500 mono tracks to convert to ST

[cmbourget]

Problem: I'm exporting a 250 AAF from Nuendo 12, which has trouble doing this in stereo. So I have 500 mono tracks. I want to transform all this into stereo tracks and keep the names, at least that of one of the two tracks with the same name .l and .r. This without doing everything by hand: create an ST track, name it, drag the two mono tracks onto this ST track. Multiplied by 250 times.

I don't see a global function for this. Any tips?

[JFreak]

Create 250 stereo tracks below 500 mono tracks, select 500 mono tracks and drag 500 mono tracks below. Assuming the 500 tracks are in proper order (tr1.l, tr1.r, tr2.l, tr2.r, etc.), it does the trick.

Otherwise you need to find some kind of audio batch converter.

[cmbourget]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Create 250 stereo tracks below 500 mono tracks, select 500 mono tracks and drag 500 mono tracks below. Assuming the 500 tracks are in proper order (tr1.l, tr1.r, tr2.l, tr2.r, etc.), it does the trick.

Otherwise you need to find some kind of audio batch converter.

Okay, I'll give it a try. However, I think the left and right are reversed. But that will be another step. Thanks JFreak.

P.S. This thing doesn't keep the original track names.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by cmbourget

P.S. This thing doesn't keep the original track names.

Of course not.

PT doesn't care about track names. All it cares is "File ID" (string in wav header, such as "pbTP4dWaB5f" or something easy to read...) -- that is what is primarily used for file relinking, because you may have many files called "the_best_take_ever.wav" with all of them having unique File ID.

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Of course not.

PT doesn't care about track names. All it cares is "File ID" (string in wav header, such as "pbTP4dWaB5f" or something easy to read...) -- that is what is primarily used for file relinking, because you may have many files called "the_best_take_ever.wav" with all of them having unique File ID.

I believe they mean the track names that come over from Nuendo in the AAF.

I've never dealt with this many tracks from Nuendo so I've only done it manually.

I wonder if going through AATranslator would help. Worth checking into.

[its2loud]

If the clip names are retained in the AAF and you want the track names to be the clip name then an option would be export all the clips from Nuendo as WAV files with the proper .L . R delineation for the channel order. Create a blank session in Pro Tools. Drag the clips from the Finder onto the gray space of the Pro Tools edit window. This should automatically create stereo tracks for each L R mono pair of audio files. As long as the file name is the same for both.

Try it first as a batch of 10 files to make sure it work. If you don’t need Pro Tools to copy the files on import then uncheck that box in prefs.

If it’s just a Track Name thing you can batch rename your tracks as long as they’re sequential. It would help here to get a little more context of exactly what you’re trying to retain from Nuendo.

I’m sure you could also build some automation in Soundflow or Keyboard Maestro for this.

[Suite Spot]

Originally Posted by smurfyou

I believe they mean the track names that come over from Nuendo in the AAF.

I've never dealt with this many tracks from Nuendo so I've only done it manually.

I wonder if going through AATranslator would help. Worth checking into.

There are a couple of ways to do it and AAF may not be the best way to go as most AAFs (except for a few) create mono AAFs
Might I suggest you export a 'selected track archive' (which is essentially an xml file) this will maintain any poly channel media (and will contain way more detail than any AAF) and this can be easily converted to a ProTools (PTX) session using AATranslator.

Feel free to PM me.

Additionally, we do have an old utility called Cleaver which can split and recombine stereo media (in batches if need be)

Though it may not be that useful - depends if the media names get mangled in the AAF

[noiseboyuk]

Cool PT feature request actually - the ability to split a mono track to stereo or combine stereo to mono. If PT was smart enough to read the track names and spot a .L and .R, naming the new stereo version correctly, that would be very handy.

Even better, have it as part of session import. Have a checkbox to search for LR mono track names, and if finding them import as a single stereo track.

[JFreak]

What's wrong with the current split to mono command?

Also by creating a stereo (or multichannel) track and dropping clips from another tracks in proper order will populate that stereo (or multichannel) track with your stuff even if they were named inconsistently.

[noiseboyuk]

Originally Posted by JFreak

What's wrong with the current split to mono command?

Also by creating a stereo (or multichannel) track and dropping clips from another tracks in proper order will populate that stereo (or multichannel) track with your stuff even if they were named inconsistently.

Quite right on split to mono.

Dropping tracks works fine, but as already pointed out then you lose you track names (and it's an extra step of course).

I don't know all the naming conventions from different NLEs, but if all the stereo split conventions can be caught then how would this not be a good thing? Even if there is the odd special case, then it's still less work to do overall.