pre-roll in Nuendo, since both can shift the start point of the recorded audio data from the intended downbeat)
2015/02/16 09:57:26
jcwalsh1961
This is all really invaluable information. You have saved me hours of experimentation. No doubt your experiences  didn't come easy as it sounds like there is a lot to more consider then meets the eye and some really complex discoveries that were made. Thank  you for sharing your experiences.
This is an amazing forum thanks to users like yourselves.  
2015/02/16 10:15:32
Anderton
Falk and theheliosequence, that is great info. Although I was not planning on doing any more tips in my Tip of the Week thread, your info is too valuable to have it fall off the forum front page. I've done a guest tip before. Do you mind if I take your posts, combine/edit them a little bit, and add them to the thread (with attribution, of course)?
2015/02/16 10:34:15
Falk
Not at all! Some of the most recent stuff we've done that is already released to public are the music to Final Fantasy XV trailers.
 
Recorded in Pro Tools, mixed pretty much in-the-box in SONAR in December. There was some pretty complex layering and take comping going on so it was a .wav import (as opposed to OMF)
 
edit: Ah, linking disabled. Whoops.
2015/02/16 15:59:06
stevec
Falk
Not at all! Some of the most recent stuff we've done that is already released to public are the music to Final Fantasy XV trailers.
 
Recorded in Pro Tools, mixed pretty much in-the-box in SONAR in December. There was some pretty complex layering and take comping going on so it was a .wav import (as opposed to OMF)




Nice! 
 
I'll have to look for those trailers...
 
2015/02/16 19:15:47
gswitz
2015/02/16 19:18:35
Falk
There's another more recent one too from Jump Festa 2014.
(And stuff that I'm not at liberty to mention right now)
2015/02/16 19:38:30
theheliosequence
Anderton
Falk and theheliosequence, that is great info. Although I was not planning on doing any more tips in my Tip of the Week thread, your info is too valuable to have it fall off the forum front page. I've done a guest tip before. Do you mind if I take your posts, combine/edit them a little bit, and add them to the thread (with attribution, of course)?




Of course! Happy to help... there is another new thread about tempo and OMF that just started... maybe some good info will come out of that as well?
2015/02/17 15:20:05
dubdisciple
As pointed out, the benefit of OMF (and the primary reason i put up with its annoyances) is moving tracking sessilns that have lots of clips in specific places. Sure, you could export wav files, but you would have go in and cut/trim in many cases and would lose some valuable visual cues. I have done both ways and OMF saves a lot of time when it works. The key for me is to make sure my tracking session has no processing other than light trimming of clips applied. Most of the time my imported sessions look very similar in layout to the original project from other DAW and it seems to take Logic much quicker to spit out an OMF than to spit out a wav for each track.
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