LA Drift...

[Pred80r]

Not sure if this is the right forum but they are all different than the old days so I will start here...

Let me preface everything with the config of my system:
PT Mix 6.4.1 on a 1.25 Mac G4 with all 4 gig of ram loaded
4-888/24's, dual monitors and about every plug in you can buy.

Now onto the issue at hand...I am working on a comedy album and I DID NOT track the audio live, I am just mixing it and fixing it in post. I was given 5 tracks, one was a split of the vocal mic used by the comedian, 2 were shotguns pointed at the audience through an Mbox into a PC and the last one is a stereo "Zoom" recorder over the audience. I immediately dumped one of the zoom tracks so I wouldn't have any phasing issues so I am working with 4 tracks now for the final mix.

I worked for nearly an hour time aligning these 4 tracks, since the audience mics were picking up the PA as well as audience there is a slight reverby/echo effect when I run all 4 but is sounds like most live comedy albums do or it did I should say. When I was finished for the night with my edits and automation I locked it all down to the grid and saved the file. I came back the next day opened it up and listened before I jumped in to edit and it sounded like EVERY track was out of alignment or they had all DRIFTED a little bit later from each other.

I have had volume issues before but never time alignment issues, I was told this may be because they were all tracked at different rates with no word clock, I was told this is a known issue with mix 6.4.1 and I was told that it was impossible...

I think the answer is somewhere in between...does anyone here have a recommendation on how to eliminate this problem, how to save the file correctly so it doesn't do this or just flat out know what the issue is?


Thanx,
Jack