Will your multitrack recordings be playable a year from now?
You spent a week recording your best and finest track. It took a year to get a label to accept it. But they want a remix and your multitrack won't play. What do you do?
Follow RecordProducer.com on Twitter...
Here is the scenario... You record your song using the fantastic ProLogicBaseWalk software that everyone is using at the moment. You make a mix and print some demo CDs.
You play your demo to everyone you can get hold of. It takes a while, more than a year, but finally you find a label that wants to release your track.
The problem though is that they don't like your mix. They want to get someone else to produce a killer mix that will sound great on radio and sell hundreds of thousands of copies.
So you send your tracks to the top mix engineer that the label has selected.
The trouble is that things have moved on and ProLogicBaseWalk is now out of favor. Everyone is using ProCuCakeTools and it won't play ProLogicBaseWalk sessions. The mix engineer has absolutely no interest in using your software to mix the track and pulls out. The label can't be bothered so they lose interest and drop the entire project.
OK, back to the real world. You can't open a Pro Tools session in Logic Pro; you can't open a Logic Pro session in Cubase; you can't open a Cubase session in Cakewalk Sonar and you can't open a Cakewalk Sonar session in Pro Tools. The eternal circle of audio life...
So if you want to transfer your multitrack recording to another system you have a problem.
There is of course the ambitious OMFI format which aims to provide a common medium for interchange between systems. Yes it does work up to a point, but different systems don't have the same plug-ins and software instruments.
Even two systems using the same basic recording software might not be able to exchange sessions fully.
In fact, if you have upgraded your own system, you might not even be able to play your own tracks successfully!
Clearly then it is vital to be able to store your work in a multitrack format that is playable by others, and in the future.
And by the way, having recently been in receipt of multitrack recordings that were fiendishly difficult to get to play properly, I speak from personal and bitter experience.
So what is the answer?
Three simple letters... WAV
Thankfully there is one audio format that every recording software can play, and that is the ubiquitous .WAV
.WAV is not a multitrack format, so you can't store a whole session as a WAV file.
What you can do however is convert each individual track into a continuous WAV file starting at the beginning of the song and going all the way to the end.
Even if a track doesn't start until the second-last bar, you must convert it to a WAV starting at the beginning of the song.
Then you can send your WAV files to whoever on DVD-ROM and they will be able to import them easily into their system of choice. And they will sound identical to the way you heard them.
Now, there is a little problem here...
Think about the bass guitar track going through EQ and compression plug-ins. That can easily be converted to a mono WAV file incorporating the plug-ins.
But what about the vocal that has reverb added to it using an auxiliary send and return? Should that be exported as a mono file without reverb, or as a stereo file including the reverb?
My inclination would be to export everything including insert plug-ins, but not include bus effects such as reverb.
The exported session wouldn't sound exactly as it was mixed, but each individual instrument and voice would be fully intact.
Clearly there is a lot to think about. But if at least you save your individual tracks as continuous WAV files, then your work is a lot more future-proof than it would be stored in the native format of your DAW.
Publication date Tuesday May 26, 2009
(You can unsubscribe quickly and easily.)
Discussion on this article's topic...
Saturday May 29, 2010
Monday March 22, 2010
Wednesday February 17, 2010
Wednesday February 17, 2010
Unlimited tracks in digital, no?
Monday February 15, 2010
Thursday February 04, 2010
UPDATE - Posting of comments has been disabled. RecordProducer.com has been targeted by a botnet posting spam comments. The facility to post comments will return when this problem has been resolved.
We welcome your addition to the discussion on the topic of this article. If you feel that the article is inaccurate in any way, please let us know by e-mail at . We read all messages sent to this address but we cannot promise a reply.
 |
While the iPad might be something less than a computer, it is definitely something more than many of the other computer-like devices in our lives. Read more... |
 |
A throwaway line in a mid-song flute solo has cost the writers of 'Down Under' dearly. A court judgment means they must now hand over their royalties. But there's good news too... Read more... |
 |
Vintage Neumann M49 microphones don't often come up for sale, but there's one on eBay right now. And there are lots of lovely photographs (drool!)... Read more... |
 |
Anyone still using pre-2005 software? Pre-2000?? Pre-1995??? Can anyone go back even further than that? Read more... |
 |
Whoever designs microphones clearly thinks that they all should be microphone-shaped. But isn't it about time we had something more appropriate to the way we use them? Read more... |
 |
It's exciting for a school to have a music recording studio installed. But getting it working and keeping it working are often two very different things. Read more... |
 |
As Roger Waters of Pink Floyd once said, "It doesn't have to be loud. We just like it loud." Well, some people would like it even louder. Is this possible? Read more... |
 |
You've tried all the usual microphones and are tired of their sound? Why not try something that is really over the edge... Read more... |
 |
Sony has just released a 70-disc set of CDs. Some discs last less than 30 minutes. Some recordings are exact duplicates. Are you one of the people who has no option but to buy it? Read more... |
 |
Your college tutors don't work in the real world, so how can they possibly assess you by real-world criteria? Read more... |
 |
It is often thought that you should master a mix so that it sounds as loud as possible. But for some markets, this could ruin your chances of selling your music. Read more... |
 |
An RP reader who is already a pro recording engineer wants to become a (highly paid) mix engineer. How can he achieve this? Read more... |
 |
You don't need years of music theory training to write for an orchestra. If the sounds are in your head, technology can get them out. Read more... |
 |
Your mic might be cardioid, omnidirectional, figure-of-eight or hypercardioid, but what difference will it make to your recording? Read more... |
 |
An RP reader asks whether he can record on his workstation and then export tracks to his computer for editing and mixing. Why would he want to do that...? Read more... |
 |
An RP reader has worked out an interesting way of connecting his compressor. Will it work? Or is something going to blow? Read more... |
 |
Having trouble with your recordings? It could be that your preamp simply doesn't have enough frequencies! Read more... |
 |
The ADK A-48 Vintage Valve microphone features no fewer than nine polar patterns. Is this overkill, or the ultimate in fine tuning? Read more... |
 |
An RP visitor asks how he would record a symphony orchestra. Does it need sixty microphones? Or could you do it with two? Read more... |
 |
You are running tons of plug-ins and your computer is running out of steam. How can you lighten the load AND use as many plug-ins as you like? Read more... |
