"New" and "Final" and...jeez, can they ever learn?

[Gregg Sartiano]

It seems like the past few days I have been wading in a sea of re-loaded sessions with names like "New [artist] song" and "[Song] Mix Final."

This is COMPLETELY confusing!!! Perhaps we Gearslutz can get the word (or WORDS) out!

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by Gregg Sartiano

It seems like the past few days I have been wading in a sea of re-loaded sessions with names like "New [artist] song" and "[Song] Mix Final."

This is COMPLETELY confusing!!! Perhaps we Gearslutz can get the word (or WORDS) out!

sort by date created?

[Gregg Sartiano]

Yeah, I know...do a "find" and sort by date created. But then the intern (or the artist) is alone at the studio and they see "[song] Gregg mix" <-- (newer) and "[song] new mix" <-- (older). Guess which one gets opened up?

As a freelancer, working in other people's studios is a way of life, so renaming the "new" tracks and "final" mixes (which obviously AREN'T final if I'm being called in to remix) is not an option. The minute I start recommending a reorganization of somebody's folders I'm a) getting away from my objective b) opening myself up to vulnerability and responsibility if things get lost later (even if it's not my fault) and c) needing to be political to avoid the "you need to run your studio in a more professional manner" discussion. Dammit, they're just paying me to show up, mix, and leave half the time!

[Berolzheimer]

A pet peeve of mine too. how much effort does it take to put the date ona file name, and a little info about what it is? Or some info in the Get Info window? Or a little text doc in the folder with the session file describing the changes & dates of each version?

Originally Posted by 3rd world order

sort by date created?

Yeah, but there are a lot of things that can screw this up- someone might have opened an older version & then resaved it, or the computer's clock could have been changed, or.......

[joeq]

its agreed we need a standard- something all engineers and artists would agree to use as a naming convention

I propose the following order to be used chonologically
songX mix
songX final mix
new songX final mix
new new songX final mix
real songX final mix
new real songX final mix
new new real songX final mix
songX
songX dammit!
this is the one songX

after these ten are used up, the name of the song will be changed , preferably to a name that is identical or similar to the name of another song by the same artist- or if that is not possible, to a name that is identical or similar to another song by a different artist working in the same studio.

[Gregg Sartiano]

If I have the authority, I like to make an "OLD" folder in any session folder with outdated versions. These PT session files ARE necessary (how many times have we encountered somebody who was trying to be too damn organized and threw away the PT session pre-edit/consolidation and stuck us with a massive edit job which would have been WAAAAAY easier on the original tracking?).

Then, previous saves are routinely moved to the OLD folder as new re-saves are added (after vocal tuning or a day of mixing or before a big edit). After all, some clients have a way of saying, "you know, I actually DON'T like cutting the chorus there -- can we go back?" You know the ones (they're usually the newbies).

[rickrock305]

the Get Info box is the most underused thing on the computer these days. I've never seen ANYONE use that little box...neither do i so i can't really bitch about it.

That being said, i always make an "OLD sessions" folder as well as a little TextEdit document with sessions notes, versions, people involved, etc. I tend to save a lot of different sessions as i work, so at the end of the day, they all go into the old session folder. That way i can go back instantly and pull a track from somewhere along in the process, pre-editing or ATing or whatever. And like Gregg pointed out, it always happens. It serves me pretty well, just have to stay on point with it and name shit clearly.

[cajonezzz]

One thing that works for me: in get info, assign a color to the most recent mix.

I'm **** about it. before I "save as" to start the next rev of a mix ( and I also use a decimal system ie: mix.1 mix.2 etc. ) I always color the session doc green. ( my color at our place)

Works like a charm.

[juniorhifikit]

On my drive, every session file has a date in the title; and the corresponding mix (or ruff mix) has that date as well. I use the color red for "in progress" project folders. I also have an "old" or "crap" folder inside for older session files, mp3's, emails with notes, etc. I have a folder called "archived" for sessions that are done but I want to keep them around for a while (you know that feeling). If it's not in the "archived" folder, it has not been recently archived.

I haven't lost any data since I STOPPED using Mezzo.

[toolskid]

I hate this shit too!! I'll often get folders full of sessions and when listed by date modified often the most recent session will have a conflicting name ie: 'song_version_8', when below it is 'song_version_9'!!!! I then have to wade through all their sessions finding which is MOST LIKELY!! to be the correct one....

