Semi-automatic session creation

[nucelar]

Hi all!
I have to create several hundred (!) Pro Tools sessions for a dubbing project, and am investigating a method for doing it semi-automatically.
There are a lot of short episodes (2-6 min) and I have a video file and 4 audio files for each one.


My idea is to create these several hundred "generic sessions" in differently named folders which look for a video called "video.mpg" and for 4 audio files called:
"FullMix.L.wav" .
"FullMix.R.wav"
"M&E.L.wav"
"M&E.R.wav"

Then I would have to rename the files for each ep. to this common name and put them in the corresponding folders.

Is this a reasonable idea? Has anyone had to do a similar thing?

Thank you for your ideas

[Craig F]

I'm make one then save it as a Template
then Make New from Template for each one as needed

[Postman]

I am not coming up with any better idea than manual labor with template method, either. I love the idea of sessions automatically linking to sources by using identical names for audio and video sources but I don't think it will be a smooth process. I think each audio file will still have to be link'd to when you open a session for the first time because Pro Tools will not find unique ID numbers matching what was in the original session. PT will complain. You can tell it to search by name only I suppose, but I fear it will still have problems if the new file duration is different than the original. What's worse, with all source files named the same, it will be more difficult to backtrack/troubleshoot if episodes are mixed up somehow.

Drag+drop is pretty easy. Maybe for each episode open a template with insert point already at proper location (such as 59:58:00 or whatever), control-drag (or PC equivalent) new video and audio, save it, and repeat until tendonitis prevails.

It seems like there ought to be a better way, though. Are the episodes sequential? Maybe you could use the OS the duplicate an original session folder, so each duplicate gets a unique number that relates to an episode number. At least that would save having to manually name each session folder. The session files would still have identical names, though, and that would cause troubles if you are using multiple drives per session.

I'm coming up with no slick ideas. This sounds like a job for templates and an intern!

[nucelar]

Thanks for the feedback!
I ruled out the idea of identical filenames, for the potential problems I could later have. I tried it and indeed, Pro Tools complains and files have to be relinked based on filename only. This extra step also makes it not worth it.

I will probably import all material from one series (~20 eps) into one "series Session", arrange them sequentially in the timeline, and then:
1- Remove all regions except Ep.x (using shuffle)
2- Save as... Ep.x
3- Undo
repeat for x+1

Cheers!

[JC925602]

Originally Posted by nucelar

1- Remove all regions except Ep.x (using shuffle)
2- Save as... Ep.x
3- Undo
repeat for x+1

Looks like a job for QuicKeys:
Create a new variable with the number of the first episode.
Tab
option-shift-return
Command-c
Delete
Save as
Right arrow
Space
Type variable
Return
Increment variable
Begin loop, ask for how many loops
Shift-tab
Delete
Command-v
Return
Tab
option-shift-return
Command-c
Delete
Save as
Right arrow
Space
Type variable
Return
Increment variable
End loop


You will need to insert some folder selection command at some point (command-up arrow) to get your session in the wright folder. You may also need to add some pauses.

I did something close to that 3 years ago.

JC