Tips & Tricks

Sharing Pro Tools Sessions

Here are a few tips engineer Dave Albro placed on the DUC site about ways to share Pro Tools sessions with another artist:

1. Lose all the unwanted audio and "Save session copy as" and simply email (if its a small enough file).

2. Burn a session copy onto a CD or DVD and mail or FedEx.

3. Create a session on a firewire drive and FedEx the drive back and forth.

4. Upload the session copy to an FTP site and your collaborator can download it.

5. Bounce your tracks to a stereo pair (starting from time zero) and email the stereo file with a note about tempo (bpm). The collaborator can import the rough mix into a new session, set the same tempo (bpm) and go. Then he can send you the new audio for you to import into your session (make sure they consolidate all tracks back to zero so they line up when you import).

If your partner is using the same platform (PC or MAC) it will be simple. If you are switching platforms, you need to ensure that the "enforce MAC/PC compatibilty" box is checked. It will also help if both systems are using the same version of Pro Tools or at least similar (i.e. 6.4 on one rig and 6.9 on the other). It will also help if both parties have the same plug-in packages or don't use any fancy stuff until you have all your tracks recorded and are ready to mix. (not really a big deal, but it saves getting the messages about missing plug-ins).