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Author Ceri ThomasThoughts about"Gravity"October 6, 2013

If there is a better argument for thesuperiority of Dolby Atmos over otherformats including IMAX and Auro, we areyet to see it.

The Atmos mix saves what is actually a fairly mediocre movieand propels it to it another plain.

In spite of the opening title cards which state that (in effect) atthat point in space there is no oxygen to transmit sound, thedecision was made to fill whatever emptiness there was on wideshots with musical drones. This was the biggest disappointmentin the soundtrack. With such a compelling lack of space beingcreated within the disaster scenes and within the helmets, to


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then have the vastness of space filled with mundane droning wasa let down.

If you are going to see this movie then it MUST be in Atmos. Ifyou can't see it that way then don't bother. It's not a great moviebut it is rescued from itself by a wondrous and breathtakingdesign and mix job that fills the vacuous space (and storyline)with complexity and fear.

http://soundworkscollection.com/videos/gravity

I'm so looking forward to mixing in this format, it offers lots ofchallenges but that what I love about my jobfiguring outchallenges.

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Pro Tools 11released. What

Video Engine


Author Ceri Thomas

Tags avid, pro tools, protools

released. Whatdoes it do forPost?June 21, 2013

As we spend so much of our time looking at video, this is huge.The improvements in the video engine open up a massive world ofworkflow extensions. From the ability to use MXF based videofiles natively within Desktop Video or output via Blackmagic orAJA video interfaces to the fullscreen mode and native playbackof all quicktime formats without transcoding.

Metering!

The new default meters are Digital VU which match the System 5in ballistics and are a vast improvement over the Pro ToolsClassic meters (which are included for comfort). You can alsohave different metering on Master faders than on all other tracks ifyou so desire. My favorite aspect of the new metering is theOutput metering you can have in the Edit window toolbar, put afaux-5.1 bus into your session and send all your tracks to it andyoull have a Printmaster meter solution.

Audio Engine

The new Audio Engine is not just a new name, it is smaller andleaner than DAE ever was and with that comes bigger trackcounts with lower overhead.

Multiple Expanded Sends

For those TV (generalisation) mixing scenarios where you areusing sends to route your tracks rather than outputs the ability toexpand all of the sends out is huge. The downside is that youlose the track metering at this point but if you flip the faux 5.1bus onto the output paths then they come back. Its a


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workaround but it does work.

Faster than Real-Time Bounce

Want a backup for those virtual predubs? Knock them out infaster than real time. Try it once, youll love it.

More Metering!

Gain reduction Metering on every channel with a dynamicsprocessor inserted. This is awesome and the best part is that italso displays on each track in the edit window too.

More processing

The new audio engine allows many more intances of your favoriteplugins than ever before, the AAX2 format is tuned like one ofthose car engines you all love designing so much.

Summary

If you are still not sold then the only thing I can advise you to dois to download 10.3.6 and then install the PT11 demo. Ireasonably certain that your plugins wont all be available, butthat will change over the next few weeks and months but try it foryourself. Ill be posting some updated templates with PT11tweaks in the coming weeks. More to follow

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Author Ceri Thomas

Tags avid, pro tools, protools

Pro Tools 11released. Whatdoesn't it do?June 20, 2013

By now you have probably: Seen the announcement of PT11 fromNAB 2013, read countless blogs and reviews about the newfeatures and maybe even attended a pre-launch public demo withquestion and answer time.

Not a whole heap to add but heres the hit points.

64-bit memory space

32-bit float mix engine (yes they are different things)

New metering options including Gain Reduction metering

More undos for all the errors that you can make fasternow

More VIs can be used

New Audio Engine

New Video Engine


Faster than Realtime Bounce

and much more

But what doesnt it do? This is not a bash of Avid in anywayrather a way to quickly answer a lot of questions that begin withSo can you and end with yet?

1. So can youhave multiple video windowsyet?No, the new video engine is vastly improved in itsframework and has great features built into it like Draft andBest Performance video views as wel as Full Quality. Itcan have MXF based video files directly in the timeline aswell as a number of new and developing industry-supported formats such as OP1A. you can mirror yourpicture to Desktop Video and external hardware but youcant yet have two different videos displayed in yoursession windows.

2. So can youhave multiple sessions openyet?No, and actually in my humble opinion this is a goodthing. I know there are captivating reasons to be able to doit but I like the single session operation, I used to useLogic and this is one thing I definitely do not miss.

3. So can youhave bin/folders in the clip listyet?No. Id really love to have a compelling reason for this,


what exactly does the in paradigm add to your Pro Toolssession? Folders I can get on board with to a point but ifyou can convince me of bins please feel free to comment.The new workspace is a great start at a new databaseformat for the software, it is much faster in searching andindexing drives and the searching is great toodifferentbut great.

4. So can youfreeze tracksyet?No, not really although if you 1 to 1 your outputs to a deskthen you could offline bounce 16 of them at a time andreimport. Not the same I know but 4x16 track width offlinebounces will take less time than 1x64 track realtimebounce or rerecord pass.

5. So can youhave mulitple marker tracksyet?No, if you are importing from an media composer createdomf/aaf then youll be able to import the different markercolors from that file but you cant create different colormarkers or multiple marker tracks yet.

