This is a scary bug that somehow has slipped through the beta testing process. If you want to read all the posts then click here, but here is a synopsis of the issues and suggested work rounds... nhaudio outlined the basic problem... Just updated ProTools to 8.0.3 on two systems and have found a major problem: If I save and close a session that has a video file in it (.dv which is going out firewire to a Canopus ADVC110), when we try to reopen the session, ProTools 'Unexpectedly Quits' when trying to rebuild windows (the last few status updates you get when a session is opening). Sessions with no video file open fine, no problem whatsoever. We can't work like this! We open various tv commercial sessions all day, and rebooting each time is brutal!!! Digidesign pitched in very quickly and asked for crash log file details... In Pro Tools 8.0.3, we added better and more robust logging to help track down problems like the one you are seeing. When Pro Tools crashes, some information about the crash is written out to a log file. The log files are kept in the "LogFiles" folder that is next to the Pro Tools application. Here's what you need to do... 1) Reproduce the crash you are seeing. 2) Look in the LogFiles folder and find the latest log file. The file name ends with .dlog 3) Email this "dlog" file There is no need to do it now as the list of posts confirming the problem grew very quickly and Digidesign quickly confirmed they could reproduce the problem... We can now reproduce this bug in our test lab. We're still investigating what is going with this bug and are trying to narrow down the root cause of the issue. It looks like there is some combination of changes that were made in Pro Tools 8.0.3 and updates to the Apple QuickTime software that introduced this issue. I'm glad to see there are several workarounds for this problem, albeit not particularly nice ones. Bob Brown Principal Software Engineer Also two workarounds came through from users. The first came from nhaudio… I've found a workaround for now. It seems if the Canopus is powered off when I launch a session, it opens fine. Then I can turn the Canopus back on and work as normal. So for now, I plan to turn it off before opening any session to keep workflow... well... flowing. And the second from stustan… I also have the exact problem but I have a different work around that is 100% effective. Instead of bothering with the Canopus Box which is out of easy reach, I rename the pix folder by adding an X to its name. PT 8.0.3 LE then opens perfectly with the relink window informing me it cannot find pix. I then relink to the renamed folder and all is well. The next time I need to boot the session I rename the folder again, usually back to the original name and go through the above steps. My pix folder's name then flip flops between Pix Folder and XPix Folder Then diamondscwin chipped in to say… at the moment it seems to me that Quicktime playback and 8.0.3 is broken... people in this thread are reporting issues with Blackmagic cards, AVID Mojos, Canopus boxes and just desktop playback... only cure regardless of OS is rolling back to 8.0.1 so I dont think its apples fault. Then uno1234 was one of several that suggested… We are reverting all our 4 systems back to 8.01. As nasty as that 8.01 bug list is, we just can't deal with firewire out crashing anymore. How exactly does an official software release get so bungled up like this? Was there no beta testing in a simple post production workflow? Is there ANY accountability at Digidesign anymore? Also to note that the 8.0.3cas1 update hasn’t fixed this problem so it would seem that for video post facilities using video peripherals should say on Pro Tools v8.0.1 for now.

Mike Aiton asked this question recently here on the Digidesign User Conference Sadly my mojo (composite version) is displaying signs of illness Upon power up all iights come on After power up only 48kHz and host and power remain lit- vid ref does not light Looking at my plasma I see the avid logo card, but rolling rapidly and in black and white- as if it is asynchronous NTSC in my pal world. I have tried rebooting the mojo (a power enema) many times to no avail. I have tried unplugging the PSU brick as well. Incidentally Protools kindly proffers the advice that my video peripheral has a power up problem and promptly ignores the mojo which is a bummer with Avid video! My Nanosyncs is happily clocking all other peripherals in the room. To Fix Avid UK is quoting £330....... Mike Aiton Dubbing Mixer/Sound Designer BAFTA member Postman replied... The way I see it, Ebay prices for an analog MOJO are quite low, US$300-320 right now. That's not a lot of money and maintains the performance you already have. If you've got a spare machine for video: 1. Upgrade to Avid with video satellite: buy a satellite link $US749, upgrade MC (unless you already have MC3.1.2 at least) US$395, and stick on the lowest cost MOJO available, US$320. Takes any SD/HD material, outputs to SD monitor, with MOJO frame edge alignment is always maintained with NTSC/PAL reference but HD reference not possible. Actually the MOJO is optional but I wouldn't recommend software only video playback, the image quality suffers and who knows what sync consistency is like. You can upgrade the video hardware later if you have "spare cash". Total ~ US$1500. 2. Buy Video Satellite LE: Software enabler US$250, MBox micro system US$279 (if you can find one!), Blackmagic Decklink US$295, Sync HD US$2095. You can exclude SyncHD if you don't need guaranteed frame edge alignment. Total without SyncHD ~ US$825, with SyncHD ~ US$2925. This gives SD and HD playback, Quicktime and Avid media. click here for a relatively complete list of video options Mike decided to send Mojo off for repair to keep his rig the same… I am not in hurry for vid sat at the mo as I am addicted to my chromatec "in vision" ppms on my plasma and my studio/booth is wired for composite sd. My clients are a mixture of quicktime fcpers and broadcast avid users, so sd mojo is a good frame accurate solution for me. Postman replied… I'm glad you found the problem at least. I've wished for those meters lots of times, my meters are currently off to the side and, while I don't care, my clients wonder what the heck I keep looking at, they think I'm trying to get their attention! Anyway, I understand the sentiment and agree with you. VidSat and VidSat LE with hardware wouldn't change anything in that regard. You'd still have the analog video signals.

