Old pro tools system. Need help

  • Thread starter Thread starter dogooder
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. I haven't been fooling around with it much lately. I have about ten tunes on my hard drive with the bass and drums all mixed.
I have been working on them almost all the time. I could go anytime now and it is getting a bit urgent that I get them done if
possible. I have run into a problem with my Yamaha 02R board and my Alesis HD24 that I have yet to over come. I also don't have
the gentlemen playing with me anymore and have to do keys etc myself which I am not the greatest on and it is taking a million takes.
I am copying and pasting your advice into a folder for future reference for when I get back to it. I don't really want to do much mixing and
editing with protools. What I really need it for is silencing certain sections, erasing certain sections and bringing the volumes of channels
up and down in real time. After that is done I will just drop it back into the HD24 and mix on the 02R. If you want to see what I am up against
between the board and the HD recorder I refer you to this thread. It is holding me back on doing vocal tracks especially.
 
I gave up on that. To much of a learning curve for an old system.
 
Seeing as you've got this old system up and running. What I do with old projects on my old ProTools rig, is export the entire session as wav files.

I don't read every post on this forum as I've a business to run. So I am catching up a bit on what you've posted. I see you are starting to come to terms with how monumental a lift this is going to be for you. Free help online is going to be slow and painful. Cheap yes, but as you've figured out, when you ask 3 audio engineers for an opinion, you get 8 different ones. This mix of advice is certainly going to add to your frustration and frankly, doesn't seem to be getting you that much closer to being able to do this on your own.

I'd suggest you think about what some of your options are. The challenge you've given yourself is to be musician, composer, engineer, tech and producer. It's a lot of hats and I don't mean to be insulting when I say this, you don't exactly have the experience for a couple of key parts to this list. If you could just get past the idea that you have to do it all by yourself, perhaps you can find a local engineer or studio that can take a bit of this off your plate. Have you at least looked into it?

Check to see if that old G4 has software called HD24Tools. One of our mobile recording rigs were Genex recorders that used standard formatted hard drives that could be imported directly into ProTools. The HD24 has a proprietary drive format that requires software to read. The IDE drive in the caddy could be put into an enclosure and exported to wav files that way. The Old ProTools projects should be easily exported. Then you have all the files any engineer would need to set up a session to add tracks and then mix down.

The issue at hand is you are relying on our fading memory of how such an old system works. We'd be much more helpful with more modern software and hardware but all that costs money and you are still in the same spot figuring it all out. My take, is if this is going to cost something and has only the life span of 10 songs, hire it out. It'll save you a ton of headaches.
 
If you were to export WAV files to a computer based DAW the good news is that it should not have to cost you much. Reaper is cheap ($60.00) and will run on almost any computer. Since you are recording only yourself you will only need a simple recording interface. Reaper contains many plugins for effects and signal processing so no need to search out or buy new ones. Reaper is a fairly complex software but for me was easy to get started. In my case I was recording basic tracks within 30 minutes and that was including the install which was very straight forward. Like I mentioned before there are loads of Reaper tutorials online for anything you can think of so once you get started you can learn more as you go. FYI, I am using Reaper as an example because it's the only DAW I know but lots of people use it and you will hear the same from many.
 
markmann said:
If you were to export WAV files to a computer based DAW the good news is that it should not have to cost you much. Reaper is cheap ($60.00) and will run on almost any computer. Since you are recording only yourself you will only need a simple recording interface. Reaper contains many plugins for effects and signal processing so no need to search out or buy new ones. Reaper is a fairly complex software but for me was easy to get started. In my case I was recording basic tracks within 30 minutes and that was including the install which was very straight forward. Like I mentioned before there are loads of Reaper tutorials online for anything you can think of so once you get started you can learn more as you go. FYI, I am using Reaper as an example because it's the only DAW I know but lots of people use it and you will hear the same from many.
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I would probably have to buy another computer. I run Linux on mine and I doubt Reaper or many others can run on it? I won't switch the OS on this one because I use it
on the web, have never been hacked, never see pop ups or ads with the ad blocker I use and I have complete control over every aspect of it, unlike microsoft that will tell me what I can and cannot do. Hackers don't usually take the time to mess with a Linux system. I do have Audacity on it but I don't think that would really cut it and I haven't seen any audio software for Linux?
 