6. So can yourun VST pluginsyet?No. AAX2 is the one and only plugin format in Pro Tools11.

7. So can youhave clip based effects or panningyet? No. Clip based gain is the one man show of clip basedrealtime processing.

8. So can youcreate a folder of tracksyet?


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No.

9. So can youexport part of a sessionyet?No, Save Session Copy will do selected tracks onlythough. My workaround is to duplicate a set of tracks andthen top and tail the media needed. Shift+enter will selectto the start of the session from edit point, shift+alt+enterwill select to the end of the session from the edit selectionpoint. Ok, its a 5 step process but its called aworkaround

10. So can youSend to Avid after you crashyet?Yes, yes you can. If you crash it, report it. Help them helpyou people. Its free to submit a crash report and will helpthe product get more stable.

So there you have it. 10 quick answers to 10 questions I heardafter PT10 release. Now, quit reading and go install PT11. Youdont need to uninstall PT10 causethey co-install. Cant runsimultaneously but then who would want multiple sessions openat one time, right? Ohwait.

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Author Ceri Thomas

Tags ilok, pace, security

PACE iLok andthe case of thedisappearingassetsJune 17, 2013

Let me begin by saying that while I have been affected by thedismal effort that PACE, a company that effectively has theability to hold the entire (read: anyone that doesnt use someother form of copy protection) industry captive, has made intesting, communicating and solving the issues they created withtheir recent upgrade. I am lucky in that I do not rely on mypersonal iloks to make my living. I decided therefore to jump intothe fire with it and see what happened.

When the announcement was made that ilok.com would be downfor system upgrades for a whole weekend (June 8-9, 2013). Itwas clear to everyone that this was not your typical systemmaintenance that occurs in about an 8 hour timeframe. Pro ToolsExpert had given warning of such a few days prior in one of theirexclusives and promised theyd have more information and walkthroughs as and when they were allowed to post them.Something big was coming.

Monday 10, ilok.com had been revamped and a new and shinyilok License Manager had appeard for download. I, of course,downloaded and ran the program as soon as I was able to. Thenext event was perhaps the best case scenariothe process oflogging in failed.

The following few days were filled with reports of broken iloks,assets being changed to temporary licenses and generally asense of foreboding around the internet communities that I am apart of. These were met with continued promises from PACE thateverything was fine and that patience and trust was all that was


needed.

By Friday I was finally able to login to the ilok license managerand that was my biggest problem. Upon first login I was toldthere were 38 licenses on my primary ilok (84 on my account).Honestly I have no idea what the truth of any of those numbersare anymore. The system looked cool, various ways to movelicenses, redeem license codes etc everything you could do onilok.com before but now happening to be locally displayed.

I then tried launching an ilok authorised application, that Id justseen listed as on my ilok only to be told that I didnt haveauthorisation to run that application. That seemed very strange,Id just seen it. I opened the iLok License Manager again andwaited 30-40 minutes before being able to get back in. Once Iwas back in, my stomach dropped. 0 activations!

I immediately and without hesitation logged an RMA, becausethey dont have phones or email at PACE.

After a further period of time and trying to access the ilokmanagers sync/repair functionality, I decided to give up and runthe uninstaller that they provided in the disk image. Once theprocess was complete I tried launching the application that Icouldnt authorise before and it installed an older PACE driverthat allowed me access to the software and all the plugins I hadpreviously been told by PACE that I no longer had.

I went home for the weekend

Over the past few days there has been various serviceannouncements by PACE (on forums) and as their only response


to my RMA was a form email pleading with users that essentiallytheyve done better this time, they promise, please come backand try again.

If youre feeling lucky then go ahead and try their steps outlinedon the Known Issues page.

After two hours of trying and getting to the point where it finallygives up and blames a firewall issue I have been told that I have:5, 38, 41, 78 and 84 licenses on my ilok. I dont know what tobelieve, what I do know is that I can no longer access my izotopeplugins, my mcDSP plugins, my Avid Pro licenses.

As I stated at the beginning, I am lucky in that I do not rely onthese authorisations for my living. I would highly recommend toanyone that does

1 - Do not believe a word that comes from PACE2 - Do not sync, transfer or otherwise try to do anything to youriloks3 - Do not install the ilok License Manager

I am currently trying to connect to the license manager via mycell phone connection that definitely has no firewall and on mymac which also definitely has no firewall and still getting firewallerror messages from ilok.

I will continue to post updates as I can here, and will let youknow as soon as I can consistently get access to ilok Managerand my software. I am also sending a link to this post to theRMA support ticket that I havent yet received an answer to.


Update on 2013-06-17 21:10 by Ceri ThomasA successful session with ilok manager:

Times taken using Clock app on ipad.