bx_control V2 contains our all new and improved M/S matrix, stereo enhancer with mono maker, and it is a great control listening tool. Chain any other stereo plugin into the Brainworx M/S matrix, or use bx_control V2 to check your mixes and speakers. New features include: - individual panning for M & S - (pan vocals and guitars/keys in final mixes!) - new dynamic range metering within the LED section (end the loudness war... or just win it! :-) ) - solo in place for all solo modes... Public beta? 14 days trials available NOW: TRY THE V2 BETA. Downloads: INSTALLER (click here) - - - PDF MANUAL (click here) Pricing & upgrades: bx_control V2 will be 99 EUR (native) and 149 EUR (TDM incl. VENUE), plus VAT if applicable. We will have a 25% introductory discount in February! Sales start Feb 1st! The upgrades for existing V1 users will be 49 EUR (Native or TDM). The 25% discount in February will also be valid for all upgrades! >>> we will accept all DIGIDESIGN MASSIVE PACK 8 customers for upgrades! <<<

This is a very interesting post on the Digidesign User Conference. When ever I have done 5.1 and stereo projects I have done two separate mixes, usually doing thee surround first and then doing a "Save As" and changing the bussing to stereo and doing another mix. JonesH started by asking... Sorry for asking newbie questions, but I can't get my head around a good solution for this. I'm mixing a song in 5.1 and obviously want a stereo version as well. I've solved this my using one send (f) for the stereo balancing and panning, which goes to a stereo mix bus. I've bounced the reverbs in order to use the same machine more than once. My question relates to mostly reverbs and some other 5.1 sources that I of course want to include in the stereo mix as well. Is there a good way to handle sending 5.1 tracks to stereo buses? From what I've found, there's no way that I can make a 5.1 track send to a stereo bus. My very long-winded solution has been to take all the separate mono regions composing each 5.1 reverb recording, assigning them to a 5.1 bus output to use as a master fader for them in the surround mix while using a send from each mono track to the stereo mix. This seems highly inelegant and wasteful of buses. Can you tell me if there's a smarter way? Soundthinker replied... A slightly better approach is to create stereo and mono sub-paths of your 5.1 sources in your I/O setup. Then create two stereo and one mono Aux tracks. Assign the L-R, and Ls-Rs sub-paths to the stereo auxes and the C mono sub-path to the mono aux. The auxes are assigned to your stereo mix buss. Basically a no-plugin downmixer. JonesH responded... I think that's essentially what I've done but with discrete mono tracks instead of using subpaths to make stereo tracks. Using two stereo tracks instead of four mono doesn't make a big difference to me, it's about the number of buses available and ease of mixing... For which I can use the mono version as well. Good idea though! infinteloop chipped in with... lotsa Neyrinck Soundcode LtRt. I use about 5 in my regular 5.1 / LtRt simultaneous template. Any comments from folks here, it would be certainly something I would find useful to save time mixing as long as I can be confident that the stereo won't become the poor partner in this.

