Backing Up Large PT Sessions: Advice Needed

[rastro2]

Hey everyone,

I'm getting more and more sessions in 88.2 and 96, with many, many tracks. My studio is a "vintage keyboard" studio that is mainly used for overdubs. So in general, there's just a handful of new tracks per song.
At the end of the day, backing up entire sessions can be pretty time consuming, even though only a few new tracks have been added.
Is there an easy way to back up (update or synchronize) the session without copying everything to the backup disc? Any advice would be extremely appreciated.

thanks,

Joe McGinty

[A.David.MacKinnon]

If the artist has a back-up on another drive you could always just import your new tracks into the old back-up and save it. Otherwise you're stuck.

[L-ROX]

I use Acronis True Image to back up my system drive with one click. I have not tried to do this with one particular folder, but I believe it is possible and you can choose an incremental backup (like you would when backing up your system). Look them up online and see if the program would work for you (I've got a feeling that it would, so you would simply do an incremental backup of your PT session folder(s)).

[@?,*???&?]

Hey everyone,

I'm getting more and more sessions in 88.2 and 96, with many, many tracks. My studio is a "vintage keyboard" studio that is mainly used for overdubs. So in general, there's just a handful of new tracks per song.
At the end of the day, backing up entire sessions can be pretty time consuming, even though only a few new tracks have been added.
Is there an easy way to back up (update or synchronize) the session without copying everything to the backup disc? Any advice would be extremely appreciated.

thanks,

Joe McGinty

You're not related to John McGinty, the Hammond B-3 player are you?

DVD's work fine and have your assistant engineer go through and do the mundane. Be sure to bill for your backup time. I do daily back-ups at the end of each day for new material recorded only. Then, at the end of the session (end of tracking or end of mix) I do the big back-up.

[ott0bot]

Yeah....um...DVD's are the most stable way to back up sessions. I'd archive the complete session on one of those, and if it's more than 4.7gbs then make a second disc with whatever audio files won't fit on the first. Them test the DVD to ensure the copy loads properly.

Aside from that there are a couple things you can do to remove all unwanted audio tracks except your new tracks, then save the PT session file, so when you load up the session, the other tracks come up grayed out, and only your new tracks will be active. Then you could always import the other audio files with the dvd back up later on. I'm not sitting in front of my PT computer so I can't tell you exactly but here a basic run down.

Copy the session onto an external HD, so you'll have a duplicate of all audio and session files. Then save as....with a new title to keep from getting the sessions confused.

In new save as... consolidate the session to remove all un-used tracks.
Here's a basic run down of the consolidation process:
http://musformation.com/2009/03/pro-too ... ssion.html
Make sure you select DELETE to permanently erase the audio files, REMOVE just takes them out of the session but doesn't permanently delete them.

Then you'll have a session file, with only your audio files, ready to import the tracks from the DVD. Then you can delete all other PT sessions including audio data and free up HD space.

Anybody else that sees a mistake of better way please chime in!

[Nick Sevilla]

Hey everyone,

I'm getting more and more sessions in 88.2 and 96, with many, many tracks. My studio is a "vintage keyboard" studio that is mainly used for overdubs. So in general, there's just a handful of new tracks per song.
At the end of the day, backing up entire sessions can be pretty time consuming, even though only a few new tracks have been added.
Is there an easy way to back up (update or synchronize) the session without copying everything to the backup disc? Any advice would be extremely appreciated.

thanks,

Joe McGinty

Hi Joe,

There a few options I use:

1.- An extra hard drive, for daily backups, simply drag and drop over the last day's work.

2.- A second hard drive for the artist, backed up once a week.

3.- Another internal hard drive to do a second daily backup.

4.- I just got a LaCie Blu Ray disc burner, so I can now burn 23 GB on a single disc, or 47GB on a Dual Layer disc. Crazy!!! I'm backing up my last four albums on this media, and do some read tests on it to ensure the data gets written properly, before tossing one of the daily backups.

As far as software solutions that can keep a tab on only newer material being backed up ie "Incremental" backups, I've only ever used RETROSPECT.

It has many backup options including unattended scheduled backups, incremental OR write over backups, and other neat things like verification of backup, etc.

Usually I only use Incremental backup when storing to a data tape, such as a 25GB tape.

Cheers

[Nick Sevilla]

Yeah....um...DVD's are the most stable way to back up sessions. I'd archive the complete session on one of those, and if it's more than 4.7gbs then make a second disc with whatever audio files won't fit on the first. Them test the DVD to ensure the copy loads properly.

Aside from that there are a couple things you can do to remove all unwanted audio tracks except your new tracks, then save the PT session file, so when you load up the session, the other tracks come up grayed out, and only your new tracks will be active. Then you could always import the other audio files with the dvd back up later on. I'm not sitting in front of my PT computer so I can't tell you exactly but here a basic run down.