1 - operation pre sign in (01:12.8)2 - sign in operation (03:42.2)3 - plugin ilok and reregister to account (01:29.5)4 - ilok with 5 auths sync repair (03:21.6)5 - unplug and put new ilok in (00:22.8)6 - allow to recognize and get advanced info up (00:09.3)7 - hit sync/repair and wait to see if it starts (02:50.2)8 - give up waiting for process to start and hit sync/repair again(00:29.8)9 - 41 authssync/repair starts, wait for operation to finish(05:57.7)10 - Move Dolby surround Tools from ilok 1 (07:07.3)11 - DST shows up on ilok 2 (00:40.0)

Connection Speed


Scary moment in step 3

Stopwatch Screenshots :

Step 1-6

Step 6-11


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Update on 2013-06-19 00:10 by Ceri ThomasSo I was able to rerun yesterdays 27minute marathon today in alittle over 90 seconds.

This included all but the 5 license sync/repair process.

Moving Dolby Surround tools back to my main ilok completedsuccessfully, quickly and with only 1 dialog box confirming thedeactivation and reactivation of the license.

If you have been having problems, then please try again now.

Good Job PACE, thank you for getting this working.

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Author Ceri Thomas

Pro Tools andBetterTouchTools- Gesture BasedEditingDecember 6, 2012

There are many different methods to speed up and alterworkflows in most DAWs. Keyboard Focus, Macro Keyboardsand Shortcuts, Control Surfaces and their respective macro keys.One that I utilise a fair amount is BetterTouchTools and theMagic Trackpad (or Laptop Trackpad). What I like about thiscombination is that it allows for many more controls to be utilisedon my laptop than would otherwise be easily accessible. I haveincluded a download of my basic set of commands some ofwhich work really well and others which will require a certainamount of training to get right consistently.

The thing to understand about this particular tool is that it mapsgestures to keybaord commands, so if it cant be done with akeyboard command then it cant be mapped (at least not that Ivefound). When used in conjunction with OS based keyboardcommands (I like ctrl+opt+command+o for I/O for example)then you can really customise your workflow and rarely have tomove from the modifier keys and the trackpad.

My basic command set is very basic: Change tools, Fade in/out,Increase/Decrease Waveform Size, Select Next/Previous regionetc but give a quick and simple start point for adding your own.

This workflow is definitely not for everyone, it takes some time toestablish what will and what wont work and youll find things thatdont work consistently. One such command was the Single Tap


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Author Ceri Thomas

Tags IO Setup, avid, pro tools

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Middle Bottom that Id set to be the select tool (F7) wasnttriggering on my laptop trackpad consistently so I duplicated itwith Single Tap Middle Top which smooths my interaction.

Download Materials (PDF Cheat Sheet and BTT Preset)

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The not so newbut still troublingI/O setupOctober 1, 2012

Its been so long now that I dont remember exactly when ithappened but at some point (I want to say PT8) Avid thenDigidesign changed the I/O Setup that wed known and loved andreplaced it with a new paradigm that many people still strugglewith. I am in no way claiming to be an expert in this and feel free torefute my information what follows is a walk through of whatworks for me and hopefully will guide you into your ownunderstanding of this new and wonderful world.

Where did we come from?

In versions prior to this change the I/O window was simple. Youhad your inputs, outputs and busses together with inserts andhardware delays. Outputs couldnt overlap each other, tracks fedbusses and everyone was happy. It was a system that worked


well and was solid, there were few if any problems.

So what did change and why?

As I said above this was a paradigm shift more about the way inwhich Pro Tools was being utilised than about any specificissues with the I/O. Large format mixers were being displaced(NOT REPLACED) by mixing in-the-box to one extent or anotherand therefore the output page became less important after all youonly had a certain number of monitors no matter what you weredoing. At that point even if not physically printing stems withinyour session you were probably mixing in stems for processing.

Take for example the FX demo template I posted here. It has anumber of sets of audio tracks, feeding busses which feed auxtracks which output to physical outputs.

For editorial purposes youll probably be in a 5.1 cutting room sohere you could go one of two ways. Either you could set all of theAux tracks to output through your Cutting Room output path (domore than one using alt+shift while selecting output), or youcould use the new and powerful feature on the bus page of I/OSetup and Map your Aux Outs to your Cutting room 5.1.

Arent they the same thing?

Well yes but now lets assume that you are sending that sessionto your (large format) mix room. Your mixer has alreadyestablished that they will be working in 10 5.1 stems called FX A,B, C etc and so has built their console accordingly. Now insteadof doing the Ripple outputs dance (shift+alt+command) theyuncheck the box at the bottom of the I/O window that says


Sessions Overwrite I/O Setup and then remap your outputs fromthe Cutting Room to their 10, 5.1 outputs. Now instead of PTthrowing an error about dropped automation etc the I/O setupMaps to the mix stage outputs flawlessly.

So I should uncheck Sessions overwrite box?

Yes. Your monitoring is not changing right? Thats the key to thiswhole thing. Sessions that come to you will add busses as theyare required. The Sessions overwrite box relates purely to thehardware inputs and hardware outputs of your system.

If it doesnt work?

Fix it within the bus page. Pretty much everything that you willneed to do is done from the bus page at most (in fact 90% canbe done from the Edit/Mix windows)

Greater than and less than 5.1

Good point Ive used 5.1 as an example not the rule. Mapping isjust that though if Editorial has been done in 5.1 you can stillmap to a 7.1 output. Similarly if youve cut in Stereo/ SDDS thenthe mapping will do the magic in the background. That is not tosay youll be upmixing/downmixing between formats just that youno longer have to worry about a 5.0 to 5.1 etc.

