ATT: Pro Tools Experts

[mattsmusiccenter]

A question for you guys that are really proficient with Pro Tools.

For the last year I've been working on an album with Zak and Jeff from Savatage/Trans Siberian Orchestra. Because we're scattered all over the country Zak had a hard drive in Tampa he did his vocal work on and I had a drive in Boston that I did all my solos/overdubs on. When the vocals were complete we got a copy of his drive shipped up to Boston and imported the vocal files into the main drive.

All the vocals imported perfectly with the exception of 3 songs. On those 3 songs, the engineer had to spend some extra time trying a few different approaches to get the vocals to import. In the end he was able to get everything imported, we checked to make sure all the vocal files were in place and then saved everything to the main drive and a backup drive.

I just came back from a 5 day mix session in CA and was shocked that on the 3 songs we had trouble importing vocals on, some of my guitar overdubs were missing. It seems those 3 songs reverted to previously saved versions of the sessions.

This is annoying because I was very happy with the work I had done and now I have to re-record those items. Plus, I have to pay for a mix recall (SSL G Series) and the whole project gets delayed, again!

My question is, have any of you heard of this before? The engineer is a pro with many major label credits, plus he's a college professor on Pro Tools, so I don't think it's user error. Something happened during the import of these songs. Before you say "that's easy, the engineer imported some of the old overdubs by mistake", that's impossible because there were no overdubs at all on the vocal drive, just basic rhythm tracks. So something during the import process caused the main drive to revert to previously saved versions of the sessions.

[Endrik]

sorry to hear that Matt... that really sucks

I'm not a pro tools expert (as I hate it)

but usually most of the audio softwares storage the individually recorded tracks as separate files.

For example if the software is called "Mega Recording Program" and you do a project called a "rocksong" and record for example two tracks (doesn't matter with what instruments even if they are software based) and name them "guitar1" and "lead".
When you save it... the software automatically creates the main project file.. for example "rocksong.mrp" and audio files "guitar1.wav" and "lead.wav".

So check if you have those audio files so you can import them back to the Pro Tools environment.

Also check if the PT project has some kind of a history file which describes what exactly has been changed, edited, added etc.

BTW. what files Zak gave you... were they audio files, project files or both? And do you remember how your guitar parts were storaged?


there's always prosoundweb.com and other sites like that where real experts probably could solve the case

[mattsmusiccenter]

Unfortunately we tried all this and theres no history of the lost parts anywhere on the drive. When we first started this project Jeff was sick, then I had the flu while recording rhythm guitars and getting drum tracks done, and Paul David Hager was sick during the mix, so this is really par for the course!

[åron]

Don't count out user error, even pros make mistakes... and what do they say about those who teach? Try searching for the files based on the date/time you recorded the overdubs. The files, should you find them on any of the associated drives, will be time code stamped and should be easy to place in the sequence. Good luck, Matt.

[Endrik]

another reason to use good old 2 inch tape... it's old and expensive but sounds better than anything else and it exists physically (hey it only weights 10 bounds ).... I can't even count how much important stuff I have lost because of those goddamn computers.

[mattsmusiccenter]

Yeah, but with everyone being in different parts of the country it worked to our advantage because Zak and I were both able to work on seperate drives at the same time. Could have been done with tape but it would have been much more difficult. It just sucks that this happened, one of the things that got lost was a solo with a really good vibe to it. Now I have to go in and try to recapture it. Grrrr.

[levantin]

Sucks to hear that. Did the engineer not keep any backups? I usually backup everything after a single session of recording.

Good luck with the rest of the recording process. I'm dying to hear the end result

[mattsmusiccenter]

We backed up before and after the import but the secondary drive is now a mirror image of the main drive, so that isn't much help unfortunately. It's about a month from completion, I'm also looking forward to hearing the end result.

[Endrik]

It just sucks that this happened, one of the things that got lost was a solo with a really good vibe to it. Now I have to go in and try to recapture it. Grrrr.

yeah, that's the worst thing that can happen... it's all about the vibe

go check out some of the prosoundweb or thewomb forums, I'm sure someone can help you