Pro Tools Session Archiving

http://www.audiogeekzine.com

This week I'm going to explain what you need to do in order to properly export a Pro Tools session to back it up or to send to someone else.

Open PT and push Ctrl/Command O and select the session you want to archive.

So everything looks nice and organized fit all the tracks to the screen and Alt/Option A to view the entire session.

You may want to consolidate any regions that are chopped up, or anything that doesn't start at the same time as the other tracks. This will also allow you to take the audio files and mix in another DAW. To do this select from the start of the session to the end of the region and use the hotkey Shift Alt/Option 3 to consolidate the track. This will create a new audio file, any fades will be written to the file, effects will not be however. If you are sending this to someone else this is a really good thing to do.

Next you will want to remove unused regions and audio files from the session. Go to the region list (right side panel) and Ctrl/Command Shift U to select the unused regions. Ctrl/Command Shift B will bring up the Clear Regions dialog. You want to remove only. This will minimize the amount of files that need to be copied.

So now comes the part where you save it to a new location. Push Ctrl/Command 2 to verify the session sample rate and depth. Go to File, Save Copy In...

Save Copy In

Note that the Session Parameters should be the same as the current session. In items to copy you MUST click All Audio Files. You don't have to click Don't copy fades files, but it makes the saved session smaller, and missing fades are recreated on opening anyway. Saving the session plugin folder is a good idea if you saved anything to it during the mix, you should have. Keep Copy Of on the file name to indicate this is not the original session. Make sure you are saving to a different drive than the one you are working off of, remember you want your backups on a different drive always. The exception would be if you are saving the session to burn to a DVD. Optionally, you may want to add the date to the file name as well.

Click Save and it will begin writing everything to the new location. This can take a while depending on the size of the session and computer speed.

Thats it. Now that you know how to do it there is no reason not to do this regularly.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Pro
• Tools
• session
• archive
• backup
• mixing
• digidesign
• audiogeekzine

[sjdtte]

so is this how you make your pro tools song into a mp3 format?

[audiogeekzine]

@sjdtte no, that would be the Bounce To Disk function.

This video is on archiving.

[KriegerDesHasses]

An easier method would be to simply go to File > Save Copy in > Click All Audio Files > Save... rather than going through all of this mess...

[audiogeekzine]

@KriegerDesHasses Not the same thing.

That will copy all the unused files in the Audio Files folder, even the ones not actually used in the session.

Consolidated wav files is the only foolproof archiving format. With this method shown in the video you can open the files time aligned in any DAW years later, not just Pro Tools.

[KriegerDesHasses]

@audiogeekzine It would still open the files up in PT, so I fail to see the problem. I could fix the time alignment within minutes.

[audiogeekzine]

@KriegerDesHasses Believe it or not, Pro Tools isn't the only DAW out there. I use Pro Tools every day but no one knows if it will still be around even a year from now.

As a professional engineer this is how I expect sessions to be brought to me. This also follows the NARAS guidelines.

How exactly would you time align possibly hundreds of audio files in minutes? Post a video response.

My current mix has 518 audio files, that's just 1 song! If I consolidated each track there would be about 50

[joshbaezmusic]

So, so, so goddamn helpful. You are a saint.

[jcche19]

Great Video men! Thanks a Lot! ... i just clicked your ads lol

[XXXO333]

does this save the audio files as if they were to run through the master fader, like if i had a compressor and limiter on the master track would it save the file running through that.. or is it just the dry audio that saves. thanks

[Pvtchrislee07]

i have a question my buddy sent me a session and his vocals that were collabing on is in the same folder and its hard for me to find the left channel and right channel vocals cause there not right next to each other is there a faster or better way i can put only his vocals in a folder and import them and the session

[khushalbhadra]

But after consolidation how to export all the tracks individually to take it to another DAW?

[BabexayLorinaaa552]

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[gwb911]

in logic u can select unused audio files > delete selected files. then the remaining files u can destructively crop to only keep on disc the parts of each sound file used in the audio regions. why do u want ur sound files bigger for ARCHIVING??? to export to other daw's is called making stems... g33k on that...

[shrivibhu]

guyss Pls use cubase 5..

it is very easy and useful!!

[eorroxsox]

I'm having so much trouble with live lite from ableton, which is just a form of pro tools. the level meeter isnt showing anything. does anyone know how to fix it?