You are backing up your sessions, right? If not, go do so immediately. You never know when accidents happen.
Anyway, I’ve been going through about a billion of my backed up sessions today (only a slight exaggeration) and realized one little thing that I hadn’t done for most of my sessions that would have saved me a lot of time:
Keep a bounced file with your backup!
It doesn’t matter if the session is done yet or not, bounce it before you backup. I was browsing through tons of sessions I had no idea what they really were (or in some cases, what versions) and if I had simply bounced the session before I could’ve easily just took a quick listen to the bounced file.
Now go back up!
Sure would be easier with offline export!
Oh well, it’s still smart to export a minute or two if it’s a heinously long session.
I’ve often hit the “Audio files” folder and listened to tracks in quicktime player – usually a guitar or vocal track will clue me in.
I tend to do bounces pretty early in the game, so for archival purposes there will be an evolution of bounce files in the folder… but folks, you should be backing up constantly. Get a big drive and set automated software to dupe all your drives (disk images on a huge drive in my mac-using case) and have it run every night.
For a home computer one of the wireless or web solutions is handy; but if you deal with huge files (audio & video editing), consider backing up via ethernet and install a cable to a closet or cupboard somewhere – this can really save you in case of theft, when someone could grab not only your PC but everything connected to it. Time it for 3AM and the network won’t be slowed. Running Cat5 through your house is really pretty easy with a drill & a fish tape, and backing up hundreds of GB via wireless is just too slow.
The cops suggest keeping jewelry & passports in a kitchen cupboard full of pots & pans, maybe I should wire a 2TB drive in there too…
I don’t get why everybody isn’t doing record to track.
Just bus and monitor through a pair of record ready tracks.
Time to bounce….hit record…and you’ll never have to go searching for the audio file.
You’re also constantly stress testing your session. Not so important on a fast computer nowadays … but invaluable when your were on a G4 and wondering if you could squeeze one more eq in. You’d get the extra plugin ok, but you’d be damed if you could bounce to disk afterwards. ” Your Disk is too fragmented, something, blah” Ah, the good old days.
I think of “bounce to” for cases when audio has to leave the session – for test MP3s or final mastering. I record for things I’m layering, like a wall of handclaps or stacked backing vocals.
When I had a G5 I constantly had to record my Strike tracks – Strike would just cripple a session. On the Mac pro, I’ve yet to choke it… 30-odd tracks, strike, VI’s, dozens of inserts, and I can switch to 128k to record something – and often forget to beef the buffer back up for hours of mixing. I was looking at HD setups before I got the new box – really don’t see the need now.