Ok the film guys go nutz with multiple PT rigs on one project. I can bearly grasp the concept.

But what are you guys seeing out there in music land?

Typically while I am mixing, my assitant / engineer is Auto Tuning and cleaning up tops & tails of sound files in the next room on a laptop IBook 600 CDRW + an MBox. (he takes a stereo non vocal mix + all the vocal tracks, the MBox can handle 24 track PT sessions - we dont do file shareing via ethernet, we tried it once and it was crash central, so we use CDRs & "sneakernet" but I did install an ethernet line betwen the CR & the live area which doubles as an edit room when I am mixing perhaps we can try again when OSX ads more stability???)

It usually works out fine, just when I am getting stuck on a mix, I break for him to import his editing work. The cleaned up / tuned files arive and give me an inspirational boost to wrap up the mixes..

I hear stories about and can WELL immagine folks like the smashing pumkins or Garbage using as many as 4 PT rigs at one time... My mobile rig was once rented out to Peter Gabriel, who is supposed to have about 4 systems at his Real World studios already!

Sometimes we work on different artists in different rooms... But not so often, and often on only low budget acts, it creeps me out having to devide my attention to 2 clients at one time in our tiny studio!

Report your multiple PT rig usage, sightings or gossip here please!

Im not sure this will help now, but in OS 10.2 the Networking is flawless.

I am running Logic 5.4 with a Echo Layla on a Dual 1 Gig G4- and networked via ethernet to The G4500 running ProTools (0S 9-of course).

So, the verdict here is that once we get PT6 going it will be seemless. The limitation now being I must reboot on the G4500 into 10.2 for the seemless transfer- while the Dually with Logic is poised and ready at all times.

I have used Dave successfully in OS9 (or firewire transfer) to network to OSX but Dave requires Appletalk so its not worth the hassle.

The good news is that appletalk in X is no longer a performance issue- At least not so far with this setup. I can have all that stuff running a Logic just wont quit. I even have 2 Windows machines in the network and the G4s just simply recognize them.

Im actualy leaving my networked hard drives open on my Dual desktop and freely working on files on any of the machines.

Cool!

I've done a bunch of film work using multiple rigs. The main things that became important were adherence to standards, careful definitions of roles and having a clear chain of command.

Ditto above post for music projects also. For the project I just finished we had 3 setups rolling full steam at the same time at the end. I was finishing production/mixing in the main studio, another engineer was comping/editing parts and also doing a bit of mixing in the B room and my assistant was fixing/tuning vocals and taking care of last minute stuff and back-ups in a converted office/studio as well as running the mixes/stems and consolidating the finished material on a giant firewire drive when mixes were ready in A or B. We would start the day with an update/informal meeting and go from there. It worked great and we were able to deliver the masters in time for a crazy deadline whitout any quality sacrifices. It was the first time I did this to such an extend and look forward to doing more projects like that.

When Joe Kasko was mixing my new record on his HD system, I was in the ISO booth with my LE rig doing vocal and percussion overdubs and some "editing"....

I was working off a firewire drive and would just bring the drive over when I had something for him. Joe would go take a break while I would import tracks into the HD session.

It got real confusing at times because I had to actually break each session for LE into instrument types ala guitars, drums/percussion, and vocals session files because I went way over the LE track limitation. A few weeks later they released the 32 track beta which would have helped a lot.

When Joe would be ready for a new mix, he would take a break and I would setup the Pro Tools mix session reimporting every track into a new session, and hopefully I didn't miss any...

Dave