New guy says "Hello!" and asks for help...

desolation row · Post by **desolation row** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 10:11 pm

Hello everyone!

Pleased to make your acquaintance!

I've started using DP for mixing after tracking and editing in Protools LE. I bought the Digitranslator (yeah, I know...) and am exporting my sessions as OMF's. This worked flawlessly for a whole album project and then suddenly a crash-a-thon got started and I'm having a hard time figuring out what's going on. Basically, the only way that I can open an OMF in DP now is to remove the AU scan info file (I can't remember the exact name of it, I'm not at the studio at the moment) from the DP prefs folder and have DP scan all of the plug-ins each time that I open it (it took a while to figure this out). What's strange is that I've removed every questionable plug and the crashes occur even after DP is open and all of the plugs have been scanned and approved by DP. If I drag the OMF over the DP icon when DP is closed it crashes before the plug-ins are scannned. If I try to open the OMF from the file menu it crashes after I select the placement of the project folder. Regardless of how the crashes occur the last entry in the crashlog always refers to the coreaudio compnent in the system folder. But, if I remove the aforementioned AU scan file from the prefs folder all is well until I have to close DP. (For those wondering, the Digidesign core audio manager won't allow PT and any other audio app to be open simultaneously, that's why closing DP is necessary at times....)

Whew, sorry if this is confusing. I did a search and read the pertinent threads and saw mention of similar problems but never saw an answer. Do any of you have any insights?

I've learned so much from this forum! There's so much info here that just about any question that I've had has been previously answered. Much appreciated....

Best,

bongo_x · Post by **bongo_x** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 7:42 am

well, I don't know about your crashing, but I'm pretty sure I figured out how to keep both apps open when I was doing something like this.

make the output of DP "internal" or something that doesn't use the digi core audio driver.

bb

Proklaim Recording · Post by **Proklaim Recording** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 7:05 pm

Hello Desolation Row!

Welcome to the Forum, I am in NC too, west of ya about four hours near Asheville. I use DP now for all my work. I moved from a Mackie HR24/96 and had projects I was working on at the time. They were all in the Wav format and I just imported them into DP and had to drag them to the zero start point or beginning. This worked just fine and I had no problems getting them to line up either. I don't know if this will work for you or not, and I am not sure about how to use OMF files, I have never messed with them. Just thought I would let you know what I did and how it worked out for me. It probably takes more time to do it the way I did, but it worked just fine. Now I would like to know why you are recording and editing in Pro Tools and then mixing in DP? Is it just what you want to do, or is there things you like better in one than the other? I have Pro Tools LE, but I don't use it much.

Thanks PR

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 7:55 pm

Hey Proklaim Recording

That's the way I do it too. Tried a bunch of OMF's with audio without, sample rate errors occurred and more and I just gave up. There are definitely a series of gotchas in that process and if you don't do it the exact way, your screwed.

Just render them with plugs to the front of the sessions and dump them over. You won't get fader moves or mutes but at least the sounds will be there, unless you don't want the plugs then make sure you keep separate tied tracks.

Good luck

desolation row · Post by **desolation row** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:06 pm

Hey PR!

Thanks for the nice welcome! I was in Asheville last week for the Tom Waits show. I had almost forgotten what a beautiful town Asheville is. We had a great time walking around before and after the show. The downtown has such a great feel to it...

I bought a Digi 002 because I knew Protools and had very little experience with other DAWs. I actually like Protools a lot and it's second nature to me. I'm not a huge fan of the 002 though, but it's what I have for now. I work mainly with live players so the editing in Protools is well suited. Plus the graphic interface is very straight forward. I got the cross grade of DP about a year ago and have just started to get up to speed. The main attraction is the ADC. Having to move audio around in PTLE to compensate for latencies gets old fast. It can really start to smear a drum kit if close attention isn't paid. There are work-arounds but I love not having to think about it. Now I more readily use things like Ozone that have ridiculous latencies. It's also nice knowing that I can have the 33rd track on the rare occasion that it's useful.

