Quick question: Time Limit?

[spicyitaliano]

While I don't have another rig, stoppng and starting again sounds like a perfectly fine method. I've never changed the record allocation, so what should I look out for? Is it simply a 'safety stop' setting that will automatically stop the recording after a certain amount of time? I can't have that happening! Is it a simple option in the settings? I don't have acess to PT right now, so I can't check it out right now.

By the way, good idea about the record time simulation. I'm planning on setting up the day before I start work to try out different mic positions and such. That would be a perfect time to do that. Great idea!

[Rail Jon Rogut]

It's a simple setting in the prefs.. just make sure you check it before working... I'd suggest setting it to 220 minutes. The larger the value, the longer it takes Pro Tools to actually start recording because it preallocates the disk space.

Don't forget to get wild audience before the show.. Have someone ask the audience to cheer and shout before the show and record about 2 to 3 minutes of it so you can use it for sweetening later.

Rail

[cabuford]

One thing I had happen once during a live recording situation was have my power go down.

I quickly powered back up, booted the machine and kept going.

I noticed after the show that when the computer had lost power it basically made each file as long as PT had allocated to it. So when I rebuilt the session all my tracks were 3 hours, but I had only recorded an hour of audio. Oddly enough I could hear other things I had previously recorded on the second 2 hours of the tracks because PT had obviously allocated old disk space but I hadn't recorded over it yet. A simple edit and consolidation of files trimmed down my session size.

I guess I just bring this up because it made my files sizes huge and I came really close to running out of disk space that night.
This was under OS 9.2.2 and PT 5. I still don't trust OSX for long tracking sessions yet, but my last attempt was 10.2.8 and 6.1.2.

[spicyitaliano]

Wow Rail, keep the tips coming! (Are you in need of a work partner?? )

Ok, so it's a simple setting. Cool. You may have read all my previous posts. These are recordings of all the FVA (Florida Vocal Association) judged competitions, to be mixed later in the studio and sold to the schools. The FVA recently fired their last recording company for not following through with the production. So they brough me in to take their place after they heard my previous work and was recommended by a local director. Luckily, that director is also the chairman of this region of the FVA!

I do need, however, a good loud choir to get up and sing for me to set the levels before the first block starts.

[spicyitaliano]

I have had a lot of trouble with OSX and smaller sessions, but not really long tracking sessions. It's the start-stop work stuff that really seems to work my machine hard, eventually leading to an unexpected quit. I'll be upgrading my software to the latest version soon, if that's the best idea. The current listed version I have has had a lot of bugs, but again, I'm talking about the quick stop-go work.

What do you suggest I do to ensure the best performance for long tracking sessions? I'm not running any processing, or even mixing, at this stage. Everything is being mixed externally through my console. Buffer Rate, CPU power, etc? What else can be tweaked to up the power and decrease the chance of a stopped session? I follow all the basics about recording to a non-OS hard drive and other simple rules. Any other for tweaking within PT?