How Much Editing Are You Doing?

[drundall]

I know some of you guys/gals are doing projects that have an offline editor. If not, do you personally do editing? What about consolidating, compacting and backingup? Are you trusting those things to an assistant?

I'm doing it all but it sure take a #$%'in long time...

[Fletcher]

I do all my own cutting, always [analog or digital]... as for backups, I'll have an assistant keep an eye on the process... but I'll start the process and check the final product once it's done. After all, they are my testicles on the chopping block should something **** up now aren't they.

[C.Lambrechts]

depends, for my own projects I do everything myself. Client based stuff can be anyone but allways with one rule .... he who starts it ... finishes it. Backing up / consolidating or compacting (the last 2 I avoid really) can be tricky to hand over to somebody else in the middle of the process.

[groundcontrol]

I do the most critical editing myself (vocals, drums, leading elements of an arrangement) and hand out the extra editing as well as most "chores" (compacting/archiving/mix stems) to my assistant.

[jeronimo]

Could you guys list your procedures when doing a project on PT?
Let's say:
Tracking
Editing
Mixing
Consolidating
Deleting (not removing) unused regions
Saving Copy In
Backup

I don't know if you guys understood what I mean... but I'm still not sure if I'm working the safest/faster/cleaner way....

[s2n]

First of all, it all depends on how deep you wanna go with editing and how big the band's budget is. But, for a typical scenario, it usually goes like this:

Tracking - everything (except for vox, percussion..such as shakers...and whatnot...these are tracked to PT) is tracked to 2".

Editing - one step at a time. First, drums are tracked to 2" with a click from a drum machine. Then the drums are transferred to PT (with no SMPTE sync) and edited to a click that is generated in PT and SoundReplacer (more like augmentation) is applied to the kick and snare (sometimes toms too). Once edited, they are dumped back to 2" (with a MicroLynx/USD/bb) where overdubs (bass, guitars, etc) are tracked. These are then x-fered back to PT for editing (as well as re-amping, etc) and then dumped back. As mentioned, all vox is tracked in PT where it's tuned and aligned. The vox tracks (and percussion) stays in PT for mixing. At each stage of editing, a new playlist for each track is created so that the original is always available in the session. Sessions are also subsequently named.
Example:
session
session.edit.drums
session.edit.bass
session.edit.gtr...
session.mix.01
session.mix.02...
This way, I can go back to any stage of the edit process at anytime.

Mixing - vox (and whatnot) stems are sent to the console. Sometimes, all tracks are kept in PT and multiple stems (64-outs is the most I've worked on) are sent out to a big console.

Consolidating - once the track is edited, I rename it with a bullet '•' appended to the front of the track name.

Deleting - I remove unused regions as the region bin gets filled up (this can get pretty big especially when editing drums). Since I have playlists for all of the original tracks, they are always saved with the session when I do a "Save
Session Copy To..."

Backup - I make incremental backups to a big FireWire HD using Connectix CopyAgent. It SmartReplaces files...like folder synchonization.

Archiving - the final archive, which has the original tracks, consolidated • tracks and session.mix.xx file is archived to a DVD-R (or CD-R). 2 copies are made...one for the client, one for us.

[jeronimo]

Originally posted by s2n
At each stage of editing, a new playlist for each track is created so that the original is always available in the session.

Deleting - I remove unused regions as the region bin gets filled up (this can get pretty big especially when editing drums). Since I have playlists for all of the original tracks, they are always saved with the session when I do a "Save Session Copy To..."

So before you edit, you create a new playlist for each track that will be edited? Is that it? How does the remove unused regions will act with the playlists that are not beign used??

And thanks for your very complete reply!

[Jack the Bear]

I do all my own editing. In mastering there's not usually (at least for me) that much. It's not like comping vocs etc in PT.

Having said that I also cut my own parts AND do my own QC.

As Fletcher correctly pointed out, it's our balls on the chopping block.

Cheers,

Tony Mantz.
Glorified tape copy boy.

[s2n]

Originally posted by jeronimo
So before you edit, you create a new playlist for each track that will be edited? Is that it?

Yes. So, when I'm finally ready to mix, my Region List has all of my original tracks (at the top) and all of my edited tracks that have a bullet '•' at the front of their names (at the bottom). And, as I mentioned above, when I do a "Save Session Copy...," only the audio files that are still part of my session are copied over.

(The only problem I have encountered with using the bullet '•' is that PCs can't recognize it. So, when I save a copy of the session and convert to .WAV & "enforce Mac/PC compatibility, I have to rename my files. I'm slowing moving to .BWAV/.WAV to be compatible with other DAWs, so I'll probably switch to a simple ~ instead. Maybe I should use the $?)

