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So I learned an interesting lesson this week. Essentially, you're not really "done" with a piece of music until you have at least all of following:

- The "full" mix and various submixes, i.e. drum and bass, etc
- As many individual stems as applicable
- Instrumenta / Vocal version when applicable
- 30 / 60 / 90 / second versions + stinger versions where applicable
- Fadeout / button ending version where applicable
- Full length / radio edit (abridged)
- Lengthy intro / quick start version where applicable

Reason I'm bringing this up is because an old project from like Digital performer 7.x is corrupt and I can't open it in Digital Performer 9.x. I really wanted to be able to bounce some of the above subsets but alas, it may be lost to the ages.

It's annoying extra work up front but going forward I am going to try to make it a "best practice" to get that alll done way before something gets lost to the ages.

Anyway just throwing it out there.

-Vic

That's gonna be a whole bunch of extra work that may never be needed as different Libraries ask for different edits.

The 15 / 30 / 60 you can make from the full stero mix if you have to..actually I prefer it and I find it easier now I'm used to it. Just load it into a Wav editor ( I use Wavlab ) and do it there, no DAW required.

I would probably try and find a better method. I mean ideally you're not going to be jumping 2 major DAW updates between writing and signing a track. Hopefully at some point you'll get in with Library or two and be writing directly to their briefs so you'll know what's needed as you make it.

You can cover yourself by freezing all the tracks so if a plugin or VSTi doesn't work anymore you have it bounced to a wav inside the project. I jumped from Sonar 8.5 to the latest version a couple of months back ..ten years between the two versions and it opened the same project without a hitch but if ever anyting fails it does have a ' safe mode ' so you can at least get into it if it doesn't want to play nice.

If you definitely want to do them in advance then it may help to use track folders , I think all the major DAWs have them but you can drop all your guitars and drums etc. into their own folder and then just solo it when you want to run off a stem.

I agree, I'd probably just do the final mix and 2 or 3 full length sub mixes and leave it there unless you are targetting a specific library and know their needs.

cosmicdolphin wrote:That's gonna be a whole bunch of extra work that may never be needed as different Libraries ask for different edits.

The 15 / 30 / 60 you can make from the full stero mix if you have to..actually I prefer it and I find it easier now I'm used to it. Just load it into a Wav editor ( I use Wavlab ) and do it there, no DAW required.

I would probably try and find a better method. I mean ideally you're not going to be jumping 2 major DAW updates between writing and signing a track. Hopefully at some point you'll get in with Library or two and be writing directly to their briefs so you'll know what's needed as you make it.

You can cover yourself by freezing all the tracks so if a plugin or VSTi doesn't work anymore you have it bounced to a wav inside the project. I jumped from Sonar 8.5 to the latest version a couple of months back ..ten years between the two versions and it opened the same project without a hitch but if ever anyting fails it does have a ' safe mode ' so you can at least get into it if it doesn't want to play nice.

If you definitely want to do them in advance then it may help to use track folders , I think all the major DAWs have them but you can drop all your guitars and drums etc. into their own folder and then just solo it when you want to run off a stem.

You bring up a very solid solution. Essentially, bounce the audio stems. This will probably work quite a bit of the time, but sometimes I find myself having to tweak the fundamental MIDI or re-record some audio for the cutdowns to work gracefully. But yes, for the most part, that's probably a much less time consuming workflow. Thanks!

Unstar wrote: sometimes I find myself having to tweak the fundamental MIDI or re-record some audio for the cutdowns to work gracefully.

Maybe you are going about it the wrong way then , I've never had to re-record or change a part to make a cut down. Everything you need should be in the track already.

See what the others say.

I would add that I'd be careful relying on your full mix to make 15, 30, 60 cutdowns. Sometimes it works but I would say more often than not it sounds like an edit rather than sounding like a fully realized piece of music that stands on it's own. I end up doing quite a bit of work sometimes on my cutdowns to make them sound as pro as possible. Can be a pain in the ass but so it goes...

eeoo wrote:I would add that I'd be careful relying on your full mix to make 15, 30, 60 cutdowns. Sometimes it works but I would say more often than not it sounds like an edit rather than sounding like a fully realized piece of music that stands on it's own. I end up doing quite a bit of work sometimes on my cutdowns to make them sound as pro as possible. Can be a pain in the ass but so it goes...

I agree. IMO there are way too many instances where it's not possible to do a quick edit, especially if you do a lot of "anticipating" or off-beat rhythms.

I do end up having to tweak the source material a fair amount when doing these, otherwise something would sound abrupt or too "spliced" sounding. I can get in there and smooth things out to give the cutdown a very tailored feel. If you record everything "on the beat" all the time, I guess this is less of a concern -- but I don't think that's the norm.

A lot of us feel your pain and can relate. Here is what I say:

Unstar wrote:...... you're not really "done" with a piece of music until you have at least all of following:

- The "full" mix and various submixes, i.e. drum and bass, etc
- As many individual stems as applicable
- Instrumenta / Vocal version when applicable
- 30 / 60 / 90 / second versions + stinger versions where applicable
- Fadeout / button ending version where applicable
- Full length / radio edit (abridged)
- Lengthy intro / quick start version where applicable

Yes. Sort of. If you are signing non-exclusively sometimes you want to make a different mix for some specific reason. Like without banjo etc.

Most of the time, if you sign exclusively, you will deliver whatever your publisher wants straight off. Usually you can keep stuff around in case they want stems for an advert project or something, but usually they don't ask for it later.

Most publishers that require those sorts of deliverables ask straight off.

