This is all stemming from a thread in the off topic section about how notes saved my ass from some idiots. People seemed interested in how I do all this, so here's the first part of that.... I'll be adding to this throughout the week to this as my session duties right now are wait to be handed files...so here it is...
Here's an outline of how I do everything. I really find organization to be the only way to work in this business cause there's so much information that gets lost. I work in PT HD which is important for some of these steps.
SESSION RELATED STUFF
Session Layout:
Ok first things first. My sessions are always consolidated from bar one. By the time I get to the mixing process, everything edited and consolidated and every single edit is made. I mean every single one. No flying vocals, no adding parts nothing...it's all done. Every AUDIO REGION has the same labelling scheme, which uses one of the following symbol/title layouts, which are producer specific. Heres some examples.
KICK IN
∞KICK IN
§KICK IN
The weird icons are so that me and whomever I'm working with know that the region they are looking at has already been edited and finalized. I also open up the audio files folder and color code all "final" tracks RED. I'll explain why later.
Once all the regions are named specifically, I name every track with a specific layout. Basically it's that no track has more the 6 letters thing that I know fredmann tries to get people to do. You might be asking yourself how can you label everything with 6 letters and get enough information? Well whenever I save a final session, I have the comments panel open which has the full track name and a brief explanation of what it is if required. Here's an example. STUFF IN BRACKETS IS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.
WMY GTR "WHAMMY PEDAL GUITAR-whammy part added to final Chorus"
Ok so all my tracks are labeled, I add some info to the "GET INFO" tab under the File Menu. In this area I put:
INFO #1-BAND NAME/SONG TITLE
INFO #2-PROJECT START DATE/ STUDIO NAME
INFO #3-PROJECT END DATE/ STUDIO NAME
INFO #4-ASSISTANT/EDITORS NAMES (even if it's my own)
INFO #5-PRODUCER/ENGINEER NAMES (even if it's my own)
Session Archiving/Mix Prints
Ok so you got consolidated audio, you got properly labeled tracks with appropriate comments, you have pertinent song information. Now you gotta send it off to a label/band/the garbage whatever. Here's the steps I follow.
1. Figure out delivery method. I generally have the band purchase 2 firewire drives and use those. I hate DVDs, I hate online servers, and I hate pretty much anything other then drives. DVDs are cool for 1 song, but a whole album fuck that noise. the good thing about drives is you can keep one in case customs/fedex/ups/ fucks your package up, or some random mix assistant plugs the wrong power supply into your drive and fries it (yep that happened for real).
2. Make a folder that says "BAND NAME". Make another inside that one that says "ALBUM NAME".
3. At this point switch back to Pro Tools, Deleted unused regions and playlists, remove excess tracks, click tracks, master faders, auxs, VCAs, whatever is non essential and save session copy as each song INDIVIDUALLY. DON'T FORGET THE AUDIO FILES. Dummy check please, it's important, and please for the love of god label consistently. For me I just use: "SONG NAME". No point in putting "mix print" or "final" IMO. Others will disagree but that's just how I roll. After you've copied the Pro Tools data/audio files, I'd also recommend you export a midi file so they have a tempo map in case your mixer/remix/label retard wants to remix it in any other daw I generally label this midi file "SONG NAME TEMPO MAP" . Because I consolidated all the audio files( and marked them in red) you can just open everything in the audio files bin and import it into Cubase or whatever.
4. Once you have your albums worth of session files, all labeled and laid out properly, with midi tempo files, I make a simple text doc I include in the main "ALBUM NAME" folder. This document is called "SESSION INFO" has the following included:
-BAND/ALBUM/SONG TITLES
-EACH SONGS APPROX. LENGTH
-SONGWRITER SPLITS (IF NECESSARY)
-STUDIO(S) IT WAS TRACKED AT
-RUNNERS/ASSISTANTS/EDITORS/ENGINEERS/PRODUCERS/SESSION PLAYERS/BAND MEMBERS NAMES
If it's going to a mixer I also include another document called "MIX INFORMATION". This generally just includes the following:
-BAND/ALBUM/SONG TITLES
-EACH SONGS APPROX. LENGTH
-SAMPLE RATE/BIT DEPTH/ FILE FORMAT
-DAW USED/CLOCK USED (IF APPLICABLE)
-ANY SPECIFIC MIX NOTES (EXAMPLE-Singer says "cunt fucker" in song "AAA". Please make a clean version)
-A NOTE THAT SAYS "ALL AUDIO FILES IN RED ARE CONSOLIDATED FROM BAR 0"
5. Once all this is done, Do a manual copy or use Syncronize or some other file copying/archiving software to copy all of this in its entirety to the other drive.
6. Once you've copied everything, take a screen shot of the finder window showing what's on each drive (I generally go vertical list, and show each folder open down to the song title folders). Print those out, fold nicely and tape to the drives. I actually took this a set further and got some plastic slip envelopes that are sticky. I just paste em on the drive with the notes folded inside. This way someone doesn't need to open the drive to see what's in it.
