In the December issue of Sound on Sound there is an article featuring a recording session that was done at Abbey Road. Organised by Tom Misner (Ex SAE guru!)
 
Anyway the good news is the entire session is available as a download here:
 
https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec13/articles/session-notes-media-1213.htm
 
Now I don't know how long this is going to be up there but it is a fine opportunity to get yuour hands on a very high quality multi track recording using all the best mics and pres of course and in Abbey Road. Song seems nice and band are all very good of course. There is a bit of competition too for the best mix and if you win, it will go on the album. Only got until April to do it though.
 
It is around 780 Meg but extracts out to something like 2 Gig. All the audio files are in a folder and there are about 60 or more tracks. There is a Pro Tools session file (PTX only so newer versions of PT only) but all the audio can be just dragged into any DAW and lined up from the beginning and away you can go.
 
The files are 48 Khz and 24 bit. There is a lot more info in the SOS issue on this if you want more info but it is pretty self explanatory. They did not mention it but the tempo is 76 BPM.
 
Have fun!

I thought it would be interesting to see how a PTX file is laid out at Abbey Roads so I downloaded it and copied the .zip over to my DAW.
 
First thing I noticed was that when I extracted the files I got a warning dialog telling me to make a backup of my encryption key so I didn't lose it.
 
Then I noticed that for the first time ever, all of the extracted files' names, dates etc. were displayed in Windows Explorer with green lettering rather than the familiar black letters I have viewed for the past 20+ years. Strange... I've never seen anything like that before. Green letters? Only on these newly extracted files? What could that mean?
 
Then I opened the .ptx and took a listen to the tracks. I was surprised to see that the vocal and acoustic guitar tracks had digital overs squared off at 0dBFS. Thankfully, the nice mics and nice pre amps had lots of head room so it didn't sound as horrible as it looked.
 
I was worried that there might have even been an over sample peak or something. ;-)
 
I deleted the files with Green Lettered file names from my DAW and I am hoping that I didn't give myself a virus or malware.
 
All in all, it seemed, to me, about par for the course for SOS and a guru from SAE.
 
 
best regards,
mike
 
 

I learned about the green letters:
 
http://www.andyrathbone.c...ames-in-green-letters/

Mike I did not experience any of that but I am XP so maybe that is the reason. But thanks for the info though, appreciated.
 
I found the tracks to load right up without issues. And yes I agree some of the levels are a bit hot but I dont hear any clipping as such. Notice some of the levels are way way down too like some of the ambient tracks for example so you will have to gian some of them right up. A little bit inconsistent would you say.
 
But overall a reasonable song, decent band and all the raw tracks sound good to me and I see it as an excellent opportunity to get some mix practice in. I think any multitrack session like this is great to work and fiddle with.

Thanks Jeff for the heads up.
 
Just a question, when mixing just audio files, I'm guessing it's not necessary to set any initial tempo.. right ?

There is no mention of tempo in the files or the notes.  However I calculated the tempo at 76 BPM (as per my first post)  I say it was definitely done to a click.  In my software (Studio One) if you set the tempo to 76 BPM then it seems to stay in time with the music right from the start to the end.
 
There are quite a few bars at the start in silence as well.  The tempo thing is not a biggie other than you may want to put markers to indicate various parts of the arrangement that is all.  So you can jump around easily and quickly to different parts of the arrangement too.
 
Unless you want to go cutting the arrangement around a bit.  If you are intending to enter the comp I would refrain from doing that.

I didn't find any issues.
 
I've got PT9HD, I couldn't get the project file to open saying it wasn't a proper project file. I could easily start a new session however and load the .wavs in easily with one single function. I could then save as an OMF and load it back in fine.
 
I also load the waves into Sonar ands set up folders and busses to suit.
 
In all that I never saw or heard any overs in the wavs though i'll agree that some of the ambient files are pretty low in level while nothing was what I'd call too hot and clipped.
 
Mike McC. Maybe you got a corrupted file or something??

Several of the Vocal and Acoustic guitar tracks go up to 0dBFS and square off in a handful of places.
 
The file wasn't corrupt it was just zipped on a Mac, and for the reason explained in the link posted above, my Windows install reported that the files were encrypted even though they were not.

64 tracks?  I thought they used 4 track machines at Abbey...  Isn't that what they used for Sgt. Pepper?
 
Have they upgraded?
 
 
 
 

Wasn't it 6? The other 2 for the sync tone... ?
 
:-)