There are two kinds of Pro Tools sessions...

[Mixchump]

1. A "Self-Contained" session, where all of the audio (allegedly) is in the local Audio Files folder within the current session folder


2. An "Ex Ref" session, where the session contains audio (and/or video) that resides on other volumes (or in a different file path on the same volume) than the one where the current session Folder and file reside.


Realistically, the days are all-but-gone when you needed to set your disk allocation so that ProTools could write to multiple volumes while tracking. Even the most basic USB drives can now keep up with tracking at 96kHz. For 99.9% of all music applications, it's just simply not necessary. Still though, I receive sessions from people where, after ProTools has done an exhaustive search of every attached drive to my system (and comes up empty handed of course), I can see that the file path to the missing files is usually something like "Mac HD/Downloads/xxx.wav", or "Audio Drive 1/Project/Audio Files/xxx.wav"


Sure, for many of the folks working in Post, there's always a ton of files being referenced on external SFX drives, etc., but at some point, once the final sound design has been decided upon, and the region bin cleared of unused stuff, there's a few steps to make sure that ProTools has copied all of the externally referenced audio over to the current volume (making them all Transfer volumes and re-opening the session). A colleague of mine who is one of the top Hollywood re-recording mixers tells me that his guys are up all night before a Bruckheimer mix (in studios that cost $10k/hr), contacting dialogue editors, composers, SFX editors, trying to locate all the missing files.


In my opinion, ProTools (of every level, not just Ultimate) should pop up a message upon opening a session that says "This session contains external file references - Do you want to copy Xref-ed files to the local Audio Files folder?" You choose the option to "Copy", or the option to "Continue".



Avid has done a bang-up job of selling this software to musicians of all different levels of skill and organizational ability, but has booby-trapped the software so that the default is that all of the connected volumes are designated as "Record" drives.


Might they consider putting this simple fix into ProTools to save countless hours of high-stress file transfers? Sure, the Post Audio people will just get used to clicking on the "Continue" button (until they're ready to "Copy").


Thoughts?

[BScout]

No. This isn't a fix. This would be an annoyance.
People are either competent or not.
Save session copy already exists.
Copy on import already exists.
The Workspace already exists.

The person receiving the file sounds as incompetent as the one sending it. It takes about 5 seconds to see if the files have been sent correctly (either from the Workspace of the session or choosing to manually relink.)

A colleague of mine who is one of the top Hollywood re-recording mixers tells me that his guys are up all night before a Bruckheimer mix

I don't buy this as I've worked on a lot of Bruckheimer films and this hasn't been the case because competent people are hired -- who know what they are doing with transferring files. Not to mention, the dub mixes have people from each department on the dub stage delivering the files or running their "feed" systems to the re-recording mixer. So, yeah, I'm calling BS.

[its2loud]

Pro Tools works correctly if there is an understanding of the workflow. A simple “Save Session Copy” will remedy any and all randomly located files.
A simple check of the session prefrences to copy all imported audio will alleviate any randomly dragged files into the session being lost if the session folder is moved to a new location. This is Pro Tools 101.

[TimNielsen]

I'd simply like to see a presence that says something like 'do not allow external references' or something that would simply FORCE ProTools to always copy any used files to the audio files folder for that session, so you could never accidentally add a file that exists somewhere else...

[peterle]

" or something that would simply FORCE ProTools to always copy any used files to the audio files folder for that session, so you could never accidentally add a file that exists somewhere else... "




Setup>Preferences>processing>Import : check
"automatically copy files on Import" < its been always there....

everything else can be done via workspace (copy and relink)
or , as mentioned above , "save copy in"


regards

[leftalive]

Originally Posted by BScout

No. This isn't a fix. This would be an annoyance.

I don't know about it being an annoyance, per se, as you'd probably never see it if you have your session set up properly in the first place.

This isn't a bad idea as a fail safe, but it's also some pretty basic 101 level Pro Tools stuff, and if the people sending you sessions don't understand disk allocation, then you might have bigger problems than some missing files.

Originally Posted by TimNielsen

I'd simply like to see a presence that says something like 'do not allow external references' or something that would simply FORCE ProTools to always copy any used files to the audio files folder for that session, so you could never accidentally add a file that exists somewhere else...

This sort of already exists (copy on import), but it still requires that the person setting up the session knows what all that even means.

[Mixchump]

Originally Posted by its2loud

Pro Tools works correctly if there is an understanding of the workflow. A simple “Save Session Copy” will remedy any and all randomly located files.
A simple check of the session prefrences to copy all imported audio will alleviate any randomly dragged files into the session being lost if the session folder is moved to a new location. This is Pro Tools 101.

This is exactly the problem, though... To you and I, this is perfectly sensible, and is ProTools 101. The reality, though, is that AVID has successfully marketed various versions of 'Baby's First' ProTools, etc., and the musicians that are recording at home are neither disciplined, or experienced enough to know the 101s, and quite frankly don't care (until it's a problem).


I don't know about you, but I regularly get ProTools sessions where they tracked in a proper studio, and then brought it home and made a mess of it, with tons of tracks called "Audio 1", "Audio 2", etc., and have dragged-and-dropped files in from outside sources with "Automatically Copy" and/or "Convert to BWAV" unchecked...


I have plenty of fail-safe checks to make sure nothing is getting scattered or orphaned (all drives are designated as Transfer volumes except the current, sending off sessions with 'Save Session Copy In...", etc., etc., but this is not for us, it's for EVERYONE ELSE...


Anyhow, I'm thrilled that many of you are getting Utopian sessions where nothing is ever missing...