Here's an outline of how I do everything. I really find organization to be the only way to work in this business cause there's so much information that gets lost. I work in PT HD which is important for some of these steps.
SESSION RELATED STUFF
Session Layout:
Ok first things first. My sessions are always consolidated from bar one. By the time I get to the mixing process, everything edited and consolidated and every single edit is made. I mean every single one. No flying vocals, no adding parts nothing...it's all done. Every AUDIO REGION has the same labelling scheme, which uses one of the following symbol/title layouts, which are producer specific. Heres some examples.
KICK IN
∞KICK IN
§KICK IN
The weird icons are so that me and whomever I'm working with know that the region they are looking at has already been edited and finalized. I also open up the audio files folder and color code all "final" tracks RED. I'll explain why later.
Once all the regions are named specifically, I name every track with a specific layout. Basically it's that no track has more the 6 letters thing that I know fredmann tries to get people to do. You might be asking yourself how can you label everything with 6 letters and get enough information? Well whenever I save a final session, I have the comments panel open which has the full track name and a brief explanation of what it is if required. Here's an example. STUFF IN BRACKETS IS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.
WMY GTR "WHAMMY PEDAL GUITAR-whammy part added to final Chorus"
Ok so all my tracks are labeled, I add some info to the "GET INFO" tab under the File Menu. In this area I put:
INFO #1-BAND NAME/SONG TITLE
INFO #2-PROJECT START DATE/ STUDIO NAME
INFO #3-PROJECT END DATE/ STUDIO NAME
INFO #4-ASSISTANT/EDITORS NAMES (even if it's my own)
INFO #5-PRODUCER/ENGINEER NAMES (even if it's my own)
Session Archiving/Mix Prints
Ok so you got consolidated audio, you got properly labeled tracks with appropriate comments, you have pertinent song information. Now you gotta send it off to a label/band/the garbage whatever. Here's the steps I follow.
1. Figure out delivery method. I generally have the band purchase 2 firewire drives and use those. I hate DVDs, I hate online servers, and I hate pretty much anything other then drives. DVDs are cool for 1 song, but a whole album fuck that noise. the good thing about drives is you can keep one in case customs/fedex/ups/ fucks your package up, or some random mix assistant plugs the wrong power supply into your drive and fries it (yep that happened for real).
2. Make a folder that says "BAND NAME". Make another inside that one that says "ALBUM NAME".
3. At this point switch back to Pro Tools, Deleted unused regions and playlists, remove excess tracks, click tracks, master faders, auxs, VCAs, whatever is non essential and save session copy as each song INDIVIDUALLY. DON'T FORGET THE AUDIO FILES. Dummy check please, it's important, and please for the love of god label consistently. For me I just use: "SONG NAME". No point in putting "mix print" or "final" IMO. Others will disagree but that's just how I roll. After you've copied the Pro Tools data/audio files, I'd also recommend you export a midi file so they have a tempo map in case your mixer/remix/label retard wants to remix it in any other daw I generally label this midi file "SONG NAME TEMPO MAP" . Because I consolidated all the audio files( and marked them in red) you can just open everything in the audio files bin and import it into Cubase or whatever.
4. Once you have your albums worth of session files, all labeled and laid out properly, with midi tempo files, I make a simple text doc I include in the main "ALBUM NAME" folder. This document is called "SESSION INFO" has the following included:
-BAND/ALBUM/SONG TITLES
-EACH SONGS APPROX. LENGTH
-SONGWRITER SPLITS (IF NECESSARY)
-STUDIO(S) IT WAS TRACKED AT
-RUNNERS/ASSISTANTS/EDITORS/ENGINEERS/PRODUCERS/SESSION PLAYERS/BAND MEMBERS NAMES
If it's going to a mixer I also include another document called "MIX INFORMATION". This generally just includes the following:
-BAND/ALBUM/SONG TITLES
-EACH SONGS APPROX. LENGTH
-SAMPLE RATE/BIT DEPTH/ FILE FORMAT
-DAW USED/CLOCK USED (IF APPLICABLE)
-ANY SPECIFIC MIX NOTES (EXAMPLE-Singer says "cunt fucker" in song "AAA". Please make a clean version)
-A NOTE THAT SAYS "ALL AUDIO FILES IN RED ARE CONSOLIDATED FROM BAR 0"
5. Once all this is done, Do a manual copy or use Syncronize or some other file copying/archiving software to copy all of this in its entirety to the other drive.
6. Once you've copied everything, take a screen shot of the finder window showing what's on each drive (I generally go vertical list, and show each folder open down to the song title folders). Print those out, fold nicely and tape to the drives. I actually took this a set further and got some plastic slip envelopes that are sticky. I just paste em on the drive with the notes folded inside. This way someone doesn't need to open the drive to see what's in it.
