File sharing and recording.

[Skinner]

Partly as a result of covid lockdown but also doing more collaborative work I have to expand my use of software, trouble is not sure what's best. I'm using windows pc currently with an evaluation copy of reaper -which I am reasonably comfortable with but not much more than a novice. The main band I play in uses reaper but I have to other friends I need to swap and record files with. One chap has pc and cubase and the other has apple and logic. Don't mind spending a bit of money but want to keep it under £100 also don't want to be learning and using more than one or two software programs. Initially I was thinking of purchasing the full Reaper but now I'm thinking cubase may be my best option. Please help fellow Basschaters- any advice, experience, or opinions greatly appreciated.

[Dad3353]

What is it you're sharing..? If it's the whole Project, you'll need to all use the same DAW, and have, each, all the bells and whistles used in the Project. If, on the other hand, you're sharing rendered files, any DAW can use WAV files rendered by another DAW. It's best in this case to establish a System for file naming, with key, time signature, tempo info for instance. I can't say what, if any, advantage Cubase (or any other...) DAW would bring except Project compatibility, if you've all identical set-ups. Hope this helps (a little...)... 

[Skinner]

Probably not whole projects, need to bring in a track and play along then record my bass as a separate track to return to the sender. Thanks.

[Dad3353]

3 minutes ago, Skinner said:

Probably not whole projects, need to bring in a track and play along then record my bass as a separate track to return to the sender. Thanks.

Ask to receive rendered WAV files, then, and send back your tracks in the same way. 

[dodge_bass]

3 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

Ask to receive rendered WAV files, then, and send back your tracks in the same way. 

Yup. Or if its just tracks to play along too Mp3s is also fine. You just need to make sure you render out your take as a WAV or whatever format they want. 

Having a tempo marking / click is really useful for tracking and I've found it very helpful to include a bit of click at the start of the bass take to allow the producer to quickly and easily line it up. But you'll figure all these things out. Reaper is a brilliant DAW - I"ve been using it for professional remote work for years now. Good luck with it all. 

[Skinner]

Thanks very much guys.

[jrixn1]

1 hour ago, dodge_bass said:

Or if its just tracks to play along too Mp3s is also fine. You just need to make sure you render out your take as a WAV or whatever format they want.

Some MP3 codecs pad the start of the track by a number of milliseconds.  This means if you play along to MP3s, you won't realize at your end that there is an issue; but to the producer, your bass tracks will be slightly out of sync.  WAV won't have this problem.

 

[skidder652003]

WeTransfer is a good way to send  and receive large WAV files to you and your mates.

[BigRedX]

If you need to be able to create your own monitor mixes for the purposes of recording you parts (i.e. you need some parts louder or quieter in order to be able to play your part better) and to save the hassle of having to re-render multiple takes into single stems, you could also look at AAF or OMF exports.

However they will struggle with plug-ins that are native to a particular DAW and any third-party plug-ins that are not shared between the different platforms, but IME it is worth a go to see what will happen.

[Skinner]

Brilliant, thanks again folks, I was already leaning towards wav as potentially the most useful and comparable format.

[dodge_bass]

11 hours ago, jrixn1 said:

Some MP3 codecs pad the start of the track by a number of milliseconds.  This means if you play along to MP3s, you won't realize at your end that there is an issue; but to the producer, your bass tracks will be slightly out of sync.  WAV won't have this problem.

 

Interesting never had this issue before in the last decade but super useful to know - will insist on WAVs from now on. Thanks for the heads up.  

[Dad3353]

A word on WAV files...

Modern music is often 'continuous', filling a track from end to end. Much of my music is rather short passages interspersed along the track, so much silence. A WAV file takes as much file space for silence as for sound, and the files can be huge. My advice would be to compress the WAV file, using 'ZIP' or 'RAR', and send the compressed files. Once 'unzipped', the WAV files are recovered with no loss of quality, at their original size.
I had sixty tracks, 15 minutes long each, to transfer; total 'weight' as WAV : 12 Gb. Once zipped, they weighed 1.06 Gb. The zipped files transfer faster, and take up less storage space; useful for archiving. If sharing, make sure everyone is using the same protocol and parameters for best results.
Just sayin'; hope this helps. 

[xgsjx]

Over the past year, I've been working with other musicians.  We use google drive & bounce each individual track down as etierh an MP3 or a Wav.  When we're getting the song started, it's mostly MP3 to keep the size down, then once we know what we're doing, it's all wav.  Most of the others use Reaper, I use LPX.

[dave_bass5]

Yep, a shared Google drive or Dropbox folder is how I do it. It costs nothing and everyone has access to all the wav files. 
We all use different DAW’s so wav files make sense. I tend to do the mixing (and most of the music) so I generally send out a rough mix of my stuff as a wav file, they put them in to their. DAW and record along with it. Then drop their recordings on to DB for me to import in to Cubase. 
You just need to all agree on the sample rate and tempo to start with (well not necessarily, but it makes things a bit smoother). 

Edited May 19, 2021 by dave_bass5

[Skinner]

Thanks again all, yes Dave, that all makes perfect sense and seems like a good way to do things. 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Skinner
Change to text

[dave_bass5]

1 hour ago, Skinner said:

Thanks again all, yes Dave, that all makes perfect sense and seems like a good way to do things. 

No problem. There are loads of ways a to do it but the above works for us. 

Good luck.