Folkcafe said:
Cheap yes, but as you've figured out, when you ask 3 audio engineers for an opinion, you get 8 different ones.
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Made me laugh! I am already a fairly good musician and composer, as for the rest.... I also have a Yamaha 02R 48 and an 02R 96 I can work with for now.
 
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dogooder said:
I would probably have to buy another computer. I run Linux on mine and I doubt Reaper or many others can run on it? I won't switch the OS on this one because I use it
on the web, have never been hacked, never see pop ups or ads with the ad blocker I use and I have complete control over every aspect of it, unlike microsoft that will tell me what I can and cannot do. Hackers don't usually take the time to mess with a Linux system. I do have Audacity on it but I don't think that would really cut it and I haven't seen any audio software for Linux?
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I think Reaper will load on Linux but I don't have personal experience. You can go on the Reaper forum and ask plus keep in mind that you can demo the software for free for I think a month. Here's a link I found on the subject:
 
markmann said:
I think Reaper will load on Linux but I don't have personal experience. You can go on the Reaper forum and ask plus keep in mind that you can demo the software for free for I think a month. Here's a link I found on the subject:
Click to expand...

I have it bookmarked now. I would probably just buy a puter anyway. I have Linux running on my laptop which I move all over the house. I would want this to be stationary. I could just put a Windows OS on it since I would never use it to surf the web. In case I do it and do run a Linux OS on it which I might do, I have access to the vid. Sixty bucks is cheap enough that if I didn't like Reaper I could just kick it to the curb. I probably couldn't even compare it, the last software I used for any recording was in 1999 when I was using cakewalk doing some midi projects.I have the digidesign interfaces from the protools but they probably wouldn't fly? What would be a decent interface?
How does Reaper come packaged? Is it just a download?
 
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Reaper is surprisingly good and it's a surprisingly compact download.

If you're just going to edit and mix, you could probably get away using the onboard audio and headphones. A basic two-channel USB interface would set you up to add vocals and other things that only require one or two channels, and it would connect to a proper monitor system.
 
Dogooder,

If you do want to try Reaper, just for the ability to mix a few files after a transfer, you can go to an earlier version. Version 4.75 supports PPC directly, so you could use the G4. My first version was 4.15 from 2012, so it's a product that's been around for quite a while. They are currently on V6.66 and is also supports Linux with X86-64 or AMD64 processors. The free trial period is 60 days, but it remains fully functional after that. It just puts a nag screen up when you launch which delays the start by a few seconds. The other good point is that you can run it on multiple machines off of a single license. You should be able to run either on Windows (XP to 11) or Linux with a single license. That license (if you start with 6.66) will run all the way to 7.999. It won't ever stop running, you just couldn't go to V8.0. I am currently on V5.99.

I did something similar to what you are doing. I had old songs on a Yamaha AW16G there were recorded somewhere around 2004. I managed to export the individual tracks as wav files, and from there were able to edit, update and mix the songs down in my computer in Reaper. In my case, I had to export the wav files to CDRW since the AW16G doesn't have USB connections. It took time, but was worth it in the end to have the tracks back.
 
I could export the files off the HD24 via ethernet, there is a port and there is a port on the Mac G4. I started to give it a shot. I set them up to communicate but then I had no idea what to use on the mac to import them in or how to go about it lol. I read it takes about 4x longer than the recording but I am in no hurry. I haven't touched an apple OS in 22 years.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Reaper is surprisingly good and it's a surprisingly compact download.

If you're just going to edit and mix, you could probably get away using the onboard audio and headphones. A basic two-channel USB interface would set you up to add vocals and other things that only require one or two channels, and it would connect to a proper monitor system.
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I have a bunch of songs on the Alesis HD24 that I would like to finish and the only port for exporting files is an ethernet port, no USB. I did download 8 tracks into protools on the old mac, via the digidesign adat interface but when I went to try it again I couldn't get it to work? The only thing I think that was different was I only had the adat interface hooked up. When I downloaded them the first time I had the adat interface hooked up and an 882 I/O hooked up but I don't see where that could have made a difference. I have an older gamer computer with a partitioned HD with both Windows and Linux on it, I forget which versions. It is considerably newer than the G4 but it has no wireless card and I havent looked into how to connect to the internet with it. I don't think the G4 has wireless either. Could I down load reaper to my laptop, put it on a stick and transfer it? I haven't worked with a Apple OS in 22 years and I havent worked with a Windows OS for about seven years either!
 
dogooder said:
I could export the files off the HD24 via ethernet, there is a port and there is a port on the Mac G4. I started to give it a shot. I set them up to communicate but then I had no idea what to use on the mac to import them in or how to go about it lol. I read it takes about 4x longer than the recording but I am in no hurry. I haven't touched an apple OS in 22 years.
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I'm starting to think you are not even bothering to read what I write. HD24Tools was software for this. Hint, hint.
 
