Following on from my research and Russ Hughes' conversations and interviews at NAMM 2012 we have set up  a database on our Pro Tools Expert site which will be crowd sourced information so please follow the link to check on the latest news about your favourite plug-in and whether and when it will be available as an AAX plug-in. I have transferred and updated all the information that was here to the Pro Tools Expert database. Everyone os welcome to contribute users and manufacturers alike.

This is the announcement from Gobbler...   We’ve released our most ambitious build yet which includes multi-factor authentication & OAuth. We now store your photos, movies & over 20 new project file formats that YOU requested! The Gobbler Team has also fixed many bugs that were reported to us through the community. Keep using Gobbler & we’ll keep building a better product for you! Version: Gobbler 0.9.8, January 13th 2012

In part 1 I installed the new Mac Pro, and in part 2 I started the Pro tools installation.   Lack of AAX plug-ins Having now got a stable system it began to dawn on me how few AAX plug-ins were installed on my system despite the PR to the contrary on the launch of Pro Tools 10.     This shows the complete extent of my AAX plug-ins, notice that not even the Avid AIR plug-ins are there, even they are still dpm plug-ins. So I started to research what plug-ins were available starting with the list of “some 35  3rd party companies” that Avid announced on launch day having “AAX-compatible plug-ins ready or will have them ready shortly—please visit their website for specific plug-in information.” And are listed on their AAX compatibility web page. I will keep this page updated as announcements are made above AAX support, so do pop back to check for the latest info. UPDATE 27/01/2012. We have created a database on our Pro Tools Expert site which will be crowd sourced information so please follow the link to check on the latest news about your favourite plug-in and whether and when it will be available as an AAX plug-in. I have transferred and updated all the information that was here to the Pro Tools Expert database.

So in Part 1 I got the computer set up and had started the Pro Tools installation.   Check your plug-ins Before considering running Pro Tools I wanted to check that all my plug-ins were up to date, although the Avid site is getting better for providing this information there are so many plug-ins to keep track of it still isn’t an exhaustive list. So yet again I turned to a little application called Plug Tools, which I looked at back in August 2010 in Sound on Sound.   This application, built by Mark Trombino, compares the plug-ins in your plug-in folder with an online database, that can be updated by users, as Mark has wisely used crowd sourcing to help keep the database bang up to date. Even so when I did me install the database was thrown by a number of v10 plug-ins that it considered out of date. I will be updating the online database with my findings to contribute to the accuracy of the data.

So I finally did it, having made the decision as outlined in my post about it, the gear arrived arrived during the Christmas break and so over the last week I did the deed and here is my story. Trust me, never do a major upgrade in the middle of a busy spell when deadlines matter. These upgrades rarely go smoothly and end up taking much longer and I find that the knock on effects rattle on long after the main upgrade process is complete.

Recently I posted about mine and others experiences of starting to mix content to the new loudness specs to see how easy or otherwise it would be.   Well there has been an interesting thread on the Linked In Pro Tools Users group which has some interesting posts on it.   Firstly here are links to the key documents. The R128 spec for Europe from the EBU and the ATSC spec for the US.   Other useful articles are the EBU loudness site and an article in TV Technology which will be of more use to our US friends.

So I finally made a decision and melted the credit card.  I posted my initial thoughts ....   I have a Harpertown Mac Pro and it very much looks like if I want HDX I am going to have to replace the Mac Pro as well. We then have the rumours about the future of the Mac Pro and Apple’s continuing move to the consumer market and away from the pro market. So should I spend a load on money on a machine and cards for a computer forma factor that might not be around?  On the other hand you can delay making just about any equipment related decision because of a rumour of what might be round the corner.

Shaun Farley has put these two video tutorials from a 'post' perspective on his web site.  He says...   I decided to put these two tutorials together to share some simple tricks that I use in Izotope RX2. They’re nothing overly complex, but they are kind of unique….and handy to boot. I just thought I’d share them and hope you find them useful.   Izotope RX2 - De-Essing Tutorial from Shaun Farley on Vimeo.A de-essing trick using RX2's Spectral Repair function. Can you spot the moment when my dog decided he needed to shake (jingling tags). lol   Izotope RX2 - Spectral Copy and Paste Tutorial from Shaun Farley on Vimeo.Special copy and paste functions in Izotope RX2  

I have been wondering if it was possible to backup other content using Gobbler and yesterday on the Gobbler blog they have shown how to do it...   It is a bit of a work around as you need to trick Gobbler in to thinking it is a DAW session folder  but you can back up any file nested within a DAW session folder that Gobbler recognises.   In order to back up general files (video, docs, images) that aren’t session files, the solution is to simply place a “session file” and “audio files” folder in that project folder. So, for example, download & use this “dummy” session called photos. Gobbler will then recognise the project folder: Drop any files you want in the folder and you can then back it up normally from within the Gobbler app.     Download the project file templates below! Docs Videos Photos   This is great for now but lets hope that Gobbler do something to make it a little easier to backup other content.

