Bounce mix reflects bars/beats and time/seconds

[Thenewexhibit]

Hello! What is common practice when it comes to this? I usually keep two bars of dead space in my session before recording, however when I bounce a mix, it will obviously be 2 bars off time wise regarding minutes and seconds. Whenever I get mix notes back, it's usually at specific times. This isn't all that of an issue when knowing what section the artist is talking about, but it would be cool to reflect the same times that my bounce has vs what the session says.

What is common practice regarding this? Is there a way to achieve that?

I know people can use the "count in" feature and the song starts recording immediately after count in, however if there is a cymbal swell into the song, that doesn't get captured. Just curious how people do this. Like I said, I usually just leave 2 bars of space open in my session, but that doesn't end up reflecting the actual bar/beat and min/seconds of the song according to the bounce.

[BScout]

You can have negative time in Pro Tools. Have your 2 bars before the 00.00.00.00 count.

[Thenewexhibit]

Originally Posted by BScout

You can have negative time in Pro Tools. Have your 2 bars before the 00.00.00.00 count.

Thanks for the reply! I was aware of the negative time, but how do I change the bars to be negative but have the two bars before the time/secs? I thought time/seconds stay at zero all the time, no?

[skylar_battles]

I just checked it out. It looks like the minutes:seconds ruler and the timecode ruler always start at 0 seconds.

[midnightrambler]

It's a bit of a fudge, but here's what I do:

1. Move cursor to start of bounce
2. "Show subcounter" and set to timecode. Make note of time displayed
3. Open "Session setup", go to "Session start" and enter "-" (minus) and the time displayed on the subcounter.
4.You'll get one of two warnings, either "Unable to maintain original timecode locations..." (press OK) or "Should clips and ruler data maintain their relative..." (press "Maintain relative position")

You can then enter timecode values into the subcounter and address any issues at the exact time values given by the talent.

This probably sounds like more than a faff than it really is - it's a lot harder to describe than it is to do, and it's second nature to me now.

NB Assumes you don't need to use absolute timecode to lock to other machines of course.

[BScout]

what midnightrambler did is how to do it.

Bars/Beats can be negative in a session without that.
And you can set timecode at playhead (if you don't want to do it from the session setup) That puts in negative time before that point.

hh:min:ss can't go negative but the other counters can.

[Rich Breen]

FWIW, there's a very nice little app called "Sheps Offset Counter" on Soundflow for exactly this purpose. Before I had that I'd just display time code, stick the cursor at the start of the song, and enter 0 in Setup -> Current Time Code Position.

[albee1952]

Hmmm, I also keep a couple of empty bars at the front of every session. I simply select the range in the timeline I wish to be included in the bounced file(and I save that as a Memory Location/selection so its always the same). Yes, this does mean I have to extrapolate where change requests go due to the difference, but I always ask for an obvious cue, like a downbeat or a specific lyric. You could also enable the ALL group and drag everything earlier(as close to 00:00:000 as you need). Or use the Cut Time command to delete the blank space in the timeline

[wwittman]

Originally Posted by Rich Breen

FWIW, there's a very nice little app called "Sheps Offset Counter" on Soundflow for exactly this purpose. Before I had that I'd just display time code, stick the cursor at the start of the song, and enter 0 in Setup -> Current Time Code Position.

came to say this

Not only does it make it easy to zero the counter so that your times line up with the bounce times but it also serves as a kind of offset "auto locator" so you can zip right to the times referenced in client notes.

[Thenewexhibit]

Originally Posted by Rich Breen

FWIW, there's a very nice little app called "Sheps Offset Counter" on Soundflow for exactly this purpose. Before I had that I'd just display time code, stick the cursor at the start of the song, and enter 0 in Setup -> Current Time Code Position.

Thanks for the reply! I appreciate it! It seems like exactly what I'm looking for, but I noticed it only comes included with Soundflow and is a subscription based thing which I'm not looking for. Thanks for chiming in about this though!