Need Pro Tools help...

[AdamWathan]

So I'm doing some drum editing and the session I was sent is a mess, tracks are all cut up and edited INDEPENDENT of each other so there are tons of flams and I have NO idea which regions are actually part of the same take...

I just want to somehow find the regions that match each other for each track so I can try and put this back into a workable state that I can edit from. Is there anyway to find which audio files match each other (ie. part of the same take?) Like if I have a tom region, I want to find the kick, snare and overheads that were recorded during the same pass...

This is a nightmare

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

if all the kit was recorded at once, probably that the numbers besides your track's name in the region list will match for the same take.
Otherwise, I don't really see a way to match them...what kind of person that loves his music goes editing that way? If he thought it's save you time, it's a major fail right there

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Hasn't the original engineer kept the original playlists?

If he hasn't and it really is as bad as a mess as it sounds like, honestly I'd tell the client you can't work with the files you got, but you would gladly a) accept the original, un-edited takes and charge for editing b) ditch the drum takes and program the drums and charge for the programming.

 

[AdamWathan]

This is what I'm working with for example...

Notice here the top kick track is edited in a ton of places that the rest of the tracks aren't... Past the last edit I now have no idea if that is take for the kick is the one that matches the rest of the kit...

Here, the rest of the kit gets punched in but the kick take keeps going, clearly that doesn't match...

Here the kick trigger track switches to a different take but nothing else does...

And here you can see FOUR punch ins for the top half of the kit but one kick take plays under all of it?

Ugh what the fuck am I supposed to do with this? If I try and work with this it's going to sound like a flammy piece of shit and then all of a sudden I'm the one who looks like they don't know what they're doing... So frustrating trying to edit the uneditable.

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

Are you sure the guy didn't simple copy/paste the same parts over and over? Maybe if he wasn't on a 1-bar grid, or something like that, it could have led to this mess

But looking at ti, so far I'd say OH-08-07-L is the same take as Snare-08-07, and so on...
I don't really think there's an other way to sort this out.
I'd like to hear it if there is, tho!

 

[AdamWathan]

To top it off too, the region names don't match. Like the tom 2 take that DOES match with tom 1, is called tom2-17 while the tom 1 take is tom1-18. And all the kick takes start in the 30+ number range while everything else is lower.

 

[amarshism]

Maybe he tracked the kicks separately? I dunno. Whenever I'm in doubt, I listen to the room mic.

 

[pipaguapique]

dang dude!! you're in a bit of a pickle aren't you? that looks impossible. I really dont know how to help you on this one, i agree with amarshism and listen to the overheads or room mic. but still. If you pull this one off, you should charge 1000 dollars.

 

[AdamWathan]

Alright I think I have it figured out, don't know why I didn't think of this before but I just opened the Audio Files folder and sorted it by size.. It looks like there is a file for each mic for all takes, I'll just have to rebuild the session that way from scratch.

 

[::XeS::]

Yeah exactly....PT saves every fuckin' take and little piece of track.
Anyway it's not unusual that tracks have different names....if for example you consolidate tom1 and not tom2, tom 1 will have a superior number.

 

[AdamWathan]

Alright another question, see the tempo marker with the red diamond next to it? I don't know what it means, but it screws everything up when I try and export a midi track with the tempo embedded. That red diamond should be at the very beginning of the song for the tempo map to export correctly. I can't even re-import the midi into a new Pro Tools session and get the right tempo information, let alone dump it into Reaper haha...

Is there a way to tell PT to make the initial tempo marker the "start" or whatever that red diamond signifies, without rearranging everything or fucking anything up?

 

[AEL89]

what tool edited something that badly?! Maybe try:

save copy in, select unused regions except whole files, clear... that should get rid of a lot of stuff.

 

[::XeS::]

That diamond in that position is very weird...I mean, it's usually at the start (1|1|000)...if I drag it to the right, all the tracks are dragged forward with it.
It seems it's used like a tempo change but it's absurd...it's the start..tempo changes should be added simply like the others in the picture

 

[AdamWathan]

I just ended up placing a memory location at each tempo marker named the BPM that was there, dragging the red thing back to the start with everything set to samples so no audio moved, then readding all the tempo markers using the memory locations for reference :/ tedious but it's done.

Also rebuilt the whole session using the raw files from my hard drive but there were still 3 sections where the kick mic wasn't armed or something. Have the trigger track though so whatever.

 

[Strachan of D]

what i would have done is for the tempo maping isssue would be to start from scratch tempo maping every 4 bars using the identifing beat then comparing it with the click .

btw next time i would suggest using the region list select all unused file then scroll down to delete/remove to keep the session clean

 

[AdamWathan]

what i would have done is for the tempo maping isssue would be to start from scratch tempo maping every 4 bars using the identifing beat then comparing it with the click .

Would've been a waste of time, I already had all the tempos, just couldn't export them properly. Was a lot faster to just re-add 6 tempo markers than to tempo map the entire song 4 bars at a time using Identify Beat

btw next time i would suggest using the region list select all unused file then scroll down to delete/remove to keep the session clean

Problem was that some of those "unused" regions I actually needed, they weren't on the timeline because they had been replaced with a mismatched take. I just needed to find the complete matching set of files for every section that was punched in, no way to do it within PT, just had to compare file sizes and time stamps.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

not as bad as it looks, I had to work with WAY worse tracks..at least these aren't consolidated.
looks like te takes (except for the kick) are from the same take=VERY GOOD.
just group them and drag the boundaries left/right to find the perfect place for the comping/transition.

ignore the kick and do it seperately.

done

 

[C_F_H_13]

Jesus christ what a god damned mess.

I'd do what lasse suggested, or if you're really anal, I'd use spot mod and respot every single region.