OMF in DP

evangelista · Post by **evangelista** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 6:24 pm

Can DP4.5 open OMF files?

martian · Post by **martian** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 7:15 pm

yes it does.

have a look in the manual.

ericjustin · Post by **ericjustin** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 7:12 am

I could never get this to work. My friend has Sonar and sent me OMF files to open in DP. Never had any luck.

evangelista · Post by **evangelista** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:59 am

ericjustin wrote:I could never get this to work. My friend has Sonar and sent me OMF files to open in DP. Never had any luck.

That's why i ask. I'm trying to open an OMF that originates from an AVID system. No luck.

rcannonp · Post by **rcannonp** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 1:02 pm

I read in a forum somewhere(here or osxaudio.com) about someone having a problem with OMF files and going from Cubase to DP. I can't find the thread. They said that the problem was with stereo files. They had to be split to mono for it to work with DP. I wonder if that might be the root of the problem that you are having. I only have Cubase SL1, so I can't test it out.

evangelista · Post by **evangelista** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 2:38 pm

rcannonp wrote:I read in a forum somewhere(here or osxaudio.com) about someone having a problem with OMF files and going from Cubase to DP. I can't find the thread. They said that the problem was with stereo files. They had to be split to mono for it to work with DP. I wonder if that might be the root of the problem that you are having. I only have Cubase SL1, so I can't test it out.

I heard about that issue - however that doesn't help me as all of the tracks in the original file are mono.

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 3:33 pm

My collaborator and I wasted precious time trying to make this work last year and gave up. No matter which options we tried, Sonar and Dp wre not happy with the other's OMF saves.

The advantage that I see is in preserving mix settings and track annotation. Otherwise, may as well export MIDI and/or audio.

Just this past weekend, we had our first-ever successful collaboration, doing a synth-pop cover of a Green Day tune. I was able to import all of his audio and get it to line up properly, overdub parts, and extract those and send them to him along with by-hand annotated track and mixing notes.

It's a bit more cumbersome to be sure, but I have found it good discipline (and easier on the eyes as well as being more time-efficient from an organisational point of view when hunting down settings) to annotate my projects in an RTF document anyway, and keep multiple copies that reflect different states of a project as it changes.

Nevertheless the full project interchange concept is immensely useful and would serve its own purposes regardless of whether direct audio and MIDI transfer is more reliable or time-effective at certain stages of a project.

I will be curious to see whether anyone becomes fully successful at doing this sort of exchange between DP 5 and current Sonar. My last attempt was one to two versions back on both products.

tommymandel · Post by **tommymandel** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:15 pm

Often, I used to save DP projects as OMF, and then used the OS9 app OMFTool to convert them into ProTools sessions. Actually I haven't done that since DP v.5, but I used to. I never knew it worked the other way! (OMF to DP). Could it be that you have to use the LOAD command instead of the OPEN command? If I'm way off, I wouldn't be surprised, but you could try it.

daveyboy · Post by **daveyboy** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:58 pm

Just opened up a huge PT session in PT LE and exported as omf and opened in DP without a hitch. Have also tried Logic without a problem. Guess it depends on the the app as well.

martian · Post by **martian** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 6:18 pm

one app I have used is AVtransfer - it needs virtual PC to run on mac tho.

It is excellent for conforming errant OMF's to the different standard's - as it is sadly true that different apps implement it in different ways - and Avid - the originators of the standard in their infinite wisdom keep changing the standard when they export ( I suspect the marketing department....)

Mr. Quimper · Post by **Mr. Quimper** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 11:37 pm

daveyboy wrote:Just opened up a huge PT session in PT LE and exported as omf and opened in DP without a hitch. Have also tried Logic without a problem. Guess it depends on the the app as well.

Sorry to dig this up again, but how in the world did you manage that? Honestly. I want to know! haha

I've been trying to exchange sessions between Pro Tools 7.1 LE w/ DV Toolkit and DP 5.1. I've exported as AAF & OMF with every setting I can think of. The session opens up well enough in DP with tracks labeled, etc -- but no audio, everything is greyed out. The soundbite regions appear in the tracks at their appropriate locations with names, but all of the regions have questionmarks by them!

tommymandel · Post by **tommymandel** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:47 am

Could your DP session be set for a different bit or sample rate than your PT session was? Not sure about this, just a possibility. If not this, then maybe a checkbox for something like 'include audio files' was unchecked in your export process?

desolation row · Post by **desolation row** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 5:46 am

I've had some challenges with this. As far as greyed out audio goes, DP always defaults to 16bit when opening OMFs. I have to manually reset it every time. I bet this might be what's happening for you.

Another thing that I've discovered is that it works best for me if I open DP and then cancel the dialog box for selecting which session to open. Instead, I will then go to the file menu and open the OMF from there. I was getting a crash every time when I previously tried to open from that initial dialog box.

BTW, I'm creating the OMFs in PTLE7.1 and opening them in DP 4.61.

Good luck!

pcm · Post by **pcm** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 8:18 am

Mr. Quimper wrote:
daveyboy wrote:Just opened up a huge PT session in PT LE and exported as omf and opened in DP without a hitch. Have also tried Logic without a problem. Guess it depends on the the app as well.
Sorry to dig this up again, but how in the world did you manage that? Honestly. I want to know! haha

I've been trying to exchange sessions between Pro Tools 7.1 LE w/ DV Toolkit and DP 5.1. I've exported as AAF & OMF with every setting I can think of. The session opens up well enough in DP with tracks labeled, etc -- but no audio, everything is greyed out. The soundbite regions appear in the tracks at their appropriate locations with names, but all of the regions have questionmarks by them!

DP often (always?) opens 24-bit audio omf session in 16-bit mode, and must be manually switched BACK to 24-bit operation. That would explain the question marks in the soundbites window, as the audio is now in a different format than the session itself. This confused the hell out of me until I noticed that DP had reset itself to 16-bit. This is a bug and needs to be fixed. It's been this way for as long as I can remember.

Switching to 24-bit usually crashes the program unless it is the FIRST move you make. That's another thing I discovered.

Exporting OUT of DP raises another issue. Any channel that does NOT have volume automation written into it will open up elsewhere with it's fader at 0dB, despite where it was set in DP. So you must have at least one fader move per track if you want you volume settings to transfer. I do this quick and easy by using a snapshot.

Other than all of the above, OMF works well.

Mr. Quimper · Post by **Mr. Quimper** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:24 am

Thanks so much for the advice! I'm going to try everything suggested tonight.