Zplane have released a new version of their PPMulator Plus software that they acquired from Raw Material Software. On their web site they say... PPMulator+ 2.11.2 released Small bugfix release for MacOs. This is recommended for MacOs only. It fixes the offset error of the plugin-window in dualscreen settings. release 2.11.2                               ( Jan 14, 2010) -(mac)  fixed: offset problem of plugin window in ProTools -(win/mac) updated installation notes

Following on from my first post here and then an update here this story has moved on. Mark (mrsticks) emailed to tell me... I just wanted to update you about the PT 8 dialog Box fades being drawing incorrectly issue. First, I bit the bullet and purchased a new Mac Pro. It's great but really I was completely happy with my PPC. Oh well, no European vacation this year I suppose. I made an official report to Digidesign regarding the fades problem and received a response stating that the tech could not replicate my issue! Firstly, I was expecting that they would say  - "yes, we're working on it" - etc. but I never in my life expected for them to tell me they couldn't re-create the problem. I didn't quite know what to do. So I sent them a couple screen shots and asked him to please try again and see if they see what I've been seeing. He sent me back - with his response - a screen shot of a couple of fades that just happen to be drawn correctly. (Certain fades will in fact appear correct but not most of the types I create - I use un-latched "S" curves a lot and those are particularly mis-drawn with this bug. I know the tech is not trying to pull a fast one on me but it does worry me somewhat. You actually made me a little nervous about this issue ever being resolved when you wrote that most people don't use the fades box. All I can say is that I do some extremely complicated cross fades and by careful manipulation using the window, I can achieve some amazing results. Frankly, I don't know how anyone can just grab two sections of audio and slam a standard fade there without it phasing or red-zoning or just plain clamming etc. Anyway, I was wondering if you possibly had any news from Digidesign regarding this issue. At this point, I feel like a lonely voice in the wilderness. Thanks for any help Mike and for just listening. Well Mark I have now had a response from my contact at Digidesign and the good news is that he tells me that it is a logged bug and it is on the CS critical list. However it isn't alone on this list by any means and so it may take a little while before it gets to the top of the list as we all agree it is now a relatively small number of people who use the Fades window. So rest assured they do know about it and at least it is on the crtical list for CS updates so it shouldn't have to wait till the next version to be fixed! I hope that is good news at least in part.

Here is what Digidesign have announced. It looks as though they have resolved the Eleven update this time, lets see. Pro Tools 8.0.3cs1 updates for Pro Tools 8.0.3 HD, LE, and M-Powered are available for download from the Pro Tools CS Updates page in the Support section: www.digidesign.com/support/csupdates Pro Tools 8.0.3 CS Updates The following are the current CS Updates for Pro Tools 8.0.3. Previous installation of Pro Tools 8.0.3 for Mac OS X or Windows is required. Released January 18, 2010: Pro Tools HD 8.0.3cs1 Update for Mac Pro Tools HD 8.0.3cs1 Update for Windows Pro Tools LE 8.0.3cs1 Update for Mac Pro Tools LE 8.0.3cs1 Update for Windows Pro Tools M-Powered 8.0.3cs1 Update for Mac Pro Tools M-Powered 8.0.3cs1 Update for Windows Quote: Who Should Use Pro Tools HD 8.0.3cs1? Even if you do not use an Eleven Rack, this update is recommended for all Pro Tools HD, LE, and M-Powered version 8.0.3 users to provide session compatibility with other users that may have an Eleven Rack. What's Included in Pro Tools 8.0.3cs1? Fixed: Some Eleven Rack features, HyperControl with M-Audio keyboards, and MIDI Sysex dumps not functioning properly in Pro Tools 8.0.3 (Items #120240 and MISCCOMP-61) Pro Tools 8.0.3cs1 resolves an issue with MIDI Sysex in which some functions of Eleven|Rack, HyperControl with M-Audio keyboards, and MIDI Sysex dumps would not function properly. This release replaces the 8.0.3 Eleven Rack Update. All users who previously downloaded the 8.0.3 Eleven Rack Update should update to 8.0.3cs1.

Check out this video from Stiff at protoolerblog.com on the upcoming Altiverb 7 from Audio Ease. You won't find this on their web site yet. Thanks Stiff for this.

On my first post Mick asked... Anyone used this? How about sound quality degeneration due to compression? Well Mike Aiton has posted this on the DUC here... I had been using file chute (on recommendation from Drew) to send my clients files, with some good success. Those jolly nice people at Source Elements have just released Source Zip which is a fab new utility for ziping sessions. It retains all meta data and gives you several options on file compression, mp4 lossy or apple lossless. The Apple lossless is MUCH more efficient than the apple right click archive utilty. The MP4 versions get crazy small (trying to sound American here and work brilliantly for remote monitoring when recording with Source Connect and controlling both sessions from one end. The result is a self extracting file - so no software for the remote end. Highly recommended - a no brainer for $48 Mick, I hope that answers your question.