Just a simple slip of paper or text file would be fine..

Even one just explaining their intentions would be better than nothing:

I imagine it would go something like this:

Dear asshole who is fixing my shit,
in order to confuse the **** outta you and give me some satisfaction now that you've stolen my gig, I've included many many copies of this session with missing audio files, renamed sessions and randomly split audio folders. The drive I sent you has also got several versions of the album on it buried deep in various subfolders too, its gonna be a blast relinking all those files baby!! After you've got through the 9035 errors, on the only session that actually opens correctly you'll find that I've consolidated ALL the regions on every track. Just to make sure I've immortalised all my many many horrendous edits, I've deleted all the playlists and erased the original files too. Now that you've got the session open, you're in for another treat, hit spacebar!! OOOOHHH YEAH.. back of the net baby... you hear that??? Well, you didnt think that it would all be in sync did ya?? Oh no, quite clearly I 'accidently' edited the drums in isolation in shuffle mode, then did the same with the guitars.. ooops ... To fully maximise your enjoyment of my work, I've ghetto-normalised everything with the gain plugin, used DINR to excess on the gtrs, and flanged the vocals on the third verse only....

Have fun!!!!

[Jules]

Toolskid is recouperating in the PT editors Rest Home, Vermont, he has asked for no phone calls for the next month or so...

[shangoe]

i have a namesystem which i work with for years.


first year folder: this is to seperate my sessions(tracks) from the ones from other people i work for (extracks - external tracks)

TRACKS-2003
TRACKS-2004
TRACKS-2005
EXTRACKS-2003
EXTRACKS-2004
EXTRACKS-2005


session folder: always the same. this keeps it in the righ cronoligical order. if the track has a name yet write it at the END. this will not change the order:

track-001
track-002
track-003-projectname
track-004


inside the session folder, the sessions progress is like this:

track-001-01
track-001-02
track-001-03
track-001-04 <- this is the latest version


sometimes i ad some information at the end:

track-001-01-midisetup
track-001-02-vocals
track-001-03
track-001-04-audioonly

inside of the sessionfolder i have some more folders:

track-001-source <- this contains only material i got from clients. i put it there and change nothing. its only to get something out.

track-001-audio <- here is where my structure starts in the recording process. bounces, vocal-takes, finals, all in seperate folders...

BNC
FINALS
VOC


with that system i can find all projects i did in the past easy, and i know when i did this. all files and struktures from clients is "capsuled" in the source folder. so i keep ths chaos away from my system. i just find what i need there and then copy and rename it .

why all this? the good thing here is that i dont have to remember anything to find something. i just need to know the system how i use to name my files, and the location is clear.

[largeunit]

<a href = "http://www.charlesdye.com/sessionguidelines_main.html" target="_blank">Here.</a>

[MJGreene Audio]

Dear asshole who is fixing my shit,
in order to confuse the **** outta you and give me some satisfaction now that you've stolen my gig, I've included many many copies of this session with missing audio files, renamed sessions and randomly split audio folders. The drive I sent you has also got several versions of the album on it buried deep in various subfolders too, its gonna be a blast relinking all those files baby!! After you've got through the 9035 errors, on the only session that actually opens correctly you'll find that I've consolidated ALL the regions on every track. Just to make sure I've immortalised all my many many horrendous edits, I've deleted all the playlists and erased the original files too. Now that you've got the session open, you're in for another treat, hit spacebar!! OOOOHHH YEAH.. back of the net baby... you hear that??? Well, you didnt think that it would all be in sync did ya?? Oh no, quite clearly I 'accidently' edited the drums in isolation in shuffle mode, then did the same with the guitars.. ooops ... To fully maximise your enjoyment of my work, I've ghetto-normalised everything with the gain plugin, used DINR to excess on the gtrs, and flanged the vocals on the third verse only....

Have fun!!!!

Welcome to half of the projects I work on that are done on PT rigs in home studios. Its never that malicious but more a great exercise in total stupidity. I swear to god if I have to try and fix one more consolidated track with bad edits I am going to go postal. "How could you not hear that ****ed up vocal punch? My 2 year old can hear how screwed up that is.... Were you actually using those big ugly things on the side of your head? Try it sometime you might find them useful in your home studio!!! By the way did anyone ever mention to you that the default setting in Auto-Tune might just be a starting point and a very bad starting point at that? Oh yeah thats right I forgot. You didn't use those clumps of flesh on your head. Thats ok. I am sure the Cher vocal effect will be back in vogue in another 10 years which will be about the same time you finish coming up with the money to pay for your project and when I will then give you your masters back."
Anyone know which home Toolskid went to? I need a room there also. Will my insurance cover it?????