What if I dont want to use aux tracks?

Then dont. The aux tracks as discussed allow for stemprocessing, group volume/panning etc if you dont need that thenyou can save yourself some track and bus count i.e. instead of


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Author Ceri Thomas

Tags ediload, microsoft, software,virtual katy

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FXA1 -> >FX A -> FX A> youd just have FXA1 -> FX A>.

I have more questions

Great. Feel free to post comment/drop me an email.

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Miscellany -Some thoughtsand tidbitsJune 19, 2012

Its been 5 months since I last wrote anything on this site. Myabsence has been multi-faceted.

1. Ive been busy and learning an awful lot

2. I like these thoughts to be my own thoughts and learningdoesnt necessarily rule that out but it also isnt easy tofilter other peoples ideas.

3. Various NDAs have made writing tough at times.

On with the Miscellany.

Virtual Katy - After a reorganisation on the business side VK


have released version 4 of their flagship product. VK 4 Premiumwhich now works with Pro Tools 10 and has been tweaked in itsconforming algorithms to improve speed and accuracy. Its nosecret that I am a big fan and am really pleased to see theproduct now operating on PT10 and look forward to developmentscontinuing.

Ediload - Mark at Sounds in Sync has released an incredibleupdate to his utility application which now creates a conformreference track for use with Pro Tools Field Recorder functionalityto assemble production sound rolls for editorial. First time I usedit its accuracy brought tears to my eyes. In my testing I neededto do very little nudging of the assembled material to bring it inline with the AAF material the one caveat is that it does rely onthe Pro Tools expansions, which are getting much better but canover-do the expansion when compared with Titan (Tip- Expandtracks before importing AAF materials). Clean up of theAssembled session is fairly quick once you get used to it andshould get better as PT improves this aspect of its functionality. The second impressive feature of this new version is its ability tobuild a change EDL from a conformed session. Why would I needthis? The way Ive taken to using it is in combination with VK. Illimport the guides and do a conform using VK, fix any problems,heal where appropriate etc and then import that into Ediload. Thisgives me the best of both worlds a kind of personal change listbut with the Project Management of VK.

The descent of Apple - If you follow me on Twitter then youllknow about a growing frustation with Apple over issues such ascustomer service, disregard for international customers, lack of


updates to Mac Pro, dumbing down in general. Am I suggestingthat they are going to disappear? Absolutely not but if theycontinue to irritate me they are in danger of losing at least onecustomer. Then yesterday (June 18th) something truly interestingappeared.

Microsoft Surface - A few years ago Microsoft first demonstrateda product called Surface it was about the size of one of theirphones ie coffee table sized. It had some tremendous features:Multi touch was the first, wireless transfer of files betweendevices that were layed on it amongst other things but it was acoffee table. If youre in London and want to see it in action makeyour way to HSBC/Barclays (?) in Piccadilly Circus where theyuse it for customer information. Yesterday they shrunk that to a couple of models oftablet/ultrabook. The RT model doesnt really interest me as itrequires specific apps to be written for it and Apple has thatmarket all but sewn up. The Pro version however will run standardWindows applications in addition to custom designed apps. Italso has an full USB port also known as an oh look I could putmy ilok there port. Pro Tools on a touch enabled tablet justslightly larger than an ipad? Sounds nice. Lets see how thisprogresses.

Oh yes, then there were Track Presets in Pro Tools which isexciting.

Thats all for now.


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Author Ceri Thomas

Tags adr, offers, software

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Edicue GroupBuy - ADRCueing SoftwareFebruary 23, 2012

Ive long been a fan of many of Mark Frankens Programs.Ediload is a go to tool for fixing all manner of issues with EDLsthat make both Titan conforms and VK autoconforms muchsmoother.

Mark has just launched a group buy for his ADR cueing softwareEdicue. Not being an ADR editor I havent had much call to usethe program in anger but when I have used it I have been deeplyimpressed. As of v2 he has added the ability to ingest a PDF ofthe shooting script and the program then analyses for Scenes,Characters, Lines etc. These can then be used to spot correctlyformatted region groups onto the PT timeline.

Tracking of cues across multiple versions has also beenimproved from v1. If you already use another ADR trackingprogram Edicue will probably be able to export to it (ADRManager, Filemaker etc.)

At time of writing the cost is $540 US but as with all group buysthis figure decresases as more people come on board. Currentlisted discounts go to $300 which would be an absolute steal forthis program.

Cost of entry to group buy is $120 and upon completion (March


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Author Ceri Thomas

Tags audio, mixing, neyrinck

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23rd) coupons will be sent out for you to complete the purchaseby making up the difference.

Edicue Group Buy

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Neyrinck V-Control Pro 1.5 -iPad control ofDAW'sand theirwindows!January 23, 2012

Ive written about V-Control before, its a virtual control surface forvarious DAW applications including Pro Tools, Logic andCubase. Version 1.5 has added a great new feature called V-Window that allows you to directly control any window (plugin,floating panel, edit etc) directly on your iPad.