Here are some more details on what keys do what when you enable the Keyboard Focus See part 1 here See part 2 here Navigation commands Move Edit Selection up – P This will move a selection from one track to the track above irrespective as to whether there is any audio on it at that point. Move Edit Selection down - ; (semi colon) This will move a selection from one track to the track below. If no selection has been made this and the command P will move the cursor up or down a track. Tab back – L This will move the cursor back (earlier in time) to the previous region boundary or sync point on the same track. Tab forward – ‘ (apostrophe) This will move the cursor forward (later in time) to the next region boundary or sync point on the same track.

Here are the details of the special offers from Waves this month.... and another... Purchase and register The Eddie Kramer Collection by January 31st, and we’ll register V-Series Native in your Waves account—automatically! Registration of V-Series Native may take up to 48 hours. Waves Gold and V-Series are Native & TDM; this special offer applies to V-Series Native only. The Eddie Kramer Collection and Silver are Native only. All Waves software requires iLok authorization. Offers good from January 15th through January 31st, 2010 only. Upgrades available! All purchases and upgrades include one full year of Waves Update Plan coverage. Contact your Waves dealer or visit our online store for details today. Waves Specials are applicable only to the products and time periods specified. They are not retroactive and cannot be combined with any other promotional offers.

Hi folks, I have moved Pro Tools For Media to my own domain at One Stop Digital (OSD) Ltd The new place for the Pro tools for Media blog is... http://www.osd-uk.com/protoolsformedia Anyone using the rss feed shouldn't have any problems as I am using Feedburner to re-route. I hope the transition will go smoothly but please bear with me if it doesn't. Thanks, Mike

Well after nearly six months Brent has returned to his blog with some interesting developments. He writes.... I’ll be finishing up with Avid Digidesign in January. I’ve been with the company for nearly 7 years and it’s been a great ride but I’ve desperately felt the need to get back to “the craft” and do some mixing! That said, the local management have extended the offer for me to stay involved with training and clinics and seminars, so Aus/NZ engineers, hopefully you’ll still see a bit of me flying the Avid Audio flag! For more details click here to go to his New Horizons post. He has also put up another post about his cost effective mix room He writes.... Heart of the studio is an 8 core “Nehalem” HD3Accel rig with a D-Command ES 24 sitting in a lovely custom made desk running lots of plugs; McDSP, Sonnox, SoundToys, Waves 360, Brainworx, URS amongst others. Attached to that system is then a Video satellite (8 core Xeon) running Media Composer but it also loads up PTLE for HD Quicktime workflows (ProRes, DVCPro etc) For more on his new project click here to go to his new mix room post. Welcome back Brent!

Continuing this look into the inner working of the command focus keyboard shortcuts from my first post in the series. Play to, or from, an edit point by the pre, or post, roll settings - alpha keys 6 to 9 When you have a potential edit highlighted this group of commands allow you to Play up to the selection using the preroll setting – alpha key 6; Play from the start of the selection by the post roll setting – alpha key 7; Play up to the end of the selection by the preroll setting – alpha key 8; Play from the end of the selection by the post roll setting – alpha key 9. This is very useful for checking whether you have included or excluded a particular element of audio from an edit selection. Timeline and edit selection commands These work only when you are working with the timeline and edit selections separated. You can do separate the timeline and edit selections by clicking on the ‘separate’ button that is to the right of the keyboard focus button so it isn’t highlighted. Copy Edit selection to Timeline selection and vice versa This is a pair of commands that enable you to copy a selection from an edit on a track up to the timeline – O (letter); and to copy a selection from the timeline onto an edit on a track – alpha key 0 (number). Play Timeline selection - ] This will play the selection made on the timeline (The highlighted section in the Time Ruler above Region B) Using the Space Bar will play this option. Play Edit selection - [ This will play the selection made on the track (The highlighted section in the Region A) If the Timeline and Edit selections are linked then either command will play the highlighted section.

I received this email yesterday from Soundsnap... Happy new year!All the best for an inspiring and creative 2010. We just completed our first Soundsnap video. Its a peak into the world of Hollywood sound designer (and Soundsnap contributor) Frank Serafine. Check it out here I hope you like it!

