Logic Pro 9 Best way to export tracks to a different system?

Lauren2010

Logician
First, I had a similar (but different) thread a few weeks ago, but the conversation turned to a different topic, so I thought I'd try again with a little more detail thrown in based on some additional experience....

I am sending my songs out for mixing and mastering from my logic 9 system to someone else (don't know the system he will use, they have protools and cubase and other systems, though they will be mixing in 96K, the same rate my recordings are in :))

Right now in logic 9 the only way I know to consolidate (as defined by protools) a track and its regions to a single MONO file is to bounce it. But I have to manually bypass all plugins and set the fader fully to R or L, change interleaved parameter to split, turn off automation, etc.. Then I delete the file (R or L) that has no audio in it.

Then I have to repeat that process for every track.

Does bouncing in this way degrade the original/raw audio? Does bouncing create a "second generation" audio file?

Is there a better way to bounce or export all tracks so that each track has its own resulting file in MONO and at the original bitrate without effects or other edits (pans, automation etc) and so each file is the same time length from start and end of the song and the audio is not degraded from the original raw recording?

A second option is to use the export function, but this function results only in stereo wav files. It operates on either all tracks or just one track. This function allows me to easily bypass effects, disable automation, but preserves panning settings. I could indeed use this function instead of bounce, but first I'd have to find a way to split the resulting stereo wave file and discard the empty channel (anyone know of an easy way to do this?). But I also don't know if export is better than bounce at preserving the raw audio.

A third option might be to glue together all the regions in each track and somehow make the one big region on each track the exact same length of the song, then I could simply drag the mono file from the audio bin. I know how to glue the regions together, but to then make the region the same length as the entire song is a mystery to me.

Many thanks for any advice
 
A second option is to use the export function, but this function results only in stereo wav files. It operates on either all tracks or just one track. This function allows me to easily bypass effects, disable automation, but preserves panning settings. I could indeed use this function instead of bounce, but first I'd have to find a way to split the resulting stereo wave file and discard the empty channel (anyone know of an easy way to do this?). But I also don't know if export is better than bounce at preserving the raw audio.

I'm sure that the studio will be happy with split stereo. I would ask them before worrying about turning interleaved stereo into two mono files. In fact, I'm sure in protools this is actually preferable. Split stereo gives you basically two mono files (L & R) but they are locked together in time and are edited as one.
A third option might be to glue together all the regions in each track and somehow make the one big region on each track the exact same length of the song, then I could simply drag the mono file from the audio bin. I know how to glue the regions together, but to then make the region the same length as the entire song is a mystery to me.

You just need to make sure there is a silent audio file at the end of each track (and at bar 1 unless an actual file starts at bar 1).

Please be very careful to only have mono files on mono tracks and stereo files on stereo tracks.

Once you have glued a stereo regions into one long audiofile, you can copy/convert (in the audio bin) to Split stereo (L & R) but as I said check first if the studio is happy with split stereo, I'll eat my hat if they aren't.
 
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Thanks Pete.

Does export and bounce work differently regarding audio degradation? Is one method superior over the other in this regard?

The guy did ask to try to have mono files instead of stereo files. Simplified his workflow I think. I'll check out audiofinder.
 
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That's good to hear.

FYI

I just tried exporting a track to a file and checking the box to copy the file to the audio bin at the same time, which causes a stereo interleaved file to be added to the audio bin. Though the original track recording was mono, the resulting file in the audio bin after I export it there is stereo interleaved and each channel (L & R) seems to be a copy of the original mono recording. And then I used the copy/convert menu you told me about to split the stereo file and it seemed to work.

So I guess I'll just start doing it this way.

Many thanks
 
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If you change the names of the left and right, so e.g.

Instead of file.L.wav and file.R.wav, they become file A.wav and file B.wav, then they are now bona fide mono files, no longer split stereo. But I still bet the studio will be just as happy with split stereo because if they can't use split stereo, then whatever software they use would just see them as two mono files. (However Pro Tools uses split stereo, and also converts interleaved to split on import)

Of course using bounce, you can bounce direct to split stereo.
 
