PT12 session On Mac or Pc and back

[eaglecanyon1952]

Good Evening, well, I'm new on this forum and somewhat new to PT12 but I hope I can make this short. I have a friend that uses PT12.7 on a Mac Desktop and LP and is interested in using our Studio for projects from time to time... so, I just installed PT12.7 on my Windows 7 64bit PC.

The Goal is for him to be able to record either on my PC or his MAC and open and work on the sessions on his MAC at his place, Or bring a session he has recorded somewhere else on Mac and bring it in and work with that session in my studio on my pc platform.... How easy is it to do this?

Today he brought over a external drive with a session on it from his MAC that he copied to a HDD formatted to Fat32. When I connected his drive via USB my PC can not see the drive with the PT session on it... .but If we delete the files off the HDD I can see the drive... I tried t format his HDD to Exfat and still no luck...

Is there an easy way to accomplish this? If so is there any instructions or tutorials available to set this up?

Thanks in advance for any help or directions you can help with I'd appreciate it.

[Top Jimmy]

This is what many of us have used for years. Avid used to include a stripped down copy known as HFS+ Disk Support with Pro Tools 7 IIRC.

http://www.mediafour.com/software/macdrive/


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[Darryl Ramm]

supported file systems for Pro Tools are NTFS on Windows or HFS+ or AFS on Mac. You need to work on what is supported. Moving sessions between those filesystems as you move between platforms or the other option is to purchase HFS+ software for the PC as already mentioned or NTFS support for your Mac. Like https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac

I would be trying getting started by just moving session between computers/filesystems.

[YYR123]

I’ve used paragon for a long time and it’s worked perfectly

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[eaglecanyon1952]

Wow, that was quick and thanks for the information so far, I've taken a quick look at Mac Drive and Paragon both very reasonable software and that is just fine, I need a little more information to help me understand what is going on.

So, yesterday, we formatted the extrenal drive to exfat, no files added yet and I can see that in my windows system just fine... then He copied his PT session files to the drive and now, I can not see that drive anymore... nor, the files on it.

My guess is that MacDrive or Paragon just allows the PC computer to read the Session files and work with them? Once he finishes working on the files in my PC he would then just copy, export what ever ProTools calls it the session back to the drive and take it home and fire it up on his Mac and the session would run? (I'm trying to make it simple).

Out of the two programs, is there an advantage on either One, MacDrive looks pretty simple and the most cost effective, but I want to choose the one that is the most transparent as most of my session are PC based and this is my first entry in to dealing with MAC and PT sessions. In the past folks would send us .wav files we would work with them and send .wav files back, we didn't have to deal with sessions when using software like Cubase., I understand now how important while working in PT transporting the session back and forth will be.... for ease of use.

I am thinking that the utility is not a conversion product, it just allows windows to see the Mac hard drive and that there is no performance hit to the session is that correct?

I plan to read the information on both MacDrive and Paragon today and share it with the other person with the Mac, hopefully it will be an easy fix to allow him to bring over his drive plug it in and get to work, save that work and take it home and open it up on his Mac and do it all seamlessly.

Thank you again for your replies and suggestions and hopefully this will take care of my issues and let us get his sessions up and running with the least amount of hassle.
Dave

[Wizzoboy]

As Darryl Ramm said, the drive for Windows must be formatted as NTFS, not exFAT or FAT32.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Wizzoboy

As Darryl Ramm said, the drive for Windows must be formatted as NTFS, not exFAT or FAT32.

Yep we have a failure to read carefully here.

Stop doing what you are trying to do. It will not work. Without third party tools you can't move the sessions on media and run them in-situ on that media. But you don't *need* those tools, just drag and drop the session onto the native supported filesystem for the platform you are on. And drag 'em back when you are finished. Trivial to do, and always what I'd suggest to try to start with... just try it, you might find other issues in the workflow (e.g. plugin compatibility etc.) so just try it. Buying a third party filesystem product may make sense next. Or it may be better to stage the sessions on NAS or similar and copy to the working systems to use. Lots of ways to skin this cat. But do not confuse being able to see files on a filesystem from the finder/explorer etc. and Pro Tools actually being able to use them.

