Open Protools

Somebody handed us a sound file in Protools Native format. Any way to open it without writing a check?

Koz

It's MyReallyGreatShow.ptf.

Koz

I begin to see the problem. They sent us the project file without the support folders.
D'Oh!

Koz

so you have the session without the audio and fade files?

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Yes, exactly that. I didn't know this was one of the programs that did that.

And this is at variance with my specific printed request that they supply us with WAV files on a data DVD.

Koz

See if they can send a new set of files. Tell them that they need to send the PT folder for that session.

In normal circumstances the PT folder holds all ( audio, fade file and the session ). What you have is most likely the session file which is much like a FCP project file. No media path = just wav shells in the edit window like offline media on a FCP TL.

You can not recover the file because no path to the media exist. If you did this on your own cpu then what can often happen is that you move files from session to session for mix or to free up tracks. when you move the file into a new session its path will change with the move.

So, if some had started in one project and then moved files to another project, then you are gonna get files for the same song or V/O spread out thru the sessions you have used to create the audio composition.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

It was a live capture session. We did get an MP3 of the work, I'm not sure why they claimed they couldn't export me a WAV of the same performance. I'm worried that by the time we get to requesting the rest of the files, the recordist will have bulk erased them from his equipment.

Given it was a pretty serious session, I personally would hold onto the files until I needed the storage space -- weeks down the line. I still have all the capture files from my last two sound shoots.

Koz

If the artist doesn't send the files then you are gonna be working with that mp3 file and the sound shoots.

I hope you don't have to compose or re-edit to match also. I am sure you know that the mp3 can be converted and then thickened with STP or PT. It wont be as clean as the original wav but better than crossing the fingers for the wav.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

<<<I am sure you know that the mp3 can be converted and then thickened with STP or PT.>>>

No. No idea at all. Thickened?

You can tell we do sound all the time down here [sigh].

Koz

thickened may not be a universal term but in the southeastern music creators neighborhood ....

If we get a mp3 file and convert it we already know that a lot of the frequency response is gone (mainly in the bass and mid).

So we convert the file and use a audio editing program to EQ it and mimic regaining the lost frequency.

Because it is so often the base and mids which is lower on the frequency scale, when we are done often people not technically inclined refer to it as "sounding thicker".

So that has caught on over the last 10 or so years.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

> If we get a mp3 file and convert it we already know that a lot of the frequency response is gone

You mean frequency fullness. "Frequency response" is something relating to hardware -- a microphone, a signal processor, a special effect (eg. a compressor, or "audio exciters" which create a sense of loudness by lifting certain mids to increase attack), or even a music instrument. A guitar with old strings will have poorer "treble response", for example.

"Thick" is considered a positive, usually, only in music. A "thick" or "fat" guitar sound, for example, versus a "bright", "thin" or "jangly" guitar sound. I've never heard of somebody asking for "thick-sounding dialogue".


www.derekmok.com

Yes , frequency fullness.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

>I've never heard of somebody asking for "thick-sounding dialogue".

Voices are good nice, fat and warm, although it depends on what sound you're going for. Cripes, "getting back the lush, fat, warm sound from mp3 compression by EQing it" sounds like bad advice. It's as bad as "after you compress to mpeg 2, you can get back the original uncompressed look by color correcting".

With Mp3s, you lose clarity, as well as stereo width, and if you run mp3 compression heavily enough, it'll do funny stuff to your reverb too. Try EQ-ing that back.



www.strypesinpost.com

strypes

I have been making music since 1984. I didn't even consider video until 1997ish.

with video there is a lot more data and its visual. In sound not the same. you can get something back from an audio file thats been compressed. There at least 8 ways to do it.

i have seen 128kbps mp3's processed until it was nearly cd quality. sound is frequency and a frequency is a tone. if you can analog out there is a lot that can be done. If you have say the platinum package for protools even better.

even in STP you can get a frequency view of the wav as a color scheme that allows you to trim the tone.

