Ok, so I'm SUPER new at this Pro-Tools stuff. If I told you what I spent on this stuff without know the ropes you'd probably say I was crazy!
I have Pro-Tools HD with all the outboard gear that should go with it.
So I've been toying around with my keyboard and making a 1 minute intro for the band I play in for our live shows. The issue I'm having is getting it to bounce to disk and then burned to Cd and immediatly playable on any system.
I bounced the intro as a WAV, burned it using standard MAC software and it wouldn't play. I had to bring it to my PC, use CDEX to convert it then burn it.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks so much...and please don't laugh too hard with this.
If you want to be able to play it on a CD player you need to burn it as CDA format. You should have software on your Mac that can do this though I can't tell you what as I'm not a Mac user (as yet) myself.
What you need to do is set up a "Master Fader" in your PT song/file.
I'll assume that you have several tracks set to the same stereo (left/right) outputs. Insert a 'dither' plug-in on the "Master Fader". You'll want this to dither down to 16-bits.
Select "Bounce to Disk" and make sure that you select '.aif' (this is friendlier on a Mac than .wav). Make sure that you have the correct outputs selected - these will be the same as the "Master Fader". Also, select '16-bit' and '44,100'.
Then bounce. You'll notice after the song plays through there will be a conversion that takes place. You will now have created a 16-bit, 44.1K file. And also trimmed off all those extra bits and higher sampling rates that you bought with your HD system - oh well.
You should now be able to just drop this file into your CD maker program.
I'm typing this from memory as I'm not in my studio and I use a PT Mix system.
If you are wanting to master (Har-Balize) your mix before burning this CD, follow the above method without the "Master Fader". Select "Bounce to Disk", .wav, 24-bit, 48K.
This way you'll create a file that you can bring over to your PC and open in Har-Bal.
Do the Har-Balizing on your PC. Burn a Disc on your PC (can be a data file). Bring it over to your Mac, import into Pro Tools, do any editing, such as fade in/ fade out, loops, duration edits, whatever. Now, set-up a "Master Fader" with a dither plug-in and bounce to a 16-bit file as described above.
When you get tired of burning a lot of CDs you can interface your PC to Your Mac and just transfer these files back and forth.
I do it this way so that I can mix on my Mac (PT), Har-Bal on my PC and get instant results. I can remix and remaster as many times as needed. Keeping everything at 24-bits/48K til the final bounce prior to burning the 16-bit, 44.1 CD.