You can download any Reaper installation file and stick it on a flash drive. It's about 12-15Meg in size and everything is contained in the file. Just click on it to run the extractor and within a min or two you have a fully functional DAW with plug-ins loaded and ready to go. It will default to your current sound device.

It really is painless.
 
Folkcafe said:
I'm starting to think you are not even bothering to read what I write. HD24Tools was software for this. Hint, hint.
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I read what you wrote but I haven't plugged in the mac for awhile, I have been busy trying to get the routing set on my Yamaha 02R to work with the HD24 which I have been running into problems with and using that for now. I know how to use most of whats on the 02R but the bass player who is no longer available did all the recording with it. He showed me how to use most of the features but we never went over the routing. I am so frustrated I just put and ad on CL to see if I can get an engineer over here and pay him to show me the ins and outs of the routing. I have spent, I am sure, over 30 hours trying to get it set right to no avail and I haven't got much hair left lol. The folks I inherited the G4 and protools from never used an HD24, so I doubt it is loaded on there but I will take a look next time I fire her up. It was being used with a Ghost 32 channel board which I sold because it was just way too big for anything I needed. I thank you for taking the the time and I will certainly look next time I fire her up. Everyone has been telling me to junk that old stuff and by new stuff. I am retired and on a fixed income and money is tight.
 
Folkcafe said:
I'm starting to think you are not even bothering to read what I write. HD24Tools was software for this. Hint, hint.
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Actually I will go downstairs now and fire her up and take a look. I am not sure the HD24s were even out yet when that version of protools was being used. I think it is version 5.2 but I will take a look. Like I have stated, I haven't used an apple OS in 22 years so it might take me some time to find it if it is there because I don't know where to begin to look for it.
 
Folkcafe said:
I'm starting to think you are not even bothering to read what I write. HD24Tools was software for this. Hint, hint.
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It is protools 5.1. I just opened protools and looked through all the menus and could find nothing for HD24. I opened the protools help and searched HD24 and nothing. I then typed in alesis and found a very short reference for the older Adats. I then searched the G4 hard drive and could not find anything.
 
dogooder said:
It is protools 5.1. I just opened protools and looked through all the menus and could find nothing for HD24. I opened the protools help and searched HD24 and nothing. I then typed in alesis and found a very short reference for the older Adats. I then searched the G4 hard drive and could not find anything.
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Sorry, I feel your pain. In reading what you added to your story, it sounds like these two systems were not part of the same recording setup.

I used to be in charge of archival content in the corporate studio I worked at. The primary focus is always the content. Once it is backed up to a format you can use, you don't really care what happens to the hardware. While your case is a bit different, as someone has said, hardware failure would spell disaster. The files are the most valuable part.
 
All the advice you are getting is good, but there are a few completely different ways to go about this, and you are getting confused as to which thing to try for which result.

There is no way to plug the HD24 into the G4 and have the files automatically show up in ProTools.

Method 1. Since the HD24 uses a proprietary file format, you would need to access the hard drive in the HD24 (probably by physically taking the drive out and plugging it into your computer) and use the HD24 software (which you will have to find and download to a computer) to translate the format on the HD24 to wav files and transfer them into your computer. Once you do that, you can then import the wav files into a ProTools project.

Method 2. Get the analog I/O on your ProTools system working and connect the analog outputs of the HD24 to the analog inputs of the ProTools interface. Then you would create and arm the tracks in ProTools and simply play the HD24 and record the audio in ProTools in real time.

Method 3. Get the ADAT inputs working on the ProTools system, connect the ADAT outs on the HD24 to the ADAT ins on the ProTools rig and play the HD24 into ProTools, recording in real time.

Method 4. Network a computer to the HD24, use the HD24 conversion software to convert everything to wav files and transfer them to the computer, where you can load them into ProTools.

Method 5. Find someone that does transfers and pay them to do it.
 
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