If you have an iPad and are looking for a control surface then at$50 this is a steal. You get a transport control. direct access tomixing controls including a surround panner and now plugincontrol on a wifi connected device. The control response isinstantaneous but be aware that screen redraws on the ipadparticularly with V-Window lag behind as with any VNC likedevice.


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Author Ceri Thomas

Tags mixing, pro tools

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Demo FXSession templateJanuary 10, 2012

As requested by Marco on a previous post this is a fairly genericFX template session with 10 5.1 predubs and associated routing.Each predub contains 8 mono tracks and 4 stereo tracks feedinga 5.1 auxillary channel with (in the case of the PTX file) asChannelStrip instantiated on it (in the PTF this is replaced by aDyn3 Limiter). I have steered clear of non-built in plugins.

The session contains a routing test section at 00:58:00:00 whichruns through the outputs across all predubs in about 30 seconds.

The tracks are labelled using no more than 4 characters whichmakes them compatible with EuCon displays.

Any errors or questions please feel free to post in the commentsor via email.

Small zip file download contains PTF, PTX and associated WAVfiles

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Merry Christmasfrom Avid -Digidelivery client

Arriving in time for the end of support by Aspera comes aDigidelivery client for Lion. It comes with a lot of disclaimers butfrom some limited testing seems to work very well and runs


Tags Aspera, Digidelivery, avid

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Author Ceri Thomas

Tags nuendo, pro tools, trials

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Digidelivery clientfor LionDecember 25, 2011

without the need for Rosetta. This client was released by Avidrather than the new owners Aspera which just goes to highlighthow little they actually planned to ever put into this product butgood job to Avid for doing this.

http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=428591

Thanks to Bob Russo for the heads up on this.

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Pro Audio TrialsaboundDecember 8, 2011

2011 is the year of firsts it seems. Earlier this year (August)Steinberg offered a Nuendo 400-hour trial version for the first timeever and now Avid are following their lead and offering 30-day trialof Pro Tools both standard and HD.

A good way to use the upcoming bounty of bank Holidays in theUK?

Both trials require a USB authoriser, the eLicenser ($28) and ilok($50) respectively. Of course the ilok is much more widely usedthan elicenser so you may have a spare one kicking around.

Nuendo Highlights


Author Ceri Thomas

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Multiple layer FX rendering - Like Audiosuite that can beremoved out of order; dont like that EQ you processed? Removeit without starting over on the other processing you haveperformed.

Clip Gain - Yes Pro Tools now has it too but Nuendo has hadthis for some time and its a deep implementation.

Network Collaboration - Work on one session across mutliplemachines, drop a few tracks offline for updating and then popthem back onlne once done all without stopping the flow of work.

64 bit - Native 64 bit enabled on both Mac and Windows

and if you want to know more about Pro Tools then take a look atthese articles

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Last chance for ayear of freebackup and

A few months ago I wrote about Gobbler being a possiblereplacement for the soon to be unsupported (less than a monthat time of writing) Digidelivery boxes. Well the service has gone


Tags Digidelivery, gobbler

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Author Ceri Thomas

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backup andtransfer - GobblerDecember 5, 2011

from strength to strength since, you can now use it to send ANYfile type, Backup sessions from most major DAWs and using aclever hack any file within those folders; You can also send apublic link to a recipient meaning they no longer have to sign upfor a Gobbler account to download materials.

Pricing is due to be announced very soon and it seems there willbe a 30-50% discount on the data plans for a short time too.

December 7th is the deadline for receiving a free year and 25GBof storage space after that the storage will drop to 5GB bydefault.

The service is fast and efficient and with no filesize limit to speakof (unlike YouSendIt) it is ideal for most if not all of your datatransfer and project backup requirements.

Sign Up Today

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Avid Pro Tools10 - Purchasingand Support

A lot has been said about the pricing of the upgrades and howAvid have lost touch with their customers etc. Not alot seems tohave been said about the extra purchases that may be relevant.


Tags avid, pro toolsand SupportNovember 4, 2011

Support Plans

Along with the announcement of Pro Tools 10, Avid tweaked theirsupport offerings to add value to what was widely seen as anextravagent purchase.

First up the new Avid Vantage programme, this provides forunlimited online support from Avid technicians in addition to theforums (although if youve spent any time on the DUC lately thenyoull know they are not much help right now). You also get a50% discount on telephone support. As the value added portionof this package you get a $99 coupon for the avid store forupgrades etc but also a package of 4 Avid Audio plugins to usefor the length of your subscription. - Cost? - $149

Next up is the plan mentioned by Max Gutnik (Senior Director ofAudio Product Management), The Standard Support plan. Thisretails for $599 for the remainder of the year. The biggest benefitof this plan right now comes to HD users. Who can save $400 onthe upgrade to HD10 and get phone support, next business dayresponse to issues etc. This does not come with the pluginbundle like the Avid Vantage programme does but is undeniablevalue for money.

For more info on larger plans please visit : Avid Support Plans

Value for money

Are the upgrade prices of 9-10 and 9HD-10HD worth it?

