Swap Projects Using Flashdrives?

[Robbie Bossert]

Have you ever taken one of your entire projects, stuck it on a Flashdrive and gave it to someone to open up in their DAW to add tracks of their own, reopen it in your DAW for mixing or whatever? Just curious. Don't see why it wouldn't work..

Robbie

[Tony Prior]

No reason for it not to work, but entire projects can tend to be large, in actuality they ARE very large.


IF you are having someone add tracks to your project the more common approach is to send them an MP3 ( or wav) of your tune, a ruff mix. They can drop that file into their DAW , record a few tracks , at full length, do not cut or modify any time, they return the tracks to you as separate wav files which you drop into your project. Just be sure to request that they return the tracks DRY ( no effects) .

Email them an MP3, they can return completed tracks via many methods, Email, Dropbox, FTP or , US mail !

[Rick Schacter]

Don't see why it wouldn't work..

It will work as long as you're both using the same type of media files: OMF,Wave or whatever.

Using a thumb drive should work just fine, but thanks to a thread in this section of the forum, I've learned about this service:

www.box.com

You can drop off your wave files into your own account where your partner can load them into their computer.
The free service offers you up to 10GB of storage.
That should be plenty for swapping files back and forth.

[Johan Jansen]

Yes, I do that sometimes. You need to copy the whole project. The only problem is the location of the plugins....

[Rick Schacter]

Yes, I do that sometimes. You need to copy the whole project. The only problem is the location of the plugins....

Unless your partner has the exact same plugins as you, you will not be able to export the plugins.

If there is a sound from a plugin that you absolutely can't live without, you might have to bounce the audio track with the plugin so that the effect is "printed" (for lack of a better word) on to the new track.

Also, if you have a track that is cut up into several sections (as you might do for cleaning up a track), make sure that you export the track as an entire "stem".

That way your partner will be able to simply slide each track all the way over to the left of their track view without having to guess where to place all of the different pieces that made up that track.

[Tony Prior]

uhh yes, I assumed that both were using the same DAW...not a good idea to assume ~!

[Robbie Bossert]

Thanks guys...We tried it and it seems to work just fine...The next question is: When I get the Flashdrive back with his added parts and open it with my DAW, will it just open up in the original project window and just add the changes made or will it be a separate project?

Robbie

[Rick Schacter]

Thanks guys...We tried it and it seems to work just fine...The next question is: When I get the Flashdrive back with his added parts and open it with my DAW, will it just open up in the original project window and just add the changes made or will it be a separate project?

Robbie

Is he using the same DAW as you?
If so, you should be able to transfer the project exactly how he recorded it without any trouble.
If not, just make sure that you're using the same type of media files (Wave,, OMF or whatever).
As mentioned earlier, if you're not using the same DAW, you might not be able to use the same plugins.

[Robbie Bossert]

Yes...We're both using the latest version of Garageband. The most user friendly DAW I've ever worked with thus far.

Robbie

[Rick Schacter]

Yes...We're both using the latest version of Garageband. The most user friendly DAW I've ever worked with thus far.

Robbie

I just got a Mac Mini for Christmas, so I'm becoming familiar with Garageband.
I like it.

Good luck with your project.

[Robbie Bossert]

Thanks Rick.. You're gona' love it..It get real addictive real quick!

Robbie