try this:
get a kick drum hit from STP library and put about 4 on the tl.
export that as aiff 48/16
open i tunes or compressor an convert it to 128k mp3
compare the 2 files. you will notice a lot of base has been lost
convert the mp3 to aiff
then take that 2nd aiff file back into STP
add an EQ and raise the low end freqs that are below 120hz about 20% or so
export and compare the original aiff with the EQ'ed aiff file

you may have a different texture at this point but most of the base is kinda back. This would be a 1st step. and just as a colorist can tweak color in a file, tweaking audio has more freedom to push the over all quality, and texture of the audio.

think about the limiter that some of us use on V/Os. The limiter basically says raise all the volume up by this much but do not pas this point, and then you see the wav get wider. Thats a targeted amplitude adjustment that changes the wav.

The same thing can be done to any audio preferably between -26db and -4db. The thing with audio is that you have more options than video to get things back and shape the wav.

but if it is overblown (over 0db) then there are not many options because distortion as far as i know can not be removed. It can be SLIGHTLY hidden but not eliminated from the file.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

> with video there is a lot more data and its visual. In sound not the same. you can get
> something back from an audio file thats been compressed. There at least 8 ways to do it.

No, you can't. You can fake it, but audio artifacts will be there. You can change the frequency balance, but you can't get back all the overtones, the character, the presence and clarity, and you can't take out the compression artifacts.

> you may have a different texture at this point but most of the base [sic] is kinda back

Exactly. "Kind of" back. Not actually restored. It's an illusion; you didn't "get anything back". You just raised a certain frequency on the damaged audio to change the character of the sound.

Now, if you or your client is actually happy with the sound after this kind of processing, nobody says you can't do this. But I guarantee you, give you a musician like Eric Johnson (who can tell the sonic difference when a different kind of battery is used in his effects pedals), or Eddie Van Halen (who can tell with one chord strum that a guitar is made of alder, not basswood), they won't settle for "proceed until it's near CD quality".

And since sound files are relatively small, why not just work with the proper full-quality files to begin with? Why waste precious studio time trying to hide below-par quality, instead of using proper work protocols so you can spend that time being creative?

It's just bad advice to say "MP3s are just as good". And inaccurate.


www.derekmok.com

Quote
derek
Exactly. "Kind of" back. Not actually restored. It's an illusion

Of corse its an illusion, just like color correction or upresing. In audio its done all the time. there are 100's of top 25 songs that have this technique in them. Its not the majority of them but there have been Grammies given for songs with elements that were done that way.

Plus not every client sends their logo to you vectorized. Some send 450x120 and want it full screen. The same happens in audio. John Legend, Kanye, Common, Tricky, Bjork, had songs on their album that was that way. Lots of awards in that list.

Not one person here works in a perfect environment with perfect files. In Rap, Alternative, Reggae, R&B, rock and country there are a plenty of examples of people doing that. Its sometimes done purposely for style or texture of sound.

Quote
Derek
But I guarantee you, give you a musician like Eric Johnson (who can tell the sonic difference when a different kind of battery is used in his effects pedals), or Eddie Van Halen (who can tell with one chord strum that a guitar is made of alder, not basswood), they won't settle for "proceed until it's near CD quality".

Another 100% true point. However, but all of these guys at one point or another done this. If i am a garage band like COLD PLAY and i haven't made that big hit, it is highly likely that my mics are not norman or AKG. It might be a 400 dollar audio technique. The system may not be protools but cubase or cake walk. So my first hit isn't always coming from a 2.8 million dollar studio.

Camillionaire a rapper sold 70k copies per month for 15 months in 4 states recording on Cubase with a 500 dollar Shure mic. And though the songs were mixed by his cousin who taught himself cubase his cds were not engineered. One song they had bounced out had its project and files erased. They just took the file they had and EQ'ed it. It was a big hit on his second cd.

The music game is not cooperate anymore and their are a lot of indy labels that have to deal with what they get sometimes. I have seen musicians who couldn't play tge same thing twice. But no one else could quite match the vibe that happen at recording. so they keep some compressed aiff tracks, sweeten them with eqs and redo others.