I believe that they are in all honesty. Are they high? Yes, butthey do provide incredible value. The audio engine has been


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Author Ceri Thomas

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completely redesigned to support interleaved files, 32-bit floatfiles; the disk cache feature of 10HD is without a doubt thelargest performance enhancement that weve seen from Pro Toolsin a long time. The long awaited 24 hour timeline is great particularly for post.Finally supersessions containing more than 6 reels can bereconformed quickly without shifting of materials to compensatefor the 12 hour limitation.

The masses were hoping for 64-bit across the board, this hasnthappened but Avid have taken steps toward making this possiblesoon. AAX (64 bit ready), new audio engine (less legacy code),disk cache (64 bit).

As always, if you dont need the upgrade, nobody is making youupgrade. The only reason that would be the case is if you werebuying a new mac which comes with Lion. Then someone isencouraging you 10 is better on Lion than the 9.0.5 beta was.

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Pro Tools 10 -The "Post"release

Its long been the trend that Digidesign released one version thatwas primarily music and then one version that was primarily postfocussed. Yesterdays announcement of PT10 was very definitely


Tags avid, pro tools, softwarereleaseOctober 21, 2011

a Post focussed release. Why do I say that? For a start it wasntthe 64bit release the music guys were hoping/calling/craving, theRTAS engine didnt see a massive overhaul and it was clearlydefined that it wouldnt be.

This version has a feature set that as a Post guy made meincredibly happy.

1-Clip Gain

I spent yesterday with a group of video editors discussingworkflows and such. During the conversations PT10 wasannounced and I was able to say that for the first time I relaisedwhat on earth that clip gain function was supposed to do onOMF/AAF import. Instead of converting clip based gain toautomation I can now import both and get a true representationof what they were trying to achieve. For years Ive had AAFscome in that clearly had both in and the clip gain has beenoverwriting the volume automation resulting in messy andconfusing AAFs. Opening an AAF in PT10 I saw that actuallythe picture team werent being sloppy, it was part of thetranslation process that was.

Of course the feature is much more powerful than just that but assomeone dealing with turnovers more often than I am beingcreative.


The screenshot to illustrates the difference. The top tracks areimported using the new PT10 feature set where as the bottom sethave been imported into the session after opening the AAF itselfin PT9.0.3

Dont know about you but I like the top version better.

2 - Disk Cache

The disk cache feature is the 64 bit part of PT10. Basically itruns as a seperate process outside of Pro Tools which pulls youraudio files into the RAM Cache and then presents itself to ProTools as a playback device, all in the background. Your timelineis read a little ahead of the playhead and a little behind whilst incaching mode or when you need to refill the cache (if you onlyhad 3GB of RAM and a 5GB session for example it would


dynamically cache the data rather than slow down after the 3GBhas been played.)

This is a fairly small session for dialog predub. Using a 2GB DiskCache you can see that it fills the cache but the timeline is 100%loaded into RAM. I have run a large FX session for testing over awifi connection with media on a G5 machine and recorded predubstems on my laptop, this is powerful and transparenttechnology.

Note: The indicators only appear when you have a fixed CacheSize enabled, otherwise it operates in Normal mode which is avery small cache.


I have 8GB of RAM in mylaptop so I can have afixed cache of up to 5GB,3GB is reserved for OSand PT operations3 - Bus interogation.

This feature allows you to: Select all tracks routed to abus/output, rename those busses without entering the I/O Setupwindow, Show hide tracks going to each bus etc.

Incredibypowerful andintuitive. This willsave a lot oftime on the mixstage and allowyou to focus onjust theparticular set of tracks you are hearing, for example.

4 - Downmixer


Prior to PT10 there were a number of third party plugins forperforming this function. It is now built in to PT10. The presetsare taken from the OMNI and the System5 alogrithm fordownmixing 7.1, 7.0, 6.1, 6.0, 5.1, 5.0 etc to stereo. There is noStereo to Mono the lowest track count is an LCR->Stereo.

This sounds great and is pretty low in resource usage. Ill usethis extensively for DMEs after mixes, headphone monitoringfeeds etc.

This is not a Dolby encoder, the stereo it creates is LoRo notLtRt!


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Thats a quick summary of my favourite features in PT10, alongwith the death of Fade Files (Hooray!!).

This is a powerful and feature filled release. Ill write more aboutsome of the other features soon but just to say if you have beenwaiting to upgrade to Lion for a stable PT release then go aheadand do it now.

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1 Comment

Author Ceri Thomas

Tags apple, lion, workflows

Taming the Lion -Workflows inApple's newestOS - Part 1September 13, 2011

I am a bleeding edge kind of guy. I like having the latest systemand discovering its quirks and more than that discovering how tofix or work around the issues that it brings with it.

Lion (10.7) is the latest OS from Apple and I have been running itin some degree since it was released. There are things that I loveand things that I hate, they are mostly covered on other sites andif you are considering it for any of your systems Id recommendreading around and seeing what of your workflows may or maynot work. This article is about things Ive discovered that hinderedmy workflows and the resolutions to them.

1 - File management (part 1)

If you install Lion onto a fresh system or buy a new systemrunning it then you will find that the Finder is vastly changed.Visually its greyer but deeper than that scrollbars are gone, thedividers in column view are practically indistinguishable. Mostirritating of all is the new organisation of the sidebar.

