A question about chunks

[rockitcity]

I have a problem using chunks I hope someone can explain. Here's the scenario:

Recorded a demo about a year ago and did several mixes, including a vocal-minus track. Singer didn't like original vocal, so the instrumental track was imported to a different DP session, did several takes, and made a comp track. Singer is happy with new vocal. Now, I want to bring the new comp vocal into the original session. (Both sessions are 44.1/24 bit but are on two separate systems.)

Ok, the easy and obvious way is to merge the soundbites of the new vocal and import that track into the original mix session. Yes this works, but I would like to clean up some of the comp vocal edits, so I would like to have the new comp track in the original session.

First thought, use clippings. I was able to make a clipping of the comp vocal track, copy all the original takes to a thumb drive and copy them into the original session, but when I import the clipping to an audio track and play it, the regions are all scrambled. No go. Ok, maybe making a session with a new chunk that has the vocal only would work. I was able to load this chunk into my original session and have the regions play back correctly in the vocal only chunk. However, when I try to copy and paste the audio from this chunk into the main mix chunk in the same session, the regions are once again scrambled. I tried locking the track before making the clipping, but results are still scrambled.

So, what is the best way to transfer a track with all its edits from one session to another? (Ahem, I hate to say it, but I do this multiple times every day in Pro Tools with no problem...) Do I just have to clean up the edits in the new vocal session and re-merge the audio to a single soundbite? Do I need to have all the source tracks for the comp in my mix session as well as the comp track?

Any ideas? Thanks.

FYI, source sessions are on DP 7.4 and destination session is DP8, but I don't think this is the cause of the problem.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

You might try zipping the project and moving it to the second machine.

[rockitcity]

Thanks for replying, MLC, but I don't know what good that would do. I have two chunks in the mix session. One has the first demo vocal and the mix tracks, and the second chunk has the new vocal edit only, which plays back correctly with the edits, so I don't think the problem lies with session compatibility. What I can't figure out how to do, is copy the new vocal edit from the vocal edit chunk to the mix session chunk. Both chunks are in the same session. Maybe it just doesn't work...

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Thanks for replying, MLC, but I don't know what good that would do.

Exactly! So if you don't know how do yo know it won't solve the problem?

Ok, d soon't try it, but it is a known issue that simply copying projects across machines can screw up some aspects of a project and timestamps, in particular, have been problematic in that regard.

You could try exporting the original session to an AFF and see if that reserves the timestamps, but that is a lot more work than simply zipping got file before moving it to another machine.

I realize you may have done a lot of work on the project after moving it don't want to redo all that (I wouldn't, either) but the fact remains that moving a project by simply copying the entire project folder without compressing it first has been problematic for some in the past.

[FMiguelez]

Simply drag the voval track from one TO window to the other TO window.

You must grab the track by its handle, or by a chunk of its displayed data like a SB (can't remember which).

A clipping would also work.

[FMiguelez]

Oh, and it makes a differnce whether you drop it in the track area or data-display area of the 2nd TO, IIRC. Haven't done this for a while.

If this doesn't work because DP still scrambles them, which it shouldn't, you will have to render the vocal track's edits

This should have worked with clippings perfectly, so I think you should really report this problem to MOTU.
I have also seen ALL my vocal track edits (pitch and time) get all messed up when pasting or doing tempo changes.

[rockitcity]

I looked at the situation again last night. Couldn't get anything to work. I ended up editing the vocal in the chunk that was imported to my session but not scrambled, consolidating, and importing that soundbite into the mix chunk. This worked fine, and the vocal edit chunk is still in my session if I need to refer back to it.

Thoughts on why this didn't work:

The vocal session was recorded at the same sample and bit rate as the original mix session, but did not have a conductor track. The original session was live, and the conductor track was made after the fact by adjusting beats. Maybe this was a factor in the edits getting scrambled. Also, two different MOTU systems were used. Each was locked to internal clock, and while that should be reasonably accurate between two systems, I did seem to notice some timing drift. Maybe that is partly singer performance, but I did have to edit the consolidated new vocal track to tighten up the timing to the original session. Overall satisfactory results were achieved, but it seems like it should have been easier.