There are a few things that I'm not crazy about in DP and most of them are defaults... Like the group menu always coming up with "custom" selected or the edit window always showing the top no matter where I was the last time I was there... But, all in all, I'm enjoying it greatly.

The main reason that I use OMFs is that it's faster and I often need to make the transfer with clients present. Even with the work-around that I've been using it's better for me. I also like seeing all of my edits in the new session. But who knows, maybe I can get a quick method going utilizing the import suggestion.

Thanks a million to all of you for responding. This forum is also an attraction to DP. The attitude here is a lot more helpful and friendly than some of the others out there.

Best,

Proklaim Recording · Post by **Proklaim Recording** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 10:14 pm

Well as long as you are able to get the OMFs to work that sounds pretty nice, I did not realize that you would have all your edits too. Pretty nice! I will have to check that out. I have a 001 in a PC that sets beside of my Mac and DP screen. I like the Pro Tools straight forward interface too, I would have went with Pro Tools as my main DAW if the LE version was not so, well LIMITED, you know what I mean! I did not have the $ to go TDM, and I wanted more control, inputs, and tracks than what I could get into with the LE version. I also have a Mbox to use at home, and I do use it to do some editing every now and then. I think Pro Tools is more straight forward and easy, but now that I have learned DP it is not all that different for what I use it for. I know it is a very deep program and it will do a whole lot more than what I use it for, but now that I know it I love it! Its the one you know the best that you will feel more comfortable with. I hope you get your issues with the OMF files worked out, best of luck to ya!

Thanks
PR

desolation row · Post by **desolation row** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:25 am

Thanks PR!

Best of luck to you as well...

martian · Post by **martian** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 12:02 am

[quote="desolation row"]Hey PR!

I bought a Digi 002 because I knew Protools and had very little experience with other DAWs. I actually like Protools a lot and it's second nature to me.

I work mainly with live players so the editing in Protools is well suited. Plus the graphic interface is very straight forward. I got the cross grade of DP about a year ago and have just started to get up to speed.

Stick with it ! the more you use DP - the more you learn - I recommend that you have a good look in the shift L ( commands window)

You can really make it a friendlier place there! - suggest you modify the extend selection to next prev event keys - this will give a more protools like feel - the ones it's preset too isn't great - infact a lot of useful commands to me where buried in vulcan death grip kung fu key strokes - which required things like shift control option command {.}

I also changed the zoom keys to r and t - it helps not having quite so many different keys strokes to remember - I still need to use protoools sometimes...

But I'm happy working in DP now - in fact I prefer the window sets in DP - you can have loads of them- and they can even pull up things like audio suite - Can't do that in protools - so if I want to reverse a clip - or print an eq - I can hit a window set and the plug in will appear where ever you set it to! Took a while to get this set up - but can be a productivity booster!

the tracks overview is great! and you can use it like the universe window and even perform edits in there!

Proklaim Recording · Post by **Proklaim Recording** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:38 am

But I'm happy working in DP now - in fact I prefer the window sets in DP - you can have loads of them- and they can even pull up things like audio suite - Can't do that in protools - so if I want to reverse a clip - or print an eq - I can hit a window set and the plug in will appear where ever you set it to! Took a while to get this set up - but can be a productivity booster!

Hello Martian,
Are you saying that you can add an eq plugin to a track, and with the plugin open set a window set that has the plugin on top of the other windows and then recall that later with a key stroke? Will it recall from the same track and same plugin I guess? So do I need to set up a window set for each track and plugin I want to access? I guess I am not sure what you are really doing here, but is sounds really nice to bring up a plugin pretty quick to edit.... I have been useing DP for a little over a year but I use it mainly straight forward and have not dove into some of the nicer hidden things yet but am starting to do that more and I am really seeing that there is a LOT more to DP than first meets the eye!

Thanks
PR

martian · Post by **martian** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:30 am

not exactly.