All my Files is the first addition you will see. I can see the usecase for this, its for people who are used to storing things ontheir desktop or just all within a single folder somewhere. Most people reading this particular post wont do that, audioprofessionals are generally quite organised about their filing and ifyou use Pro Tools then the system itself guides you tomaintaining some form of hierarchy by default. Command Clickand drag on this to remove it from the sidebar would be myrecommendation and replace it with:


2 - Add your Hard Drive back to the sidebar.

Shift-Command-C will bring up the Computer view. From here Idrecommend dragging at least your work drives into the Favoritessection of the sidebar otherwise you will spend a lot of timescrolling to the bottom of the sidebar which is where apple hasdeemed to be the place to store Disks of all varieties.

3 - File Management (part 2)

With the advent of Versioning in the OS Apple rather irritatinglyhid the Dont Replace option from the Copy menu. No idea whatI mean? On a preLion system if you were to try to copy thecontents of your Audio Files folder to a server copy of the sameAudio Files folder in order to update the server copy of thesession you would be presented with a dialog box with a fewoptions.

Apply to All (a checkbox)

Dont Replace

Replace

Stop

If you do the same process in Lion you will find no option toDont Replace and its place has been taken by Keep BothFiles. This might be okay if you are moving Word documentsaround but start updating mix stems in a similar way and youllfind yourself with duplicate files, longer copies and rapidly filledstorage.


Thankfully it is not gone, but it is well hidden. I tried everycombination of shift, control, option trying to get the Keep BothFiles to change to no avail. The solution was to not drag theFiles but to drag the containing folder at which point the OSrecognises that the folder/directory exists and will merge thefolders. It does this without any further interaction which is kind ofnice but scary the first, second and third time you do it. It doeswork though.

4 - Dedicated Desktops

Take some time to set up dedicated desktops, these are muchlike Spaces in Snow Leopard but can be customised withseperate artwork for each Desktop. To lock an application to aspecific desktop you can either:

Drag the Applications window to a Desktop whilst inMission Control view then right click on the applicationsDock icon to bring up the Options menu. From here selectthe option to Assign to This Desktop

Navigate to a new Desktop and then open the applicationand follow the second half of previous option (right click onthe applications Dock icon to bring up the Options menu.From here select the option to Assign to This Desktop)

I have a Pro Tools background image on my Pro tools Desktopbecause unless a session is open then all you get whenswitching to the Desktop is the Menu bar and I like thereassurance that the switch has occurred.

As with spaces this is not foolproof and occasionally the OS


3 Comments

Author Ceri Thomas

Tags avid, pro tools

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wont switch to the correct Desktop when you open a newwindow. The most frequent example of this is double clicking ona Pro tools file in Finder, the file will open but Lion wont switch tothe Pro tools desktop. Either bring up Mission Control and switchmanually or click the Pro Tools Dock icon and it normallyswitches.

I will write a part two very soon but these are just a few irritationsand tips to get you started.

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Avid Pro Tools -Preview @ IBC2011September 11, 2011

At IBC2011, a show primarily for the broadcast sector, Avidshowed a Technology Preview with some very exciting features.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ez-G5jgebw

1- Disk Cache/RAM Disk

In the video (linked above), Tom Graham mentions that you canload the timeline into a Disk cache or a RAM disk. This featurecould be huge. Particularly if it is capable of dynamically loadingmedia. The forums have been alive with discussion about whetherthis will mean you can load VIs into RAM and therefore get moreinstantiations of Virtual Instruments. As a post user, I dont have


a need for a whole bunch of VIs, maybe it will be tweaked toenable this but for me the focus was on the playing from ISISshared storage.

2- Realtime Fades

To sum this up? Woohoo! For a long time Fades have been thebane of my life. These small little chunks of audio that constantlyget corrupted/lost. Looking forward to never having to rerendermissing fade files again.

3 - Clip Gain

My only run in with Clip Gain has been in the Import SessionData window where I convert it to Volume Automation. It will beinteresting to see how this develops. 36dB of gain outside ofvolume automation sounds like it could be invaluable. Not sureIm a fan of another area that cant be clicked whilst using thesmart tool but maybe they have a way around that. The envelope function looks promising I cant imagine that theydbe implementing this feature at anything less than sample levelso should be really useful for fixing production audio issues.

4- Cross fade view

While youve always been able to see the result of the crossfadein the timeline, this will show you dynamically the two waveformsmuch like with the Fade window itself. Together with the ClipGain it was shown how this updates dynamically great for seeingwhat is actually on the regions.

5- AudioSuite handles


Huge! Not sure how long these Handles are exactly but anyhingis better than nothing. I wonder if its Full file and if it is how theydeal with a region being used later that referenced the same file?

If you want to read more then there are plenty of forum posts onboth the DUC and Gearslutz frantically debating what this previewmeans and when if at all we will see these features in a release.Also plenty of people pointing out that at the start of the videothere is a disclaimer about this not being a promise to deliver anyof these features etc.

General consensus on the disk cache/RAM Cache is that this isa sign that PT is going 64bit. Not sure if I buy that as evidence,Pro Tools has a history of interesting solutions to technologicalproblems. DAE used to be external to the main program forexample, the Disk management was too. Pro tools will be going64bit if for no other reason than both Apple and Microsoft aremoving their platforms into 64bit only operation.

