Best way to print/export tracks for an entire session
 

Hello everyone,

I currently have session files saved for every song on my bands album; on each session file is roughly 24 audio tracks with most tracks containing plugins.

I am trying to find the best way possible to consolidate all of these audio tracks with their included plugins so the files can be sent to a studio to be mixed.

I am running Pro Tools 10 on a Windows 7 PC.

My current process:

1. Consolidate audio tracks (preserving fades)
2. Apply plugins straight to audio tracks by "Render" through AudioSuite

Issue: Certain plug-ins do not have a "save" function for their presets and do not appear under the "AudioSuite" tab.

My work-around for the above: Print the entire audio track through a bus

I have noticed that the printed tracks do not match, and fall behind in length. I am assuming there is some type of latency issue involved here yet I am unsure what my buffer should be set to when printing tracks like this, right now I have it set to 1024. (128 - 2048)
Hopefully its not an issue with my PC

My work-around for the above: Moving the printed tracks to align them with the originals (there has to be a better solution)

Once all these steps have been performed I export the track as "New AAF/OMF"

I was hoping there is an option within "Bounce to" or "Export" that I don't know about which will bounce all of the audio tracks into separate files with plugins applied to their tracks.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated as I feel like I am making things harder than they need to be!

Re: Best way to print/export tracks for an entire session
 

Here's what I do:
Consolidate all tracks so they all have the same starting point on the timeline. For any tracks with fx or unrendered vi's I record them to a new audio track in real time. That way if/when in the future I need to do something with those tracks I have the audio and don't have to worry if I still have the plugins used on said tracks. That also will work if you're taking the tracks to another studio. And when you do do that just take the audio tracks with you, with each session in it's own folder. I don't muck about with aaf/omf - just pure audio.

Keep in mind that not all developers support AudioSuite usage. Native Instruments is but one.

Re: Best way to print/export tracks for an entire session
 

Upgrade to PT 12 and use Track Commit. Easiest way.

Re: Best way to print/export tracks for an entire session
 

If this is a significant part of your workflow you should be on PT12.

Re: Best way to print/export tracks for an entire session
 

While Pro Tools 12 and track commit would be excellent I don't have the funding to upgrade at this moment, if there are not any functions available which will bounce all the tracks separate with plug ins I will need to try different buffer settings that will allow printing tracks with minimal latency.

Re: Best way to print/export tracks for an entire session
 

Buffer settings have no effect on latency when printing tracks that are totally in the box. I already gave you a method that will work.

Re: Best way to print/export tracks for an entire session
 

Then invest in Keyboard Maestro and write a macro to bounce each track separately.

Re: Best way to print/export tracks for an entire session
 

10 does not provide any offline bounce functionality, so your best bet will be to print through buses. You should not be having latency issues if all is well in your system. As Musicman pointed out, buffer should not effect latency assuming your within the range of your ADC to compensate.

Re: Best way to print/export tracks for an entire session
 

Ive found that the best way is to assign tracks to a bus and then "Bounce to disk" from that bus and then import the files onto the track (eliminating all latency issues I was receiving), it is a simple process but quite time consuming.

I am going to look into ProTools 12 once I have my finances straight, thank you for all the help.

Re: Best way to print/export tracks for an entire session
 

Make sure delay compensation is turned on.

Also, be aware that many (if not most) mixers prefer that you don't commit all the plug ins to the audio files so that they can choose their own processing, particularly for compression and EQ. If there are plug ins that are critical to the sound, such as amp simulator plugins, virtual instrument plug-ins, special effects, etc., then commit those and possibly send the unprocessed files as well to give the mixer options. Unless you were specifically asked by the mixer to do what are are trying to, then you could just send the session with the plug-ins inserted on the channel as you had them.