McDsp extend 30% special offer to May 2010 To start the New Year off right, McDSP has extended all their specials until May of 2010, allowing customers to purchase anything and everything for up to 30% off! That's right we said everything and we mean everything - all bundles, individual products and upgrades are on sale now! Once McDSP releases Audio Unit (AU) compatible versions in May 2010, all prices will increase. Existing customers may simply upgrade their plug-ins at that time to receive AU support. Visit the McDSP Store today to make sure you take advantage of sale prices before they go up! Don't forget, you can still upgrade an LE plug-in to Native for only $69 each! Learn more... PSP extend winter offer to January 17th 2010 We have also decided to extend our Winter Squad offer until 17th of January. Until 17th of January 2010 you can buy PSP sQuad bundle at the special price of $99* Starting from 18th January 2010, the regular price of $249* will be applied. (*all prices exclude taxes) To celebrate the New Year we have re-released and super sized our PSP sQuad bundle. The new edition is the PSP McQ which is the most versatile track equalizer in the PSP sQuad bundle. If you are still hungry for new EQ plug-ins, give it a try. You're going to like its taste. You can get PSP sQuad at an even better price if you already own plug-ins from our processor pack (discount rate depends on the quantity and specific plug-ins you already have). To see your price for the PSP sQuad bundle log-in to your user account here. Elysia mpressor TDM version out now. !! 25 % discount in January !! After the successful release of the mpressor plugin in the native formats, the TDM version is now available, too! We are starting sales with a 25 % discount on the full TDM license and the upgrade from an already purchased native license to TDM. elysia mpressor This means that until 31 January 2010 you can buy TDM at the regular price of the native version or upgrade at the reduced introductory price. Want to try before your buy? A free 14 days trail version is available on our website (iLok required). Test the mpressor now! Get your 25 % discount now! Offer ends Jan 31th. Now just 290 €/440 $ for the full license and 70 €/110 $ for the upgrade from native to TDM. (Prices plus VAT if applicable). Sound demo: here.......... Free trial: here.......... Buy now: here

Flux have extended their winter holiday promotion with up to 50% discounts until January 17th 2010. Go and get yourself a bargain will you can.  (the promotion has finished now - Mike (18th Jan 2010).

Following on from my post on the Fade window bug, the other person who posted on the DUC post "mrsticks" - Mark Bensi emailed me over the Christmas break.I'm a music editor for film, TV and music libraries. I discovered the fades dialog box bug after upgrading to PT 8 on my PPC G5. As I wrote in the DUC, I use the fades box for every fade I create because of the precision that it gives me. I realize that a lot of editors do not use this feature very often. That's evidenced by the fact that virtually nobody else-to my knowledge- has brought this bug to Digi's attention. Now I just discovered that my PT8 version 8.0.1 will be the last and final version for my PPC Mac. It seems that the flaw will not be addressed for my particular computer. (And who knows when they will even get around to fixing this bug anyway) My only solution now is to buy a new Intel based Mac. I'm very frustrated at the idea of having to do that.Mark, thanks for the comments. I feel your pain. When Pro Tools 8 came out I was still running a G4 Dual 1.42Ghz machine that I had bought second hand when the G5 Power Macs changed their slots and Digi went over to pci-e cards. My solution was to buy the fastest G4 I could find which I bought second hand on Ebay and run it for as long as possible. You can read more about this in my Sound on Sound article here. I knew its days were numbered when I reviewed PT 8 for Sound on Sound as it went very very slowly but I had got a couple of very good years out of my second hand G4. So I bite the bullet and got a very good deal on an 8 core Mac Pro for around £1600 new and crossgraded my pci-x cards to pci-e cards too. However as I earn my living from this I budget for these kind of eventualities as this isn't the first time this sort of trap has been laid. We had the same problem when PPC Macs came in.I would suggest you might want to look around on Ebay for a second hand Mac Pro, even a Quad core machine will be fine, and will future proof you for a good while. After all Apple are dropping PPC support from Snow Leopard as well.You are right, very few people use the Fade dialog box now. With the Smart tool I have the default fade shapes set the way I like them and I find I can deal with most issues with that, effectively auditioning the fade on the track. Very occasionally I will go into the Fade dialog box, usually if I want the start and finish of the fades to be in different places, but it is extremely rare. But even then I don't tend to use the audition in the Fade window as in the early days in PT 4 it was very shaky as it used the Mac audio path to route the auditioned audio and tended to fall over so I tended to avoid it by setting the fade shapes, hitting OK and auditioning it on the track and that workflow has stuck!Thanks again Mark for your comments.6EYQXA3FCD8M

Our Mike Thornton writes the Pro Tools Notes, Techniques and Workshop articles for Sound on Sound as well as reviewing many of the new Pro Tools related products. Note that you will need to be a subscriber to view the recent articles or you can choose to Click & Buy individual ones.   Elastic Audio - Many long-term Pro Tools users still rely on Beat Detective, but the newer Elastic Audio often produces better results in half the time.