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i've got someone trying to give me files as OMF made originally in sonar. i've got an OMF file, and then a folder with all the audio pieces in it. i tried dragging the OMF file into chunks window and then clicking on it there, but all my audio is blanked out..i don't know how to get the audio files recognized in this new chunk. also, if i close this song up and re-open it up, it crashes DP. any ideas?


wes@polysound.com

I'm not familiar with OMF, but sometimes audio that has not been translated to the right bit depth and sample rate will display and won't play. It is a quick check, go to the soundbties window [shift-b], and check to see what the sample rate is. You can select it and use the mini-menu to translate the format. Probably not it, just a guess.

It matters a great deal what version of Sonar and what version of DP. Both programs have gotten better over the years regarding OMF import/export.

My songwriting partner and I wasted much time with OMF a few years back, but he never got beyond Sonar 2 or Sonar 3 as his first baby came along and he also didn't have a chance beforehand to upgrade (we were in the middle of the album project and like most people he won't make a change at such a critical juncture). I think I was on DP 4.5 at the time.

There were some threads on OMF a couple of months back; you might want to hunt them down. Some Best Practices were discussed, and some pitfalls. I printed it out but don't have it at hand.

We now exchange audio files directly instead, and he zeroes all of his tracks in Sonar first. This is foolproof (you might also need a MIDI track separately, in SMF1 format, if there's any MIDI in the project), and is better for archiving anyway, but does lose some project-level details and settings (to find out exactly what contextual information is lost via the "direct" vs. OMF approach, consult the earlier thread -- it may or may not matter to you -- especially if the MIDI file has track markers).

I think I remember our most recent try at OMF being more successful, even though he hasn't upgraded Sonar, as I used that earlier thread to specifically instruct him on how to do his export in Sonar. This would have been within the past year, using DP 5.13 for import. So maybe that OMF interchange thread is older than I thought.

there has to be some kind of protocol for getting the audio into the song..i create a new song, then drag the OMF file into the chunks window and then clik on this new chunk..at this point the audio files are not in the soundbites window yet, so i can understand why they are blanked out..dp doesn't know yet where the audio is. do i create a new song, import the audio into the soundbites window, and then do something with the OMF file? there has to be some other step other than just drag n drop the OMF file..help!! i'm getting the tracks from someone who would rather not be giving them to me..the client got tired of this dude not showing up for sessions, so they pulled the plug on that studio, and moved it to mine. i'm not aware that this song has any MIDI info in it..he didn't include a MIDI file. and i didn't plan on using any MIDI anyway..could it be a tempo setting issue?


wes@polysound.com

"not going to DP 6 anytime soon.."

I think the tempo is embedded in the audio files, to the extent that it is steady (which it may not be). At least, this has been my experience with certain projects. As I don't need to pay attention to this on most projects (due to a MIDI conductor track on most of them), I haven't really delved into whether this is the case with all OMF or not.

I haven't imported OMF in awhile now, so forget whether it was best done via chunks or import. I seem to recall being more successful doing an import vs. drag-and-drop though. I do know I was successful in getting all the audio to line up and sync up correcty, but unfortunately this may be of no help to you because it is probably more a reflection on what my partner did in Sonar at export time.

It is too bad you are stuck with such a situation where there is a non-cooperative client at the origin of that OMF process. I wish you luck. If anything occurs to me during some session work today, I'll repost. I'm organising some messy past work today, so may come across something relevant (such as my writeup on OMF Best Practices :_)).