If you want to avoid copying sessions then you need to look at one of the supported cross platform filesystems options already mentioned.

[eaglecanyon1952]

Wizzoboy, thanks for your reply... I"m familiar with the Windows Opperating system files, I usually use NTFS on all my drives. Fat32 and Exfat on Memory sticks are quite popular....

The main question I have been discussing is pretty straight forward, Another Engineer wants to do some projects at my studo or mix the projects that he does in his place... He is running Apple and ProTools, I am running Windows 7 64bit right now. Again is for him to be able to take his "Mac" drive with his session over to my place, plug it in to the USB and open up his project in my Windows machine. We both have the same PT version and Slate Digital subscriptoin.

I looked at MacDrive and it looks like that will allow me to mount his drive in my system and see the files.. Now I want to make sure I can open his session, have him work on it, save it back to his Mac drive and take it home and do more work on his Mac!

Hope full MacDrive will allow me to do that as well as save his sessions on my system and my system for latter edits.

If he uses my PC system for a project then he wants to take that system created on my windows system and copy it to the Mac Drive and take it with him...

There has to be someone out there that has to deal with a similar issue and can chime in. I completly understand that we can take the .wav files in to my PC... what he want's to do is bring his session created on his Mac and his Mac drive.

Simple?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by eaglecanyon1952

Wizzoboy, thanks for your reply... I"m familiar with the Windows Opperating system files, I usually use NTFS on all my drives. Fat32 and Exfat on Memory sticks are quite popular....

The main question I have been discussing is pretty straight forward, Another Engineer wants to do some projects at my studo or mix the projects that he does in his place... He is running Apple and ProTools, I am running Windows 7 64bit right now. Again is for him to be able to take his "Mac" drive with his session over to my place, plug it in to the USB and open up his project in my Windows machine. We both have the same PT version and Slate Digital subscriptoin.

I looked at MacDrive and it looks like that will allow me to mount his drive in my system and see the files.. Now I want to make sure I can open his session, have him work on it, save it back to his Mac drive and take it home and do more work on his Mac!

Hope full MacDrive will allow me to do that as well as save his sessions on my system and my system for latter edits.

If he uses my PC system for a project then he wants to take that system created on my windows system and copy it to the Mac Drive and take it with him...

There has to be someone out there that has to deal with a similar issue and can chime in. I completly understand that we can take the .wav files in to my PC... what he want's to do is bring his session created on his Mac and his Mac drive.

Simple?

Simple, and explained in the posts above. Please reread this thread carefully. If there is something specific being said so far that is not making sense please ask about it exactly. Your general question has been answered several times, offering you multiple options.

[eaglecanyon1952]

Darryl Ramm, I apologize for not quite understanding the MAC system, I have been a PC guy since 1982 and have only dealt with the windows operating systems (good or bad, they seemed to work for me).. In an earlier post MacDrive was mentioned more than once so I went to the website, read and tried to understand what it does and what I got out of it is that If someone were to bring a Mac drive to my studio, I can Plug that drive in to my Windows computer and see the files.. (Yesterday when my friend brought his Mac Drive with the session on it I could not even see the drive with his files on it)

So I assume (not a good thing) but from reading the information, with Mac Drive installed I will then be able to see is drive and the contents on it.. Is that Correct? If he had a PT session On that Drive Can I then (like I do with my PC) Open that session off his Mac Drive and read and work with it in my ProTools..

I am sorry for the confusion.. .again I know nothing about Mac or it's operating systems so as Of this morning I am just trying to research and get an idea how to do it.

IF this isn't clear perhaps I could give you a call or message you my number and you can call me... I don't' want to be a both on the forum and hopefully I will get better as I delve in to Pro Tools... but this is the first time I have had to look in to this as being new to ProTools and then dealing with a Mac user just makes it worse.
Dave