Question about collaborating using different DAWs

spantini

COO of me, inc.
What say you..

Scenario : Musician-A has DAW-A and wants to collaborate with Musician-B who uses DAW-B (different DAWs)

Musician-A doesn't want this to be a professional project (yet), just to send Musician-B a rough mix of a couple of tracks so he can add another part, then send a rough mix of that back to Musician-A and repeat until all parts are there.. all as .wav files.

Musician-B sez there's no way this will work, there are problems with track alignment and other stuff. Sending .wav files back and forth is not acceptable - won't work.

Musician-A doesn't see what the problem is. He's manually aligning all kinds of stuff in DAW-A.. why can't DAW-B's .wav files just be dragged into DAW-A and manually aligned?

Musician-A knows there are other, larger difficulties with compatibility, but for just creating parts and assembling them into a song to get the ball rolling those shouldn't impede the project at this point - right? Now, to proceed on to a more professional level, Musician-A realizes they should both use the same DAW to continue. But that's a ways off.
 
No need to use the same DAW. You just exchange the added tracks, individually, as WAV files. Agree ahead of time on the project settings for sample rate, and if using a click, specify that, as well as key, probably.

First, one person says who will be the mixer. Let's say that is A.

So, A sends a scratch track (mix) to B with the information on how to set up the project. B records their part or parts. Bounce out a WAV of the track with FX, but, in general, they should not use reverbs, compression, EQ of the kind that would be applied to the mix. VSTs, amp sims, etc., i.e., those things not likely to be in A's project/computer, or critical to the sound should be included. If necessary, have them bounce both with and without "mix-related" FX, and even send back a scratch/mix of what they think it should sound like, but that is a suggestion. A adds B's tracks to the project, adds/replaces (e.g. the scratch) tracks, and sends another mix to B, if there's more to be done. And the process repeats.

Insisting on the same DAW is going to be a non-starter for most folks.
 
Thank you. That's what Musician-A is trying to get across to Musician-B but he's having none of it. He's locked into doing this at a higher level of production and refusing to contribute at a lower level saying things are just not done this way - it won't work. It can't work.

Musician-A thanks you for supporting his view :D
 
That's no different that me doing a recording on my Zoom R24, taking it home and dumping it into Reaper, then adding in a replacement bass track, new vocal and a few guitar tracks. I've done it a dozen times, and it works just fine.

Use dropbox and put the wave files there, whether a rough mix or individual files. All B needs to do is put up an isolated wav file with some point to use to line things up for ease (although that's not critical.) It will be no different that if he was in the same room as you.
 
That's no different that me doing a recording on my Zoom R24, taking it home and dumping it into Reaper, then adding in a replacement bass track, new vocal and a few guitar tracks. I've done it a dozen times, and it works just fine.

Use dropbox and put the wave files there, whether a rough mix or individual files. All B needs to do is put up an isolated wav file with some point to use to line things up for ease (although that's not critical.) It will be no different that if he was in the same room as you.

Exactly. Right..?
 
The way I do this is to send a mix of the song to someone, along with tempo, time signature and other details.

The collaborator records his or her parts using the mix as a reference, sends those parts back, where I then slot them into the main project.

Most of my collaborators use the same DAW (Reaper), which means we can exchange project files. This makes life easier. but is not essential. Geting a mixed MP3 from PT is no different to getting a mixed MP3 from Reaper.
 
Only issue with quality of wav files from another DAW or location is the quality of the recording/environment it is recorded in.

Alignment is simple.

I do it all the time with even clients sending direct from guitar signal recording with an amp sim. Then I reamp in my room. It is easy.
 
What say you..

Scenario : Musician-A has DAW-A and wants to collaborate with Musician-B who uses DAW-B (different DAWs)

Musician-A doesn't want this to be a professional project (yet), just to send Musician-B a rough mix of a couple of tracks so he can add another part, then send a rough mix of that back to Musician-A and repeat until all parts are there.. all as .wav files.

Musician-B sez there's no way this will work, there are problems with track alignment and other stuff. Sending .wav files back and forth is not acceptable - won't work.

Musician-A doesn't see what the problem is. He's manually aligning all kinds of stuff in DAW-A.. why can't DAW-B's .wav files just be dragged into DAW-A and manually aligned?

Musician-A knows there are other, larger difficulties with compatibility, but for just creating parts and assembling them into a song to get the ball rolling those shouldn't impede the project at this point - right? Now, to proceed on to a more professional level, Musician-A realizes they should both use the same DAW to continue. But that's a ways off.

To me it kinda sounds like "B" isn't confident of their ability. Production pay studios work with multiple DAWs though one may be more used than another, or it may not.

ANY part can be copied so there isn't any reason to not use whatever you want, as long as any original tracks can be returned to. If you want to throw effects on something , copy the tracks and create a stem with whatever you want.

The only thing I would be concerned about is keeping accurate notes of what is on what so if a particular effect is liked but the part needs to be re done or changed, the settings of the effects can be recalled, etc.
 
I've done this on a number of occasions. If you both maintain a consistent start point, it's easy for B to simply export his WAV files from that common start point and for A to drop the files into his project at that same point. It's a completely trivial objection on the part of B.
 
Hi. I have a collaboration project with friends in the USA and Scotland, and we use 2-3 different DAW's (Studio One, Cakewalk and PT) without any issues.
I do the same with other collaborations as well.
All you need (as mentioned above) is to share tempo and time signature and song key if needed.
All the best, and best of luck.
 
Thank you. That's what Musician-A is trying to get across to Musician-B but he's having none of it. He's locked into doing this at a higher level of production and refusing to contribute at a lower level saying things are just not done this way - it won't work. It can't work.

Musician-A thanks you for supporting his view :D

Musician A is correct, and musician B is wrong :thumbs up:
It IS done that way all the time.
 
Just to reaffirm to myself, I went to Mike Senior's resource website and downloaded a .ZIP folder of one full song: 16 stems, along with the accompanying .mp3 mix for reference. I have no idea what DAW this was done with.

The Read Me file had a short list of instruments and the BPM setting - that's it.

I opened Reaper (did not create New Project - just had the opening screen). I set the BPM. I highlighted all the stems in the folder, dragged and dropped them in one bunch onto Reaper's track screen. I was asked if I wanted separate tracks or ONE track - I did separate tracks. About 15 seconds later.. POW! ... all loaded and ready to go. No FX or other processing and all faders were at 0.00dB. Also, all tracks were perfectly aligned and sounded great. After messing around awhile I SavedAs and closed Reaper. Then I fired it up again and opened the project just to make sure of no problems there.

So.. as far as swapping stems back and forth between different DAWs, looks like it's going to work well. As far as not utilizing the same plugins, I was going to suggest including a rendered stem mix so the designated project mixer would have an idea how to use their similar plugin(s) to accomplish the desired sound.
 
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