Logic Pro (X) Send Project to another producer (including UA & Vienna strings sounds)

[kknyc]

HI
I need to receive a LPX project from a composer for a film project, but the project folders he sends are missing the audio from his UA & Vienna Strings plugins (which unfortunately I don't have)

Could anyone help me explain how to make sure these plugin sounds are sent with the Project folder?
Do his plugin sounds need to be bounced in place or add to the loop library somehow?

Heres our first attempt:​

Clean up project​

Consoldate project​

Save as a backup (this Bkup will be sent to me)​

​

with ALL options elected to add files to the saved folder (but no UA or VS)​

When I open his project it need to search for these sounds. (the midi tracks are easy; I just sent them to GM.)​

​

Ultimately we just want to work on and share the project from two separate (across town) locations. Is there an easier way to do this? Maybe a sharing function in Mac?

 

[Markdvc]

If you do not have the same plugins or libraries it will indeed be necessary to render them to audio, bounce in place is one way to go about this.

kind regards

Mark

 

[Pete Thomas]

Mark is right, but if that other producer needs to edit the actual strings you would need to lend them the Vienna dongle and then copy the samples and software across. If so I would check the licence and insure the dongle for the full price of a new licence.

Same applies to UA if they need to exit settings

 

[kknyc]

hi Guys,
thanks Mark and Pete for quick replies.

I found that our issue isn't with the software instruments but the real audio tracks.

I suggested "bounce in place" and he has/sees/hears them in the tracks (at his location). -waves forms can be seen and heard.
But when he compresses and sends me the project, it has the audio regions correct in the track window but they are silent (and no wave forms in the editor window???)

I can basically see 'where the audio regions' should be placed... but no wave forms

I feel like we're overlooking the obvious?

 

[sk0rk0]

Is he compressing and sending the entire session folder, including the audio folder? Or is he saving his session as a package?

I encountered a situation recently where a composer sent me a session saved as a package which failed to include the audio.

 

[kknyc]

Thanks for the suggestions

we went thru all the dialog boxes to include all sounds/sample/audio in the project, save as project file, compress, then dropbox.
Each film cue is being sent as a different project file. (Instead of 1 project containing ALL songs/cues)

Update: on another cue (project2) all the audio was present—so the earlier issue may have been an anomaly—but some of the midi wasn't playing back - they needed to be reassigned to newly created tracks? Midi region/events were there but not passing to output? (no other Midi issues within the project2)

 

[Pete Thomas]

Doing what you said I’d correct all the audio should be present, but only if you have bounced in place for the Vienna Instruments which obviously would not play without the plug-in, library and dongle.

 

[fuzzfilth]

If they look up "yamaha#02" (which is not a Bounce In Place file, else it's file name would end in '.bip') in the Project Audio window, they'd be able to see the actual path to the file location on their computer. My guess is that, for whatever reason, it is not inside the folder/project that got zipped and transferred.
You can look up "yamaha#02" in your version of the project and it will tell you the path to the file on the source computer.

 

[kknyc]

THanks Christian.

we are definitely missing audio. I was under the misassumption that once you "clean-up" and "consolidate" your project - all audio and midi are placed into the project which you can then send as a complete file.

So, as I follow the bread crumbs to a solution for sharing the complete project; what would be the most effective way to (consolidate) a project into a single transferable file (including all audio, Midi, and sample sounds)?

would the process look like this...

In LPX Project:
1.Bounce all tracks/regions in place (right-click on each region or from File menu?)
2.Cleanup project
3.Consolidate project

then from Finder:
4.Compress Project file
5.Send

 

[fuzzfilth]

The thing is that a neat, tidy and lean project would be nice to transfer and certainly desirable to receive at your end. However, this may not be true for the sender. There might be muted Take Folders with hitherto unexplored options for the noseflute solo, there might be tracks of ukulele which didn't quite make it but are too precious to delete, maybe the exact amount of bouncy delay to be baked into the Omnisphere patch is not final, etc.

So what I usually do in this case is this, on the source side:
- Open the project
- Save As... "Song/Cue name - export" without any assets checked. This gives me a second project file inside the project folder (I never use Save As Package, it's just one more layer of obstruction) which uses all the same audio files, so that's just an extra 1Mb or so, and I can Save in between without destroying the original project file.
- Bounce everything MIDI to audio unless it's confirmed that the recipient has the exact same plugins and plugin-versions, which is when I leave it as MIDI.
- Merge all snippets of audio into one long file per track in a way that all files start at the same bar, with silence or dead air at the front if necessary. If there are plugins that only I have, I BIP instead of Merge. This assures the recipient can play the project even if, contrary to their claims, they don't actually have Logic and intend to work with their familiar ProTools or Cubase anyway.
- Open the Project Audio window and click Edit>Select Unused, followed by Backspace. This will remove the references to unused audio files from this project, but doesn't delete the files from disk. If you did everything right, only the bounced/merged files will remain.
- After a final Save, do a Save As..., this time with assets (audio files), to the Desktop. This will create a self contained project folder with everything that's actually needed and nothing more, ready to be zipped and shared.

 

[kknyc]

Thanks for this!
Would this method also leave me with the actual MIDI events data in their Tracks as well? (ultimately I'll need those)

We were on the right track with the 'merged all snippets' audio tracks and 'dragging to origin' so that was good—but missed the project audio window step.

 

[fuzzfilth]

Yes, you can select what should happen to the original MIDI track when doing a BIP, either Leave, Mute or Delete, with Mute being the proper choice.