PHOTO BY DAVIS SANCHEZ FROM PEXELS
on your sources. Even a small
room can have an unflattering
sound if the walls are bare. Bookcases
filled with objects and fabric
wall hangings will sound far
better than an exposed, painted
drywall surface or large images in
frames with reflective glass.
Identifying and working
around noisy times of day can
help manage expectations
around what is feasible in our
spaces. Simply shifting your
tasks to editing or mixing while
the environment is at its loudest
will save a lot of headache later
when you’re confronted with
the task of cleaning out noise or
having to consider re-recording
noisy material.
SETTING UP YOUR
SESSION
If you are a Pro Tools user, now
is a great time to sink your teeth
in and get using Avid’s Cloud
Collaborations. It will take a lot
of hassle and file management
out of sharing full session folders.
If you are on Logic, have a
look at a product by the name of
Splice; it will sync your local project
to the most recent version
saved by other collaborators.
If you are sharing full sessions
and audio folders, here are
a few tips on how to streamline
the process:
Label and colour-code
everything: Make it crystal clear
what things are and take the time
to colour-code tracks and
groups of tracks. This will speed
up your work and avoid confusion.
Don’t share more than you need:
Clear out any unused takes from
the session and be decisive
about what is truly needed for
the next collaborator down the
line. Only share what is absolutely
needed for the production
to grow; this will save incredible
amounts of time uploading,
downloading, opening, and managing
sessions.
Consolidate your audio:
Consolidating is simply taking
an audio track that consists of
many independent clips or edits
and rendering that track into one
file with no edits or crossfades.
This is particularly useful when
moving projects between different
DAWs (i.e. Reaper to Studio One).
Use friendly plug-ins: Now is
not the time to show off the 600
compressors in your plug-in list.
If you are sharing full project
sessions, use plug-ins you know
your collaborators have access
to. If that’s not possible, commit
CANADIAN MUSICIAN 49