Originally posted by jeronimo
How does the remove unused regions will act with the playlists that are not beign used??

And thanks for your very complete reply!

Regions in the playlist are considered to be part of the session. They are unaffected by the "Remove Unused Regions" command.
Thanks.

[ZEUSS]

The "=" sign has been working for me. But I like the idea of the "$" ........lol



-Z-

[s2n]

= would be a good idea. I wouldn't have to hit shift or option...I'd be typing one less keystroke.

$ <-- that's the money track!

[Steve Smith]

Ok, I may be a dammed fool, or maybe I am just to darn ignotant...., but could someone refresh how it is that I create an alternate playlist in PT ( Mix ) ? I am not in front of the workstation, and I think I have done this in the passt to create a point to return to , but like I said, I am drawing a blank right now..

( God I feel like I just asked how to tie my shoes......)

[s2n]

Right beside the name, on the track paramaters, there's a small pop-up triangle. The options to add, duplicate or delete a playlist is in there.

[Steve Smith]

Thanks!

[Musiclab]

I do all of my own editing, I also make my own coffee. Usually I track to 2" dump into the daw, do my edits and dump it back. If I'm working with more than 24 tracks the additional audio runs locked to my 2" via an aardvark time sync II. I'm setting up a raid mirroring array. At the end the clients gets the 2", DVD's of all the hard disk and logic files. I try not to keep any of the clients material here, after the projects done. Thats a storage headache I dont need.

[mixer]

do it all myself ..analog or digital...fun stuff...usually have an assistant do the paperwork and setup..also he does the backups with supervision. of couse thats on projects that stay in house...

[Jules]

I do a lot on my productions..

I usually direct an assistant to do the actual work.

I supervise & carefully describe the 'goals' I wish to achive by the editing.

[recorderman]

I do everything. I haven't worked with anybody in the last couple of years that I'd trust.
I don't use tape back-up or retrospect anymore...to slow and it's encrypted.

How I work now.

I have 4 18GB cheetas and one 36 GB cheeta on a four bay Glyph trip rack. Two bays are each hooked up to a separate buss on my atto card. I jsut installed a Pioneer dvd/cd burner in my apple. And I have album project clients buy two 120GB firewire drives w/ Oxford911 chipsets.
This allows me to use my cheeta's as my work drives. I have tones of room to work, always with "quick punch" on so I have everything while we're cutting. After we're done with whatever part we've just done. I do a "Save copy as..." with the name of the session& new part with a suffix of "only".
On this session I now delete all tracks except for the new part. I remove all unused regions from the region list. I now save a copy of this to:
a cheeta drive and both firewiredrives. I NOW have at least 3 copies in a few minutes of everything i just did. With the Inport track cunction I can Build any session I want. At the end of the day I make a dvd back-up of whatever I did that day.
So I have two firewiredrives that Iand DVD's of everything. Allowing me to reformat and keep un-fragged my cheeta's. I also stay on top of this with my firewire drives (which I format with my mac so that the mac see them as ide drives).
Some studios (most) I work at have PT...so I bring my rig and use it as the back-up dvd/cd burnig station.
I'm never not backed-up and only the most compact rlevant amount.
Also I quickly check edits, ect. and duplicate/consolidate all playlists to the same length (an even bar amount as/per the song)...so I could if all else fails jsut import them in another fresh session...or send them to someone with Logic, ect. After clean up, ect. I only keep the final consolidated version for Firewire and DVD. The DVD allows me to keep my firewire's dynamic. So i don't get clogged with mostly useless data. Who wants 10GB of data on a song when only 1-2GB's are the final relavent final parts. The one thing i keep ALL off are vocals. Every take. doesn't tkae that much AND it's proof & just in case of a changed mind later on (it's happened to me).
Disk Warrior & TechTool pro are a must.
Also being able to wipe my cheeta's is great becuse i've worrked in other rooms that were set-up and would only accept either FWB or ATTO formatted
cheeta's. That's when the firewire & dvd's have really been a boon. Now i find out what they've got, and make a cheeta "slave" drive with the correct format, along with the firewire/dvd's.
When I save to the firewire I generally do it as a "save copy" from within the open session. Then I'm sure it'll open perfectly with no suprises on the firewire. Also, I can then quickly open and check by actually playing the copy on the firewire drive. You can't so that with tape back-up and it's the fastest way to go. except for the dvd's, (which I ket run after I leave unless I'm using my rif just for this, in which case i can do it concurrently while i work on something else), I'm typically done and completely backed up a half hour or so after finnishing recording/mixing/ect...three times over....how's that!

[groundcontrol]

Sounds a bit like what I do except that I now (recently I must say) have found an assistant I finally thrust... ...so far!

Cheers!