Any one getting into music thinking its gonna start with excellent condition is real crazy. I wish everything i worked with in Patchwork was perfect but it isn't. I have made beats and the operator didn't save correctly or accidentally deleted project files that were still used. Its not often but it does happen once every year or so.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

> Plus not every client sends their logo to you vectorized. Some send 450x120 and want it full
> screen. The same happens in audio. John Legend, Kanye, Common, Tricky, Bjork, had songs
> on their album that was that way. Lots of awards in that list.
> Not one person here works in a perfect environment with perfect files.

We're not talking about perfection. We're talking about sending a 40MB AIFF/WAV file vs. a 4MB MP3. If you can't be bothered to tell the client to give you the higher-quality file, or if your recordist is too lazy to keep a 40MB file for longer than a day so you can get proper deliverables, then you're not being professional.

Yeah, clients sometimes give undesireable deliverables like a 450x120px graphic file for a 1920x1080 end product. It's your job to bounce it back to them and say, "No way", not to try to fudge it and get it to "somewhat better". Unless it's a bat mitzvah video, low-end web stuff, etc. Broadcast will not allow you to sneak by with an unacceptable graphic just because the client doesn't have anything better.

> The same happens in audio. John Legend, Kanye, Common, Tricky, Bjork, had songs on their
> album that was that way. Lots of awards in that list.

You're not talking about the right thing. We're talking about a technician's protocol. You're talking about artists and creation. Yes, Bruce Springsteen recorded Nebraska on a home four-track machine and wants to release it. But if you were an audio engineer in that chain, you can bet your home mortgage that Springsteen won't accept you degrading his sound quality even further for no reason other than you couldn't be bothered to preserve a 40MB WAV file.

And yes, if an editor found out a sound recordist did erase the master and only had an MP3, and the deadline is here, then you work with what you got. But that sound recordist will not ever work for that client again. Unless a serious act of God were involved, this behaviour would be considered gross incompetence. Which is exactly what a producer, a director, or I as an editor would think if a facility/sound recordist told me this (what Koz wrote):

> We did get an MP3 of the work, I'm not sure why they claimed they couldn't export me a WAV
> of the same performance.

Gross incompetence. It'd be like shooting RED and then only getting a 288x110 MP4 file. Can you potentially make it look acceptable? Perhaps, depending on the project. But somebody's going to get scalped. And if the editor were happy with that file while the original RED files were actually available, but the editor couldn't be bothered to ask for them, then the editor can expect not to get hired again, as well.


www.derekmok.com

I am sure that broadcast has a heavy demand for what is accepted. I can see the anger that would appear if there were laziness or unacceptable material kept a presentation from being as perfect as possible.

Quote
derek
Yeah, clients sometimes give undesireable deliverables like a 450x120px graphic file for a 1920x1080 end product. It's your job to bounce it back to them and say, "No way", not to try to fudge it and get it to "somewhat better".

I will say that when your company says NO WAY thats when they call the freelancer or Indy Post House. In the tween level of production we don't always say know. Instead we let the client know what is to be expected of the material and if they want it, we do it.

I would say this is common when the contracts are for say 300k - 5 million dollar companies with 10% - 30% profit margins. In most cases they have whats needed, but about 15% of the time they do not.

We normally handle the entire process film, edit, grade, deliver and have remade some logos to use instead of an insufficient file. So, most of the time we have what we need.

By the way the 480k or better mp3 is not as bad as it use ta be. I would also acquiesce that some jobs you have to turn down to save your name.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

>I have been making music since 1984.

So what? It doesn't hide the fact that you're cheating your clients on technical standards that you're obliged to maintain merely because you're pinching pennies.

And that's not to mention your explanation on EQ-ing is as much bollocks as one can get. Mp3 is lossy compression. It throws away data.

It's like color correcting/de-noising/sharpening... You can do things to make your footage look aesthetically better, but it doesn't improve the quality, in terms of bits, and recorded data.


>There at least 8 ways to do it.