I haven't lost any data since I STOPPED using Mezzo.

Not only is that funny it is 100% true. Talk about a company who made everyones life hell but after V3.7 didn't even seem to do anything but lose and corrupt data. Not exactly my version of Backing Up!!!!

Well back to work. I have more bad vocal edits to fix.

Michael Greene

[RoundBadge]

Originally Posted by toolskid

I hate this shit too!! I'll often get folders full of sessions and when listed by date modified often the most recent session will have a conflicting name ie: 'song_version_8', when below it is 'song_version_9'!!!! I then have to wade through all their sessions finding which is MOST LIKELY!! to be the correct one....

Just a simple slip of paper or text file would be fine..

Even one just explaining their intentions would be better than nothing:

I imagine it would go something like this:

Dear asshole who is fixing my shit,
in order to confuse the **** outta you and give me some satisfaction now that you've stolen my gig, I've included many many copies of this session with missing audio files, renamed sessions and randomly split audio folders. The drive I sent you has also got several versions of the album on it buried deep in various subfolders too, its gonna be a blast relinking all those files baby!! After you've got through the 9035 errors, on the only session that actually opens correctly you'll find that I've consolidated ALL the regions on every track. Just to make sure I've immortalised all my many many horrendous edits, I've deleted all the playlists and erased the original files too. Now that you've got the session open, you're in for another treat, hit spacebar!! OOOOHHH YEAH.. back of the net baby... you hear that??? Well, you didnt think that it would all be in sync did ya?? Oh no, quite clearly I 'accidently' edited the drums in isolation in shuffle mode, then did the same with the guitars.. ooops ... To fully maximise your enjoyment of my work, I've ghetto-normalised everything with the gain plugin, used DINR to excess on the gtrs, and flanged the vocals on the third verse only....

Have fun!!!!

Emre...You rule!

Buy really..this is a great topic to mull over...
Seriously,A whole seperate sub forum could be dedicated to session/file management..
interesing to hear everybody's methods.

[Gregg Sartiano]

Originally Posted by cajonezzz

One thing that works for me: in get info, assign a color to the most recent mix.

Y'know, in the film industry, they do their script revisions by color. The FIRST one is white paper, the SECOND one is pink paper, the third is blue (??? I think), and so on. Of course, if we did that, our folders would look like a ripped open bag of Skittles...

[DeadPoet]

what works for me:
folder with band/artist
inside is a folder with song name, even when only one song
inside are filenames that start with the reversed date (YYYY-MM-DD) which is followed by an extensive comment on what's inside (I'm not missing DOS's 8.3 filenaming convention and I *really* use that freedom).

When doing multiple mixes in one day I add hours.


And I NEVER hit "Save", always "Save As..."



Herwig

[jdunn]

Good suggestions. I like to start with the track name inside a dated project folder, with the suffix "R1", meaning "Rough Mix 1". Then "R2", etc... Once I've done a few rough mixes, I'll print it to CD and listen on another system. If it's half decent, I'll start getting rid of the "R".

I guess some people think they're such a great mixer that they don't have to do a rough mix!

[RoundBadge]

Originally Posted by jdunn

Good suggestions. I like to start with the track name inside a dated project folder, with the suffix "R1", meaning "Rough Mix 1". Then "R2", etc... Once I've done a few rough mixes, I'll print it to CD and listen on another system. If it's half decent, I'll start getting rid of the "R".

I guess some people think they're such a great mixer that they don't have to do a rough mix!

I like that...thanks for the tip!
thumbsup

[RooF]

The difference between amateurs and Pros...

find your own system it can t be that complicated...

[jdunn]

Then after I've done a million revisions, it gets cluttered. So having separate folders inside the main project folder for "Rough", "Good", and "Final" helps.

If you're doing your own guerilla mastering, or just burning ref cd's, make sure you label dithered 16 bit files. I usually add something like "16bit_mbm" or "16bit_powr2", etc...

It's probably best to have a different set of folders for the mastering stage anyway.

