How do you backup your masters? How do you backup stems?

[TheElement]

So right now I have no external HD. I know I need to get one. I have a USB drive I can use. But for now I've been backing up on Dropbox. Is this ok?

Also with each project I am backing up:

128 and 320 mp3's
The master Wav file
and I also want to start backing up the stems. Do you just export the stems (at whatever volume they are set in mixer? Remove mastering plugins on master channel? < although that doesn't make any difference right?) and save them in a folder? a zip folder? so you end up with unmastered stems?

Thanks for any help! I want to make sure I have some sort of system in place for backing up.

[kclements]

So right now I have no external HD. I know I need to get one. I have a USB drive I can use. But for now I've been backing up on Dropbox. Is this ok?

Sure, Dropbox is good to use - until you run out of room and then you have to make the decsision of what to keep and what to remove to add more stuff. Or buy more room. Personally I use dropbox more as a transfer service between collaborators and friends/family. Not as a long term storage/backup system

Also with each project I am backing up:

128 and 320 mp3's
The master Wav file
and I also want to start backing up the stems. Do you just export the stems (at whatever volume they are set in mixer? Remove mastering plugins on master channel? < although that doesn't make any difference right?) and save them in a folder? a zip folder? so you end up with unmastered stems?

Thanks for any help! I want to make sure I have some sort of system in place for backing up.

For stems, I leave everything exactly the same as the full mix. I just mute whatever tracks I don't want to include and bounce the remaining tracks. And, yes it does matter if you leave your mastering plugs in or out. My view of the stems are they should sound just like my full mix if you combine them all. So don't change the levels, or eq or plugs.... Among many other reasons, if you loose your full mix, you can combine the stems and get it back.

For long term storage, I use three methods. My main computer is set to backup to Crashplan every day. I don't back up applications and my iTunes folder... Just my project files and documents. So when my computer is sitting idle, it will backup to Crashplan anything that has changed.

I usually done using my studio around 6 pm or so, and then I have my Mac automatically turn off at 7pm. So that gives it an hour or so sitting there to upload files. Once you get your initial backup in the "cloud" it takes very little to keep it up to date. And I have had a couple time where something happened to a version of a piece I was working on and I wanted to go back to the version I had last week. Crashplan makes this a piece of cake to download that version.... I pay about $120 a year and that covers up to 10 computers (and external hard drives), so every computer in the house is backed up.

The other "cloud" thing I do about once every month or so is take all my completed projects - files, mp3s, AIFFs Wavs - everything in the folders and back them up to Amazon S3 web archive. I do this manually and it takes a bit of time, depending on how much I have to backup. But, again, if I loose my hard drive, and for some reason, Crashplan fails me (it never has) I have AWS files too. At this point, I think I pay about $3 a month for AWS backups.

Then I also will make DVD Backups - But I am doing this less and less. I think I am covered between the other two. The nice thing about DVDs is you can get to them if the internet goes down. But again, that hasn't been an issue for me.

cheers
kc

[TheElement]

Awesome info. Thanks Kayle!

So I was exporting the stems wrong. Got to mute the track and leave Ozone on master channel. Much appreciated!

I got to get my backups sorted. I like the crashplan things. will look into that.

[JAMRecording]

If it's not saved in 3 places, then it's not saved. I've learned that the hard way. External drives are cheap. You can find some pretty good free software online that does the back up for you. We use one called Superduper. I click it after every session and it backs up everything to two different drives. I back up those every week or so.

[Russell Landwehr]

and I also want to start backing up the stems. Do you just export the stems (at whatever volume they are set in mixer? Remove mastering plugins on master channel? < although that doesn't make any difference right?) and save them in a folder? a zip folder? so you end up with unmastered stems?

Thanks for any help! I want to make sure I have some sort of system in place for backing up.

For stems, I leave everything exactly the same as the full mix. I just mute whatever tracks I don't want to include and bounce the remaining tracks. And, yes it does matter if you leave your mastering plugs in or out. My view of the stems are they should sound just like my full mix if you combine them all. So don't change the levels, or eq or plugs.... Among many other reasons, if you loose your full mix, you can combine the stems and get it back.

This seems like a pretty tricky thing to me.... if I were to break out my stems on some songs from the individual track outputs, (i.e. each separate track) combining them to create the final track would require the master buss plugins since I often go in the red on the master buss PRE plug-ins (you can do this in some DAWs without adding distortion)

If you "mute" tracks to create stems from Master Buss bounces, then each stem is going through the master buss insert chain and that chain reacts to the mix/volume of what is coming in. Specially if there are limiters/compressors/expanders/maximizers.... etc.

I'd like to consider "stems" as more like alternate (or partial) mixes and treat them accordingly. And deal with breaking out the individual tracks (with and/or without fx) as a separate entity.

Russell

[TheElement]

Yeah Russell thats what I was thinking too. I would like to just export each stem without master fx chain and then save them. Then I could always import them back into a new session as audio and mix and master from that. So will the volume you export each stem at be important? Do you keep the same volume or maybe export each stem at a slightly lower volume? As I mix kinda hot and my master channel keeps everything under control. I guess I got to try a few different approaches and see which one works best for me. especially for edm I guess is different as we are mixing really hot.

[orest]

Time Machine
External hard drives that I keep in a fire proof safety box