storing your work

[dobro]

What do you save?

You save the original tracks, because that's the original material.

You save the mixdown, because that's what you make copies of albums from.

But do you save your mixes? I can only think of one reason: because someday you might want to change something in the mix. Well, have you ever gone back and changed something in a mix?

Which probably means there's no real reason to keep the original tracks either, if you're satisfied with the mixdown. Just thinking out loud here. What do you think?

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Depends on the project but generally I start with the raw tracks, those get backed up and archived....

From those I create a working copy of the tracks on a dedicated HD as well as the DAW for editing... the DAW become my working copies and the hard disk copies become the mixing copies.... (so the DAW has the working originals while the HD24 has the final edited track versions)

The mixing copy gets backed-up to another hard drive as a safety while the project is underway.... and archived to tapes at the end of the project

At the end of the project I have:
- the original tracks on tape or HD
- a safety copy of the original tracks on tape
- CDs of the DAW working edit tracks
- the mixdown version of the tracks on HD
- safety copy of the HD mixing tracks on tape
- numerous track sheets and notes

All bundled in a banker's boxes for easy storage per project!

yikes..............!

 

[Track Rat]

I end up with the original raw tracks either on ADAT tape or now on a removeable hard drive out of the HD24 and the edited tracks that are also part of a Cakewalk project (to preserve any volume/pan envelope edits) archieved to CD-R. And of course track sheets. I've only been asked to go back into a project from a client after the fact a handfull of times.

 

[littledog]

Everything gets saved and archived in my Pro Tools sessions to two sets of DDS tapes - one for me, one for the client. I get requests to revisit mixes all the time. Sometimes a singer will come back years later and want me to make a mix without lead vocals so they can sing to tape at a convention or something. Other times it's an actual remix. Either way, many clients use my studio partly because of the guarantee of complete recallability.