So that is your first decision right there - if its signed exclusively, you can often get away with just doing what the publisher asked for.

The safest thing to do for perpetuity to is bounce each track including all FX and mastering active to a set of SPLITS (notice I didn't say stems). Bring all the splits into a fresh project should result in recreating your exact mix as you first project had. A split is basically one track by itself. That would mean the Left side rhythm guitar district from the right side rhythm guitar etc.

This will bake in all your compression, eq, and other treatments so even if you start using a new DAW or change platforms, or lose access to some plugins, you will always have your initial project.

Next less work intensive would be to bounce a set a STEMS using the same all plugins on and mastering active. Again bringing the complete set of stems in will recreate the mix. With some experience you will know what you can safely combine to make usable STEMS vs SPLITS. A stem might be L and R rhythm electric guitars together. It might be several lead electric guitars playing melody stuff even if they aren't doubles. It could be all the drums together. etc.

A lot of people who do lots of VI stuff usually bounce splits and then mix the audio for their final session instead of dealing with the VI stuff. It can lighten the load on your computer and make things go faster. Its hard to commit sometimes though if you are continually tinkering with little programming details.

Unstar wrote:......Reason I'm bringing this up is because an old project from like Digital performer 7.x is corrupt and I can't open it in Digital Performer 9.x. I really wanted to be able to bounce some of the above subsets but alas, it may be lost to the ages.......

You may be in luck here.

Just about every DAW will allow starting a new project and importing session data from any other version of the DAW. Pro Tools does this, Logic X does it, and I am sure DP does it. So while the original session file might be dust and corrupt - usually you can import track by track and get most of the assets into a new project.

That can help you recover 90% of the performances, audio and midi. Sometimes if you lost access to a certain VI plugin, just having the MIDI and instantiating the new version of your orchestral strings or whatever it might be can save a lot of work.

CAVEAT:

All this depends on whether you have something worthwhile to start with. Sometimes its not that great and the extra work is lost.

Good luck!

Hurray! Another Digital Performer user!!

I was running DP5 on an old computer, didn’t update for years. Then I got a ‘new’ computer (second hand) and put DP9 on there.

I wanted to move some tracks across and remix the DP5 tracks on DP9, but of course the files wouldn’t convert up 4 versions!

Luckily as I was using 2 computers I was able to bounce each instrument individually on DP5 and move them onto the newer computer to mix on DP9.

Not great practice tbh, but I’ve done 3 tracks like that and 2 of them have been forwarded. One of them twice!

It’s an option if you can run both versions anyway.

Best of luck with it.
Chris

andygabrys wrote:A lot of us feel your pain and can relate. Here is what I say:

Unstar wrote:...... you're not really "done" with a piece of music until you have at least all of following:

- The "full" mix and various submixes, i.e. drum and bass, etc
- As many individual stems as applicable
- Instrumenta / Vocal version when applicable
- 30 / 60 / 90 / second versions + stinger versions where applicable
- Fadeout / button ending version where applicable
- Full length / radio edit (abridged)
- Lengthy intro / quick start version where applicable

Yes. Sort of. If you are signing non-exclusively sometimes you want to make a different mix for some specific reason. Like without banjo etc.

Most of the time, if you sign exclusively, you will deliver whatever your publisher wants straight off. Usually you can keep stuff around in case they want stems for an advert project or something, but usually they don't ask for it later.

Most publishers that require those sorts of deliverables ask straight off.

So that is your first decision right there - if its signed exclusively, you can often get away with just doing what the publisher asked for.

The safest thing to do for perpetuity to is bounce each track including all FX and mastering active to a set of SPLITS (notice I didn't say stems). Bring all the splits into a fresh project should result in recreating your exact mix as you first project had. A split is basically one track by itself. That would mean the Left side rhythm guitar district from the right side rhythm guitar etc.

This will bake in all your compression, eq, and other treatments so even if you start using a new DAW or change platforms, or lose access to some plugins, you will always have your initial project.

Next less work intensive would be to bounce a set a STEMS using the same all plugins on and mastering active. Again bringing the complete set of stems in will recreate the mix. With some experience you will know what you can safely combine to make usable STEMS vs SPLITS. A stem might be L and R rhythm electric guitars together. It might be several lead electric guitars playing melody stuff even if they aren't doubles. It could be all the drums together. etc.

A lot of people who do lots of VI stuff usually bounce splits and then mix the audio for their final session instead of dealing with the VI stuff. It can lighten the load on your computer and make things go faster. Its hard to commit sometimes though if you are continually tinkering with little programming details.

Unstar wrote:......Reason I'm bringing this up is because an old project from like Digital performer 7.x is corrupt and I can't open it in Digital Performer 9.x. I really wanted to be able to bounce some of the above subsets but alas, it may be lost to the ages.......

You may be in luck here.

Just about every DAW will allow starting a new project and importing session data from any other version of the DAW. Pro Tools does this, Logic X does it, and I am sure DP does it. So while the original session file might be dust and corrupt - usually you can import track by track and get most of the assets into a new project.

That can help you recover 90% of the performances, audio and midi. Sometimes if you lost access to a certain VI plugin, just having the MIDI and instantiating the new version of your orchestral strings or whatever it might be can save a lot of work.

CAVEAT:

All this depends on whether you have something worthwhile to start with. Sometimes its not that great and the extra work is lost.

Good luck!

I kept getting an error that some audio files were missing and it wouldn't load the project. So I just created empty files with those file names. It ended up being like 10 of them. After doing that, I was able to load the project and exploit the MIDI.