when recording multiple songs in pro-tools I...

[giraffe]

do you, when recording a band in pro tools (or whatever daw)

open a session per song?

use one session for all songs?


if you open one session per songwhy?



(just a regular band, no special circumstances)

 

[NL5]

While I don't use pro tools, I do open one session per song for two reasons.

1. Archiving - the whole song project folder will fit on 1 DVD
2. In case something goes horribly wrong and the project gets corrupted, only the 1 song is affected.

I had a CD project that was handed over to me halfway thru, and the whole thing is in one session - 27 GB worth - can only back that up to a HDD.

 

[AlexW]

I too open one session for tracking. I usually track everything over one or two days with the same settings on everything; so having things in a single session allows me to get a good rough mix on the songs before parsing them out. The only issue I've had is with a session I did a bunch of editing in one time getting corrupted (a bug in PTLE 6.1.x) and losing all the edit information. I now save all editing, fades, etc. until after I have the songs broken out of the main tracking session.

 

[bennychico11]

do one session per song. i've done both ways before and I'll tell you the extra time and effort it takes to create separate songs is worth it.
like NL5 said, for archiving purposes it makes it much easier and it's also safer in case of disk errors. The name "Guitar" on a region doesn't really distinguish between which Guitar file for which song of which take.
not only that, but every song is different. different EQ settings, different compression settings, different memory locations/markers, different groups, different sends, etc. And the biggest reason for me is volume automation (or if you don't use automation...simple level volumes) changes every session too.

 

[reshp1]

one session per song. It just is neater and easier to work with for me. I create my new sessions from a template session, so that saves on some of the bitch work of getting a new session ready to record.

 

[LemonTree]

I'm a Cubase user but I always do 1 song per session to its own folder. I use a template as someone stated above to save on sorting out all my buss routing back to the desk (selecting soundcard outputs for each chanel and paning). Nothing new to add really, I just find it easier.

I use 3 hard drives in a purpose built DAW. drive 1 is home to a stripped down XP and Cubase SX. Drive 2 is a 160Gig storage drive and drive 3 is my recording drive

I record a song to drive 3 then archive it to disk 2 and at the same time burn the project folder to DVD (call me Mr Caution)

 

[giraffe]

this is a pet peeve of mine.

i'm finishing up 3 jobs that other people started this month (at various phases) and all of them have one session per song.

i want the kit to sound the same thru the entire album (usually)
and mostly the gits too
and the vox

and most of all i don't want to waste peoples time opening a new session for every song, and then the added time mixing..... it's huge.

and i just save two sessions, lets call them
bullshit one
and
bullshit too

alternate between saving as one then the other, and if you have a problem at the most you loose a take NOT AN ENTIRE SONG

sorry, just a pet peeve, making me work more and wasting peoples money.

 

[bennychico11]

i want the kit to sound the same thru the entire album (usually)
and mostly the gits too
and the vox

this is what presets are for in your plugin settings.

and most of all i don't want to waste peoples time opening a new session for every song, and then the added time mixing..... it's huge.

and this is what pre-production is for. spend the extra 5-10min. before the session starts to make a template and create all the sessions. then while they are changing sheet music, or retuning their guitars, you just close one session and open the other. it's simple.

but if you still prefer using one session for everything...you can try and master the playlists. they can be useful in this situation sometimes too.

 

[bcains]

Usually i track all the songs in one session, i hardly EQ (in PT/S), i try get the best possible sound for my dry mix then i consolidated, NOTE: i dont save the save the session all consolidated, i just take the files out of the audio bin then send them into a session each (per song), Within each songs session, thats when i start adding all my effects.

 

[Atterion]

one session per song. It just is neater and easier to work with for me. I create my new sessions from a template session, so that saves on some of the bitch work of getting a new session ready to record.

Ditto!!! Using a template also provides a more unified vibe, especially nice when it comes time to master up a couple songs together.