I can bring up the audiosuit pluggin- maybe reverse or eq is a good example - which u might have a preset saved in which would render to disk. IE if I have a soundbite I want to reverse, I select it and hit a key which calls up a window set which happens to have the audio suite plug in reverse on top.

process is veery fast!!!

select clip with right hand - do the key stroke with left hand and simultaneously move mouse to where the process key will appear.... or select a clip and recall the eq plug in to render. I think the EQ is always applied to the original soundbite - like the timestretch is always applied to original soundbite - not the bit you stretched 5 mins ago but need to restretch -

unlesss ofcourse you render it to disk with merge soundbites or bounce...

You will go thro a phase of getting the basic window sets right for you - then you will refine them to include these kind of jobs - oh I wished there was an ammend/edit window set to make it a bit easier. making them and then delting them is annoying!!!!

You might wish to investigate the clippings window to do what u want to do. here you may drag several pluggin and settings to a folder on say your desktop -u may drag those back to a channel strip - I have one which has an EQ and a compressor and a trim -I tend to do a lot of documentary mixing and this is my basic VO channel strip.

this is probably not the bst time for me to clarify this as it's like 3am here and after had a tinny or 2.......

desolation row · Post by **desolation row** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 7:49 pm

Hey Martian,

Thanks for the encouragement! I've made a small handful of custom window sets and they have made life easier. I definitely need to do more of that sort of thing. To me the available depth of DP fits somewhere in the "blessing and curse" continuum. It's a "blessing" just because it's there, the "curse" is that it takes time to dig down into it

. But I'm going to take your advice and go further in. The possibilities are almost overwhelming at first...

But what about the default stuff? Another example that I thought of is that sessions always open with bars and beats in the counter. Not that big of a deal to change it to minutes and seconds but if I could get it to open up that way I would. I've been through the prefs. Maybe I'm misssing something?...

It's funny, yesterday I was setting up a PT session and I was naming tracks and all of a sudden I was annoyed that I had to double click each one! It made me laugh. I had never even thought about it before. Definitely hadn't considered it a "problem" or anything. So funny...

Thanks again!

Best,

martian · Post by **martian** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:55 pm

i think it's a bug - it used to open up in what ever you timecode view you left it in.... because yes that has been bugging me recently

Of course in PT you may set up a session and then in th eOS use it as a stationary pad. ( get info on it and then click use as stationary pad - and lock it - this way when you open it it will automatically ask you if you want to make a new sessio from it)

In DP you may save things as templates which might also save you time - and they would have EQ's bundles etc all set and ready to go.

I guess when naming things in protool you can click on the next button - I like the arrow keys for prev and next in DP.

willtompkins · Post by **willtompkins** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:16 pm

The OMF format is old and outdated; originally developed for communication between Avid systems and Pro Tools. This would explain many users' problems importing/exporting with other applications. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. The new AAF format is supposedly more stable and widely compatible, although I have no working experience with it.

By the way, if anyone would like my Pro Tools command bindings for DP, feel free to let me know. I spent quite a few days a while back porting as many Pro Tools key commands to similar offerings in DP 4.6.

-Will

martian · Post by **martian** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:03 pm

hi will

if you could email me them me or place them on a webpage somewhere?

I'd be happy to have a look at them!!

incidentally if you are serious about using OMF's in a commerical stidio - then there are utilities like AVtransfer which will take in almost every OMF permutation possible and conform it to a different output standard.

It also does a few more things.... www.avtransfer.net

5 or 6 hundred bucks tho....

willtompkins · Post by **willtompkins** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:44 am

Hey Martian,

I checked out AV Transfer. Seemed like a kind of cool app until I realized it's Windows only and costs $800! I started thinking that it could be a cheaper option than DigiTranslator/DV Toolkit since it says it can read the PT session format (not sure about anything other than v5 though), but this is an additional "plugin" for the app which costs $350! I guess if it corrects OMFI errors though upon import/export then it's worth it.

Drop me an email and I'll send the key bindings to you.