Sure, EQ by all means, if you can make my Shure SM58 sound like a Neumann U47, I'll be more than happy to oblige.

There are a lot of subtle differences. You can't EQ back a sonic envelope. That's essentially the difference between a 1khz tone and a drum kit. Lots of guys can tell the difference between 2 brands of hi-hats, as well as how far the mic was placed, whether you are mic-ing the vent or off the edge, and if you're using a cheap karaoke mic, good luck with that.


>I would say this is common when the contracts are for say 300k - 5 million dollar companies with
>10% - 30% profit margins. In most cases they have whats needed, but about 15% of the time
>they do not.

A 1TB drive that costs a hundred bucks is beyond the budget? That can easily store all of your AIFF files for a year. This is not gross incompetence, this is negligence!



www.strypesinpost.com

> This is not gross incompetence, this is negligence!

Tomayto, tomahto.
It takes that kind of gross incompetence to engender that kind of negligence.

This is not really an MP3 debate, but a debate on QC in general. Yes, MP3s are lossy, but they are being used for broadcast. The difference is that you can't argue they're an acceptable standard. That's like saying, this corporate reel has one source that is a VHS tape and must be used, so VHS tapes can be used and fudged as a rule.

No, they can't. Especially when there's no good reason why a higher format isn't being used, as in the case of a first-generation recording.

You use those MP3s only when there's nothing else available -- and by "not available", I don't mean the sound recordist is too dripping-fat lazy to look through his drives and figure out where he put the WAV files. Failure to manage files correctly is grounds for a judgment of incompetence.

Buy a damn $8, 2GB USB flash stick. That's enough to hold plenty of audio files at broadcast quality. Burn a 30-cent data DVD.


www.derekmok.com

Quote
strypes
Lots of guys can tell the difference between 2 brands of hi-hats, as well as how far the mic was placed, whether you are mic-ing the vent or off the edge, and if you're using a cheap karaoke mic, good luck with that.

Quote
derek
ou use those MP3s only when there's nothing else available -- and by "not available", I don't mean the sound recordist is too dripping-fat lazy to look through his drives and figure out where he put the WAV files. Failure to manage files correctly is grounds for a judgment of incompetence.

1st I can tell when a non standard file is being used, and so can any other music pro. The point of debate is not defending negligence or incompetence, its that fact that these situations do exist whether you like it or not. I am not one to dismiss the practices that often take place when the situations arises either. Those practices were created for a reason.

In this case he had an mp3 and seemingly not access to anything better. This has to be at least 10% of the time in the industry too. I have seen it. Derek has seen it. I would assume that all people with at least 2years experience in a client deadline production environment, would alway ask for a better file if they had an inadequate anything. So he has an mp3.

My position is more about what can be done if you get a inadequate file and the ways in which it is used. From the last 2 arguments, i would say that you guys would turn down a client based on his audio files not being what you wanted or up to code.

If all deliverables good accept the 212k mp3 file on a 15k contract. Do you say no, if thats the best they have? If so then you don't have revenue worries or you are not a part of bringing in the sale. ( please no simple "OOHHH, You tell'em anything to get the money" Rebuttal). I do not mind spending 15-mins or so seeing what an audio file can be before i say, "hey take your business else where'. Some of my V/O's were 320+kbps mp3's.

What you can do, if you want the contract, is explain to the client the expected outcome of this particular file. Give them an example of how it would sound in comparison with an acceptable audio source file. If they accept that, and still does not want to or can not reproduce the file, then you implement the production orders request. You clearly communicate the expectation with a touch of salt so they know what they are gonna get.

Its great to be in a position to become idealistic about which files you will or will not accept, but there has to be a range that includes cases where there must be some audio file doctoring done.

BTW, not all under 4mil. and under companies have an on-staff media person or a contracted media design company. Often times our company is the first one they come in contact with. You will find that 20% of them have design their own logo with a 29 dollar app.
We control both our pre and post production on 75% of our contracts. So if there is a problem with deliverables, then its likely to be caused by us. This make things a whole lot easier when it comes to acceptable files.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"