[Berolzheimer]

I do something like this too, roughs are usually labelled SongNameRm16.L2..1.1.05

IOW RoughMix 16bit w/L2 (yes, I often use it on roughs to dither & maximise level, but I like to keep track of which mixes have it) and date. If there are more than one version on that date I just add #1, #2, etc but I also keep a text file going with notes as to the variations.

[RoundBadge]

Originally Posted by RooF

The difference between amateurs and Pros...

find your own system it can t be that complicated...

????

[natpub]

As composer/producers, we catalogue all our tracks from initial conception through experimental arrangements, orchestrations, and demo trackings using a date after the song title, and a letter extension if it was changed to more than one version on a given day. Thus, our files read like this:

SongX 010105 (meaning, January 1st, 2005)
SongX 010105 B (meaning version B from this date)
etc.

When we want to coallate versions of things from various files, all we have to do is search by the name or number.

[jonnyclueless]

I try to use numbers in front of file names so that they list in the correct order. I also have a seperate set for tracking tha mixing. For example, during tracking:

01) Song Name (Drums)
02) Song Name (Bass)
02) Song Name (guitars)
03) Song Name (BGVs)

etc, etc. Once tracking it done, these get put in a Tracking Sessions folder. For mixing, it may look something like this:

1) Song Name-Original
2) Song Name-Prep
3) Song Name-Final
4) Song Name-Stems
5) Song Name-Recall # (each recall is numbered)

etc, etc. Original, being if someone else tracked it would be the original session as is. Prep, being all the fixes and stuff tracking engineers aren't educated eough to do these days. And is saved as a seperate session in case during mixing, something is accidentally deleted, or what not, I can always go back to the prep session for it.


MY big pet peve is people running sessions at 30ips and with a 0 SMPTE start time, using sdII files. But that would account for 90% of the sessions I get.

[chuckj]

I recently downloaded this guide and found it helpful. I don't know how much exposure this guide is getting. Is anyone else using it and trying to abide by its guidelines?

http://www.charlesdye.com/ptguidelines2.0.pdf

[Kenny Gioia]

I just apply the same rules Ive done since my assisting days printing to 1/2*

NEVER = EVER name a mix final.

I number each mix that I print. for ex. Song Name - Mix #1 - Song Name - Mix #2

When mixing, I try to ask that I only get 1 Pro Tools file.

What drives me even crazier is getting a 12-14GB Pro Tools file that contains every single track or take that was ever recorded.

Make a a copy, Delete the unused stuff and send me the tiny 1GB session.

The biggest problem with the Charles Dye list is that the Producers who take the time to read it, are not the ones who need to.

[MJGreene Audio]

I just apply the same rules Ive done since my assisting days printing to 1/2*

NEVER = EVER name a mix final.

I number each mix that I print. for ex. Song Name - Mix #1 - Song Name - Mix #2

When mixing, I try to ask that I only get 1 Pro Tools file.

What drives me even crazier is getting a 12-14GB Pro Tools file that contains every single track or take that was ever recorded.

Make a a copy, Delete the unused stuff and send me the tiny 1GB session.

The biggest problem with the Charles Dye list is that the Producers who take the time to read it, are not the ones who need to.

Glad to know I am not alone. Amazing how many people don't know how to use Save Copy As. Oh hell who am I kidding. Most people can't hear a bad punch or edit anymore.

Michael Greene

[Gregg Sartiano]

The Charles Dye list (this is the NARAS one, right?) suggests doing a 'master' session with completely consolidated files and a sub-folder of 'slave' sessions pre-consolidation.

This is the best of both worlds, and it's kinda the direction I'm going if I do an 'OLD' sub-folder and start sticking sessions files in it as I revise. It keeps one master up in the top level of the folder, but the rest are all easily accessible. This to me is cooler than the color labeling -- although color labeling is fine if you're the only one working on the sessions.

For some reason, amateurs are particularly drawn to the 'consolidate' and 'normalize' commands. I'll consolidate dense beat detective drum edits (after a THOROUGH going over soloing drums), and I'll keep the Beat Det file in the 'OLD' sessions just in case. In fact, if the session can handle it, I'll keep the BD tracks playlisted, as well as the original drum takes, and I'll put a comment in the mix window 'SEE PLAYLIST FOR PRE-EDIT DRUMS' or something.

[Billster]

Originally Posted by toolskid

Dear asshole who is fixing my shit,
in order to confuse the **** outta you and give me some satisfaction now that you've stolen my gig, I've included many many copies of this session with missing audio files, renamed sessions and randomly split audio folders.