help fixing plugin delay and delay compensation disaster

[prestonhavill]

Help.

I am dealing with a very nice sounding album that was worked on by 4-5 different engineers who had little to no communication with each other. Certain parts were recorded with no plugins and delay compensation off. Certain parts were recorded with plugins and delay compensation on. Certain parts were recorded with plugins on and delay compensation off.

When i eliminate plugins and/or turn delay compensation on/off, certain parts just jump around and the whole thing is out of time. In some cases, there are sessions where a certain overdub track is sent to "Main Out 1-2", and the rest of the tracks are sent to an Aux called something like "MUSIC ALL". If I send those overdub tracks to the main Aux, they are significantly behind.

Additionally, some of the parts have been nudged by another engineer, to "fix" the problem, even though they would have been perfectly in time if plugins were removed and delay compensation had never been turned on. I have no way of knowing how to undo those nudges, as they were done by listening alone.

These problems occurred mainly because people started mixing while they were recording, and in some cases, musicians were recording overdubs with delay compensation on and significant latency.

I am pretty new to dealing with delay compensation in 10 and 11. Also, I will note, I understand exactly why this session got messed up, but not exactly sure the most efficient way to fix it. Right now I'm thinking about bouncing out stems one by one, as in, each track at a time, with 100+ tracks in some songs, on a 14 song album.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance for any help!!!

[prestonhavill]

PS - I should mention that the person mixing these does not use PT and is expecting stems only

[priorytools]

The nudged audio problem.
You could go into spot mode , use grabber tool, move regions. Select original timestamp in the window that pops up.
As an experiment, try making a new session then import session data from an original session. But ONLY the audio. No routing or aux channels. Then send all mults to the main out. See how sync is then.

[Craig F]

Stems are sub-mixes of various parts
what you are talking about are whole files of equal duration not Stems

not that it helps with your timing problem but pleas use correct terms

[prestonhavill]

Originally Posted by priorytools

The nudged audio problem.
You could go into spot mode , use grabber tool, move regions. Select original timestamp in the window that pops up.
As an experiment, try making a new session then import session data from an original session. But ONLY the audio. No routing or aux channels. Then send all mults to the main out. See how sync is then.

Thanks for the advice, I've been doing that in some cases

[prestonhavill]

Originally Posted by Craig F

Stems are sub-mixes of various parts
what you are talking about are whole files of equal duration not Stems

not that it helps with your timing problem but pleas use correct terms

Thanks for the vocab lesson. However, I think everybody refers to "whole files of equal duration" as "Stems" when you are delivering them to somebody using a format other than ProTools. Even if they are "Kick", "Snare", "Hat", as opposed to "Drums", people would call that stems if it constitutes edited, rendered audio that is leaving a ProTools session.

Let me know if you have any advice for helping with the problem I mentioned above.

[Craig F]

Thanks for the vocab lesson. However, I think everybody refers to "whole files of equal duration" as "Stems" when you are delivering them to somebody using a format other than ProTools.

that just little music guys trying to sound like big film guys, nothing more and so much less (yes, I'm that jaded)
If I was told I was being sent stems and got consolidated files I would make the sender cry from verbal abuse.

the definition of a stem is: the whole of the mix is the sum of the stems with out any addition work/processing

[prestonhavill]

Sweet, great, thanks again for the vocab lesson. Sounds like you are super smart, let me know if you plan on responding for the thread, if not, please find your own.

[prestonhavill]

maybe i was wrong about the "stems" thing, although i was pretty sure it is the job of moderators to prevent trolling...

[amazingrugs318]

Super helpful moderator.