I NEED your help...Please...

The engineer at the studio that I record at, says that I need to bring my beats in omf format so that he can edit individual sounds instead of the entire audio track together. I don't have a program that saves as omf. What can I do? I got a MPC 1000 and a PC with audacity, acid 2.0, and soundforge.The studio uses a Mac with Logic, if that matters to anyone...

Also, is saving in the Sound Designer format the same as saving in omf if its being used in Logic?

I need serious help

Find another engineer?

I am not sure how things work where you are, but around here the artist is pays the engineer, so the engineer better get used to the way "I" work, else I will find a new engineer. For crying out loud, when should the artist "work around" the engineer? It is already hard enough to come up with the music as it is, now you have to "go figure out how to put something in a format that the engineer likes"?

I get to engineer a few things and have a few engineering friends. Every single one of us is capable of handling any format and equipment that anyone could bring to us. As professionals, we can interface to anything and transfer to and from any format, whether it is Mac, PC, Linux or BeOS. To beat it all, we do it as a hobby. I would not expect anything less from an actual professional.

yeah, it's fair enough for him to ask for some format w/ separated trax (no magic can pull them apart if theyre not separated), but ud think any common format with separate trax would be reasonable.

of course i suppose if he's chargin by the hour you might Want to do some of the work for him

"omf" is short for "omfg," teenage girl cyber talk for "oh my ****in' god, this music is terrible and i don't want to engineer it."

just kidding, dude, i'm sure you're dope. i agree, find another engineer - this man sounds like a real shondo anyway. engineers should be synonymous with ".wav."

OMF, possibly Sonar.

" it's fair enough for him to ask for some format w/ separated trax "

I did not read it that way since the original poster stated:

"The engineer at the studio that I record at, says that I need to bring my beats in omf format so that he can edit individual sounds"

That would lead me to believe that the artist has the MPC at the studio and is multi-tracking there. The engineer has access to the individual tracks because that is why the artist is at the studio to do. In this case there are only two format floating around, what the MPC is using and whatever the engineer is recording.

The only other possibility is that the artist did not actually "record" at the studio, but rather brought in some tracks. In that case there was simple a failure of communication since we would be using two different definitions of "recording".

The best way to handle it is to bring your MPC to the studio and track it there. As an engineer I hate when people bring me a shitty 2-track. You can't polish a turd. I've had clients complain about the quality of the mix. Well of course it sucks, they track their stuff on their computer with a cheap sound card and a terrible mix. The engineer can't do much with a 2-track. Maybe add some compression and EQ but not much can be done.

And most of all... vocals shouldn't be recorded on top of a 2-track. It's like karaoke. The entire track should be mixed with the vocals.

tfunk how much do you charge say per song to master it, what do you use, and how long have you been doing it?

also, can you recommend any books/college courses on establishing a good mix? i've been playing everything by ear and mastering myself for the last 5 years, but it's intensely frustrating. once you've created your own material, you find yourself often unable to succesffully master it because you're too caught up in the orchestration end.

i produce, dj, beatbox, sing and emcee on most of my tracks so it's really difficult to come at it with a fresh ear. would it be in my best interest to track every sound out individually and send it to some engineer to master?

Antonym wrote:tfunk how much do you charge say per song to master it, what do you use, and how long have you been doing it?

also, can you recommend any books/college courses on establishing a good mix? i've been playing everything by ear and mastering myself for the last 5 years, but it's intensely frustrating. once you've created your own material, you find yourself often unable to succesffully master it because you're too caught up in the orchestration end.

i produce, dj, beatbox, sing and emcee on most of my tracks so it's really difficult to come at it with a fresh ear. would it be in my best interest to track every sound out individually and send it to some engineer to master?

I've been engineering for 5 years. I actually don't do mastering, I'm a recording and mixing engineer. I mean, I can and have for certain clients just so they have a loud enough cd to listen to. But I always highly recommend having it professionally mastered by a mastering engineer.

The gear I use for mastering consist of the Waves Platnium plugins, a BBE Sonic Maximizer, and an Alesis Masterlink.

Some recording engineers claim they can master but I wouldn't trust them with it. Mastering is a skill that takes a long time to get down. And the album should never be mastered by the same person who recorded and mixed it.

As far as books and classes go. The Mastering Engineer's Handbook by Bobby Owsinski is good. There's also a good one by Bob Katz called Mastering Audio. There are also quite a few schools who specialize in recording arts programs. I attended Full Sail in Orlando, FL for my associates degree. There's also Columbia in Chicago, the Audio Conservatory in Arizona I think. And a handful in California as well.

If you have professional equipement and a good ear I would go ahead and mix it yourself then send it off to a mastering house. Otherwise work with one engineer to mix it, and one engineer to master it. And always make sure the engineer you're working with is familiar with the sound you're trying to get.

thanks, well worded advice. time to find a buddy who is a professional mastering guru

No problem man, good luck.

jlove662 wrote:The engineer at the studio that I record at, says that I need to bring my beats in omf format so that he can edit individual sounds instead of the entire audio track together. I don't have a program that saves as omf. What can I do? I got a MPC 1000 and a PC with audacity, acid 2.0, and soundforge.The studio uses a Mac with Logic, if that matters to anyone...

Also, is saving in the Sound Designer format the same as saving in omf if its being used in Logic?

I need serious help

it'd probalbly be best to go to the studio and track everything in with the mpc (cause the studio is gonna have better preamps and whatnot).

but if you are trying to save money by tracking everything into your computer yourself before you bring it into the studio, then the most budget way to get around this whole OMF thing would be to track everything into whatever program you do have (i guess audacity in this case). then save each individual track from the VERY beginning as a seperate wav. remember to save from the very beginning (0.000.000), include the dead space a the beggininng as well. that way, when you bring all your tracks seperated on a cd, the engineer can drop all the tracks into his computer and all the tracks will have the same exact start point (meaning the engingeer won't have to sit there and line everything up).


its a budgetass way of doing it, but it should work.

peace.

Antonym wrote:thanks, well worded advice. time to find a buddy who is a professional mastering guru

I'm also a sound engineer, but on live events...

I'm afraid you might find that a professional mastering "buddy", is only goin to be your buddy until he tell you how much he charges...

Most people I know who master tracks, only do that... no mixing no recording nothing.. just mastering....

Plus, REAL mastering equipment is definetly not cheap, so you can't blame them for charging lots of $$$...

It all depends on the future use of your tracks... if it's just a demo or something, you can sort of master it yourself... I use T-racks24 for demos I record for bands I work with.. you can get pretty good results with that..

If you'r planning on producing your stuff, then it's definetly worth investing on a professional mastering, IT WILL MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!!

IT WILL MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!!

i guess that's really the next step, huh? at this point i have pretty good equipment, good vocal quality, and a mackie 120vlz mixer. for an indie musician who doesn't aspire to be anything more than "underground" i guess i can only do so much on my own.

can you give me price estimates? i know they vary, but from your own personal experiences. just so i know.

'doesn't aspire to be anything more than "underground"'

Then I am not sure why you would pay someone. If you like working with the music, then you should consider learning to master it yourself.

I program as a hobby, but I would never consider paying someone else to write a component or distribute the software for me. Much easier for me to just learn it myself. When I do learn and create something new I give it back to the community for the benefit of anyone that may need it.