This Just in from NARAS P&E Wing -- PT Interchange Guidelines

[dave-G]

Have a looksee at http://www.grammy.com/pe_wing/protools209h.doc

The guidelines that it lays out out thus far may seem like common-sense to many of us, but it's a kind of common sense that I wish a lot of the people I collaborate with would subscribe to!! ... "Growing up" in studios with multiple 2" decks, slave-reels, track-sheets, recall sheets and extensive documentation as I have, I find that the open-ended architecture of a DAW-based session often means that different users will come up with widely disparate organizational paradigms (in some cases, I wonder if "organization" is even an appropriate term). It gets pretty tough to mix a couple of songs a day when hours are spent decoding someone else's Pro Tools layout, identifying mislabeled tracks, finding hidden tracks that are still active, and otherwise sifting through the shrapnel of production (etc..etc..etc..)

Anyway, rote to some, but hopefully useful to others. Posted here as a dutiful gearslut and academy member.

-dave

[littledog]

No argument. But the same kinds of problems can arise from poorly documented sessions on any platform or medium.

I used to "love" getting 24 tracks of ADAT tapes to mix (without documentation) and sometimes never quite figuring out if track 7 was a tom mic or one of the overheads!

[dave-G]

Originally posted by littledog
No argument. But the same kinds of problems can arise from poorly documented sessions on any platform or medium.

I used to "love" getting 24 tracks of ADAT tapes to mix (without documentation) and sometimes never quite figuring out if track 7 was a tom mic or one of the overheads!

That's funny, and all too familiar. I had one 2" reel come in where the engineer used the fact that the drummer didn't play the hat in the choruses as an opportunity to have some extra backing vocals checkerboarded on that track... I mixed that one on a non-automated console, so it was big fun with mults and mutes... a performance indeed. Not that there's anything wrong with such checkerboarding, but on a hat track it's especially tough since losing the snare/kit leakage changes the overall picture of the drums in those sections.... And it was kinda funny trying to figure out where the hell that voice was coming from when the drums were soloed...

but I digress..

Anyway, to your first comment, here's the overall master delivery recommendations... (I think it's been posted here before).

http://www.grammy.com/recommendations.pdf

While it's overwhelmingly extensive, it does offer some good ideas for standardized practices and documentation.

-dave