Whether this sees the light of day will remain to be seen but itcertainly shows that Avid are thinking about some pretty radicalchanges to how things have been before. Read the forums, watchthe video and then wait to see what happens.

Update on 2011-09-14 06:16 by Ceri ThomasMore from the IBC Conference :http://apps.avid.com/ibc2011/news.html

Here you will find a video interview with Tom Graham as heconfirms that the caching occurs outside of Pro tools as well asdeeper System 5 integration and playback from ANY NAS


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Author Ceri Thomas

Tags Aspera, Digidelivery, assets,assistant, pro tools

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device.

Pretty cool.

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Life afterDigidelivery -Gobbler?June 22, 2011

I have been testing a new service recently that looks like areasonable replacement for Digidelivery now that Aspera haveannounced the death-knell. It is called Gobbler and allows you toback up your Pro Tools sessions to an Amazon S3 storagesystem (cloud based/remote, replicated backup).

Its incredibly simple to setup and use and allows you to thenshare backed-up projects with others. It can also keep a offlinerecord of where your sessions reside, scan your home-baseddrives and it will catalog all of the audio files associated with theproject, the geographic location of those files and give you anidea of the size of the session.

I plan to continue testing this system as it moves out of its initialbeta period next Monday (June 27th 2011). During this timehowever if you sign up you get 50GB of free storage to startbacking up and sharing your sessions.


To take advantage of this now click on this link to learn more.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Clicking this link helps me to get more freespace for referrals but I do genuinely believe this could be a viablereplacement for Digidelivery in small post houses/independenteditors.

Project File Type support copied from thehttps://www.gobbler.com/features#organize site:

Compatible with most major DAW software and file types

AVID PRO TOOLS

APPLE LOGIC

ABLETON LIVE

STEINBERG NUENDO

STEINBERG CUBASE

PROPELLERHEAD REASON

PROPELLERHEAD RECORD

PRESONUS STUDIO ONE

COCKOS REAPER

APPLE GARAGEBAND

Update on 2011-06-22 20:55 by Ceri ThomasCosts for Gobbler

Looks like they are planning a $8.95 basic plan after the beta has


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Author Ceri Thomas

Tags conform, virtual katy

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finished which I guess would be for the 50GB of storage. Moreinfo in this forum thread however:http://community.gobbler.com/gobbler/topics/cost_and_storage

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Linear to Non-Linear storytellingJune 18, 2011

I recently had the opportunity to demonstrate what I feel is theoverwhelming power of Virtual Katy on a project very similar tothe first show that I used VK on.

That first show was Vantage Point and when it first landed withus it was a linear telling of the story of a presidentialassassination. It was a short 5 reel movie and far removed fromthe final released version. it had however had a lot of soundeditorial work done on it already and parts of that was hoped tobe saved. The next version we received was a non-linear telling ofthe story with each reel being from a different charactersperspective culminating in a linear ending post-reveal.

Change notes on this type of conform would have been anightmare and so we decided to give this new program, VirtualKaty a go. After a couple of failed attempts and some marvelloushelp from Craig Tomlinson with EDL evaluation and guidance wewere able to reconform the linear version of the film into a non-

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API2 Comments

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linear version.

Flash-forward to 5 weeks ago when I was approached by themixer/sound editor on an independent feature to do this exactsame process. We took the linear final mix sessions and wewere able to reconform the full movie (tracklay, automation etc)into the non-linear directors cut in 40-60 minutes. The look on thedirectors face as he watched the linear guide QTs being cut intothe new non linear version and matching frame for frame waspriceless to see.

Obviously that wasnt the end of the story and the sound editorthen spent a few days going through and filling in the new scenesand smoothing some automation jumps but it widely acceptedthat this process would have taken a couple of weeks to havefixed without VK and its shot tracking, full project view.

Picture Editorial: Final Cut Pro, 24p project formatSound Editorial : Avid Pro Tools 8Conform materials: FCP Video EDLsVirtual Katy: 3.0.2, 23.976 fps project

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Regex - VK and


2 Comments

Author Ceri Thomas

Tags regex, soundminer, virtualkaty

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Regex - VK andSoundminerApril 27, 2011

Ive mentioned RegEx before but thought Id share some usefulones and some resources.

VK allows for filtering on import of EDLs. This is the Regex that Iam using for this particular project to strip out all info other thanScene and Take from the Clip name.

_[(0-9A-Z)]*.+|\([a-zA-Z0-9]*.|\ (a-z0-9A-Z)*.+|\*

Its not the prettiest and there is probably a more tuned stringout there somewhere but it works and Im happy with that.

With Soundminer I needed to repopulate the Scene Take andTape fields from the filenames of some split out polyphonic files.Not going to go into why this was necessary right now but here isa regex string that was very useful in conjunction with the Adminfunctionality and the Find and Replace features in Soundminer.

[._][(A-Z)(0-9)].*

Note this particular string and the process within SoundminerCAN be destructive to your files. I used the UserComments(whcih was completely empty) as a scratch pad for testing.

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