Questions About Collaboration

[ShaunKetterman]

Hello All,


As the title suggests, I have two questions regarding the built-in 'collaborate' feature in Pro Tools.

First - what do I need from the person with whom I want to collaborate? In the "start collaboration" box that opens (I've already instantiated collaboration on this session), I can click on the little person icon with a + sign, and it prompts me to search contacts. I don't have any...would I just use my buddy's email address? The one he uses for his Avid account?

Second - How does the session work in terms of plugins and virtual instruments?

For any songs we create, I'm handling the drums, piano, and any pads/synths that might be needed. If I'm using virtual instruments that only I own (i.e., if I use Addictive Drums and Addictive Keys for drums / piano), how will that impact his experience when he opens the session? Will it error out? Should I first commit those sort of tracks to audio?

Hopefully those make sense. Any and all info is greatly appreciated!


Shaun

[Darryl Ramm]

You might want to search DUC for the many negative posts about the problems with collaboration. And be aware that many many of the posts with negative comments, problems, and user tears, have been deleted when Avid removed the Pro Tools First forums from DUC. First forced use of Cloud (aka Collaboration) Storage, and it was one of the serious problem with First that likely lead to it being finally mercy-killed as a product.

I would not waste my own or anybody else's time with this mess, and sure would not risk losing content. You better have a really good out of cloud backup plan and way of testing that.

[Dizzi45Z]

I have to echo Darryl Ramm's response. I know we aren't answering your questions directly, but I gave the collaboration in Pro Tools a shot and it was an absolute disaster. I ran into many major bugs. I couldn't even get tracks that the collaborator was adding to show up in my session. We both had enough storage and it just wouldn't transfer. I understood how to use the collaboration buttons, etc., it just didn't work.

After seeing so many issues with it, there was no way I was going to trust it for any of my projects. I definitely would not trust it with client's projects.

I would be very surprised if Avid doesn't just completely remove this feature.

[ShaunKetterman]

Originally Posted by Dizzi45Z

I have to echo Darryl Ramm's response. I know we aren't answering your questions directly, but I gave the collaboration in Pro Tools a shot and it was an absolute disaster. I ran into many major bugs. I couldn't even get tracks that the collaborator was adding to show up in my session. We both had enough storage and it just wouldn't transfer. I understood how to use the collaboration buttons, etc., it just didn't work.

After seeing so many issues with it, there was no way I was going to trust it for any of my projects. I definitely would not trust it with client's projects.

I would be very surprised if Avid doesn't just completely remove this feature.

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.

Based on your input, I think you actually did answer my question in a round-about way. If it's as bad as you say, then I wouldn't be interested in messing with it.

I think just using the 'save copy in' option and using google drive to send stuff back and forth will work just as well...without any of the apparent issues surrounding the collaborate feature.

Thanks guys, much appreciated!

Shaun

[Darryl Ramm]

You can do a lot by just sharing sessions through cloud storage or FTP servers etc. Think thorough want you want to do and what can go wrong.

For example if you just upload sessions folders to cloud storage it's easy for folks to accidentally run them there. Then what happens? It's easy to get stuff all messed up. It can be safer to zip together a session folder and deposit that zip file onto cloud storage. Maybe rename each with the date of creation or a sequence number you are keeping track of etc. You might want keep an online library of these. Download and unzip to local storage to run. Be careful with who can delete of overwrite those zip image files in cloud storage.

It may help to delete and consolidate stuff in the session you don't need, e.g. old playlist takes etc. Maybe archive them but it can be worthwhile keeping the current working session smaller and easier to handle. As always make sure you have backups that are entirely offline and secured in safe locations/not attached to a computer. Ideally in multiple locations and formats. Cloud storage is a gret place for backups and archives, but the moment you allow others to remove or updated files on that storage it's now a working drive not a backup or archive. You can potentially make it a part of the backup/archive options by setting permissions to allow only yourself to update those master copies (collaborators might upload copies of their sessions with changes to a scratch area), and having a script/process that prevents accidentally overwriting previous copies.

Somebody needs to be the "admin" in charge of serious changes to the overall session, other folks need to play within their lanes (tracks). You can maintain the sessions by importing modified tracks into the copy the session "admin" is using. And since not everybody will have access to all plugins make use of freeze and commit to make sharing of those rendered plugins easier. Freeze and commit also helps remind people what they should not be modifying.

There are other collaboration tools including things like Source Connect, using things like Zoom calls etc. while collaborating etc. I would personally try to start as simple as possible and see what works. KISS is a great philosophy of dealing with unreliable technology and fallible humans.

[The Weed]

To add to Darryl's other options suggestions for collaboration, also have a look at www.sonobus.net. Several tutorials on YouTube about real-time collaboration and recording same in Pro Tools.