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Once I split the stereo files into L & R (both of which are generated and named by logic), I delete one. And it doesn't seem to make a difference which one, because they are identicle (I think)

e.g. if I have bass.L.wav and bass.R.wav

I delete bass.R.wav and send the other one to the guy as bass.wav
 
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I'm confused now.

If your L & R are identical, then it was a mono track to begin with. In that case just export the track and you will have a mono file of the track.

It's only the stereo exports you need to convert to split so you can make mono files (if they insist on two mono files for stereo tracks)
 
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A given track has one or more regions. Each region may correspond to one ire more mono raw recordings.

Bounce and export both produce a stereo file from the selected mono track. In the case of bounce, you can choose "split" parameter and the result will be in the format file.L.wav and file.R.wav, and both seem to be identical.

There is no way I know to bounce or export from a mono track to a mono wav file that corresponds to the start/end of the song and consolidates all the regions on that track to the final mono wav file.

I tried being clear about this in my first post, but sorry if it wasn't.

In any case, your answers helped me figure out how to accomplish my desired workflow using the export function (using copy/convert). I already knew how to do it using bounce. Now I have to decide which method is easier. (and you indicated either method is not degrading to the audio)
 
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I just tested this, you can export a mono track to a single mono audiofile no problem.

You can also bounce a mono track to mono.

I'm not sure what is going on.

Are you sure the track is mono, even if the audiofiles on it are mono?
 
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OK, I had to delete (not just bypass) every stereo plugin on EVERY track, and select Mono->Output1 (or 2) on every track, and change the stereo/mono symbol on every track to mono, and then I was finally able to generate a mono file using export.

Even if I was exporting just one track, I had to change every track (as I just described above) for the mono export to work. If even one track has any kind of stereo parameter set, the result will instead be stereo, even if the exported track is all set to mono.

So I suppose the easiest way to accomplish what I want is to, first do what I said in the first paragraph, and then use File->Export->AllTracksAsAudioFiles and then I will get one mono wav file for each track, and each wav file will be the same length as the song start/end markers and will be the same bitrate as the original recordings.

The only other thing I noticed about this export function is that logic normalizes as it exports the files (hope the mixer/masterer doesn't care about that) whereas bounce will allow you to disable normalizing while bouncing (but with bounce you have to bounce once per track, with all other tracks muted, and then your start/end times might get messed up if you are not careful).

I think that does it. I'll use export instead of bounce.

Thanks very much for your help.
 
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Aha, that explains the problems.

BTW, hope you don't mind me asking, is there a reason why you have so many stereo plugins on mono tracks?

Or are you starting off with stereo tracks for mono files?

You can disable normalise for track exports, and I would recommend that.
 
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Though my recordings are mono, I have to mix to stereo. Why wouldn't there be stereo plugins on the channel strip corresponding to a mono recording?

For example, I might have a stereo spread plugin on the main vocal or have a send to an aux stereo bus on which exists the space designer for reverb.

Also, my mixes are for reference only anyway. I'm having a local studio do the mixing and mastering and they will use my mixes only to get them in the ballpark of what I am trying to achieve.

Regarding normalization during export, well, I can't find a way to shut it off. On bounce, however, I did find a way to shut it off. I'll look again though.

tks
 
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Though my recordings are mono, I have to mix to stereo. Why wouldn't there be stereo plugins on the channel strip corresponding to a mono recording?

For example, I might have a stereo spread plugin on the main vocal or have a send to an aux stereo bus on which exists the space designer for reverb.

Yes of course you can have mono>stereo plugins, I was just curious, I so infrequently would do that.

The send won't affect whether the export is mono or stereo

Regarding normalization during export, well, I can't find a way to shut it off. On bounce, however, I did find a way to shut it off. I'll look again though.
 

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