Recently there has been some discussion with folk starting to mix using an R128 loudness meter. Some have experimented with recording an uncompressed voiceover at BBC PPM6 and finding it is a couple of dBs louder than the R128 spec of -23. In response I mixed two 30 minute speech based documentaries for Radio 4 yesterday and I put an R128 loudness meter across it and found I got a figures of -24 overall.  So maybe the latest TC Electronic newsletter where they released details of more videos from the Rome Calling loudness seminars held in the summer might help. Also some of the videos already released have been re-released as full length videos rather than in 10 minute sections.  If you have an interest in loudness then these will be very informative and educational.

I have been talking about Gobbler alot over the last 12 months, but haven't said too much about my experiences with it.   I have also been using Gobbler for ages and I respect that they have chosen the 'slow' route' to market, to test it for real with real users, yes OK they have used us to help their beta testing, but they have been very open about it, and we have had a free service in return.   Well in case you hadn't worked it out yet, I love Gobbler and use it a lot. For me it gives me that reliable off site backup that I hadn't got to date.  It is better than any of the other 'cloud based' backup options because it scans for sessions and then backs up everything inside the session folder. I really hope they can come to agreement with Avid and get proper acces to the session file so that Gobbler can read the session file and back up everything in the session file irrespective of where it is on the system. We used to have this feature with Mezzo Archiver in the days of tape based archiving but unfortunately that little company has gone to the wall. So it can be done, it has been done, so come on Avid and Gobbler please work it out soon.

iZotope have extended the $99 upgrade promo offer, for existing Ozone 4 customers like me, through to the new year.   This is what you will get....

Although not strictly Pro Tools related but definitely Post related, there are a good number of sound effects collections  from  the likes of  BBC, Digiffects or Sound Ideas. But there is also a growing band of independent sound effects libraries that offer a very cost effective solution to purchasing sound effects. These are the ones I know about, if you know of any others then please do add them in the comments section at the bottom of the post.     Affordable Audio 4 Everyone Affordable Audio 4 Everyone was started in June 2011 by Daniel Gooding. The goal of this site is to provided SFX, with professional quality, and sounds that are unique enough for seasoned professionals to use and enjoy, but at the same time affordable enough for students interested in sound design to be able to purchase. Affordable Audio 4 Everyone donates any purchase over $5 to charities of those in need

Back in April 2009 I posted about this and promised to produce a detailed guide… When making music documentaries iTunes has become such a convenient way to buy music but because of the consumer fair usage limits to get a track from iTunes into your Pro Tools session has involved burning an audio CD in iTunes and then ripping the CD into Pro Tools which takes time and wastes CDRs. However one of the upsides of the iTunes Plus format and Apple removing the DRM, is that it is possible to convert a purchased track in iTunes to a WAV file, export it, and import that into Pro Tools.   Recently Matt posted on comment asking when there might be an update on this, so for Matt, c-money and others, here it is….

The question of conforming and what is the best conforming software comes up regularly so I thought I would try and put together a compendium to help provide an FAQ on this subject.   Conforming applications do different things, and the confusion arises in the dual-use of the word "conform". For example,     Conform or Assembly  Titan handles the conforming (also known as "assembly") of production source multi-track audio to match the Avid/FCP audio cut from a rough mix guide audio track.  A number of people use Ediload to tidy up the EDL before putting it into Titan.   Since Pro Tools 7.2 the features under the 'Field Recorder Workflows' have progressively improved and people are using it in Pro Tools 9 for simpler smaller projects as long as the documentation is followed with best practice and the management of metadata.

I was scanning through the Post & Surround part of the DUC and found a post about mp4 codec recommendation question from Sparky3000...   Hey all, Forgive the question as I'm sure it's somewhere here, though I find me efforts with the search function at the DUC usually don't go well. (It's me, not the engine, I'm sure. :) )  Essentially, I've been working with DV vid for all of my mixes. (Longform shows.) I'm not getting stuff from out of town clients and converting from MP4 back to DV with Streamclip. Works OK, but seems to soften sync even more.  I've tried importing the MP4 directly, but it's always sluggish and choppy.  My system runs flawlessly with DV.  Any recommendations of a spec for an MP4 delivery that might work without converting to DV, or is this an "it is what it is" situation?   Thanks!  

So with Pro Tools 10 we now have a range of new AudioSuite functionality.   Multiple Windows Handles or eben process the whole file Cross fades maintained Metadata maintained   Here is an Avid video demonstrating these.  

Lode posted...   I might be the only one here unaware of this feature, but maybe not, so here goes: If you right click on the spectrogram you get an option to adjust the spectrogram settings. Very useful to try to separate background noise from what you are trying to repair.  Sort of like adjusting contrast on an image. Very useful for finding small whines and buzzes.

Frank Kruse asked...   has some early adopter or beta-tester tried to work on PT10 off of a relatively "lo-fi" NAS? I mean not one of the premium solutions like I$is, Unity, DDP etc. If yes, does it work well? Which appliance are you using? Regular AFP, iSCSI or fibre? Does it work even with AFP? Are you getting reasonable track count? How much? The PT10 what´s-new-pdf is pretty vague on this topic. The only info is that it´s now supported but nothing about what´s recommended.

Avid have added a lot of new options to Pro Tools 10 in this area.   New Session File Format Pro Tools 10 uses a new session file format (.ptx). This means that sessions created in Pro Tools 10 cannot be opened in lower versions of Pro Tools. To share sessions with lower versions of Pro Tools, you will need to use Save Session Copy As to save a copy of the session to a lower session file format.