Copy the session onto an external HD, so you'll have a duplicate of all audio and session files. Then save as....with a new title to keep from getting the sessions confused.

In new save as... consolidate the session to remove all un-used tracks.
Here's a basic run down of the consolidation process:
http://musformation.com/2009/03/pro-too ... ssion.html
Make sure you select DELETE to permanently erase the audio files, REMOVE just takes them out of the session but doesn't permanently delete them.

Then you'll have a session file, with only your audio files, ready to import the tracks from the DVD. Then you can delete all other PT sessions including audio data and free up HD space.

Anybody else that sees a mistake of better way please chime in!

Hi ottobot,

I usually have one backup of ALL TAKES, all the media, without erasing it, and then I make another with ONLY the final audio used in the final mixes for each song.
This is what the Label or artist get. I keep the extra stuff in one backup, just in case the artist / label later on decide to do a video with outtakes, or other funny stuff. Or the "VH1 Classics" stuff, or a Remix, where the artist wants to give other material to a DJ.

Cheers

[Andy Peters]

Hey everyone,

I'm getting more and more sessions in 88.2 and 96, with many, many tracks. My studio is a "vintage keyboard" studio that is mainly used for overdubs. So in general, there's just a handful of new tracks per song.
At the end of the day, backing up entire sessions can be pretty time consuming, even though only a few new tracks have been added.
Is there an easy way to back up (update or synchronize) the session without copying everything to the backup disc? Any advice would be extremely appreciated.

thanks,

Joe McGinty

If you're on a Mac, you can use the built-in rsync utility to do exactly what you want.

I have an audio work drive and an audio backup drive. Obviously work-in-progress is done using the work drive. After I'm finished working, I run a simple shell script that just runs rsync with the correct command-line parameters. All that this really does is compare the contents of the work disk (what files exist and their timestamps) to the backup disk. Files that exist on the work disk but not the backup are copied to the backup. Files that do not exist on the work disk but do exist on the backup (as a result of moving or deleting files) are deleted on the backup. And any files on the work disk that are newer than those on the backup disk are copied to the backup.

The script, in its entirety, is:

Code: Select all

rsync -av --delete --exclude=.* /Volumes/audio/ /Volumes/Drobo/audioclone

(you could simply type this all out on your Terminal every time you needed to run it.)

Note that /Volumes/audio is my audio work disk which appears in the Finder as simply audio. Also, /Volumes/audioclone is the destination disk which appears in the Finder as simply audioclone. You should change these to work with your drive names.

Works for me, anyways.

If you're on a PC, dunno what to tell you!

-a

PS: I never got to see any of the Loser's Lounge shows when I lived back east ...

[Nick Sevilla]

Hey everyone,

I'm getting more and more sessions in 88.2 and 96, with many, many tracks. My studio is a "vintage keyboard" studio that is mainly used for overdubs. So in general, there's just a handful of new tracks per song.
At the end of the day, backing up entire sessions can be pretty time consuming, even though only a few new tracks have been added.
Is there an easy way to back up (update or synchronize) the session without copying everything to the backup disc? Any advice would be extremely appreciated.

thanks,

Joe McGinty

If you're on a Mac, you can use the built-in rsync utility to do exactly what you want.

I have an audio work drive and an audio backup drive. Obviously work-in-progress is done using the work drive. After I'm finished working, I run a simple shell script that just runs rsync with the correct command-line parameters. All that this really does is compare the contents of the work disk (what files exist and their timestamps) to the backup disk. Files that exist on the work disk but not the backup are copied to the backup. Files that do not exist on the work disk but do exist on the backup (as a result of moving or deleting files) are deleted on the backup. And any files on the work disk that are newer than those on the backup disk are copied to the backup.

The script, in its entirety, is:

Code: Select all

rsync -av --delete --exclude=.* /Volumes/audio/ /Volumes/Drobo/audioclone

(you could simply type this all out on your Terminal every time you needed to run it.)

Note that /Volumes/audio is my audio work disk which appears in the Finder as simply audio. Also, /Volumes/audioclone is the destination disk which appears in the Finder as simply audioclone. You should change these to work with your drive names.

Works for me, anyways.

If you're on a PC, dunno what to tell you!

-a

PS: I never got to see any of the Loser's Lounge shows when I lived back east ...

The statement in red makes me nervous just reading it... Why delete anything on the backup?

Mi no comprende...

[Andy Peters]

The statement in red makes me nervous just reading it... Why delete anything on the backup?

Mi no comprende...

Unless I misread his request, Joe's just making a clone of his session's work disk. The last thing you want in such a clone is crufty leftover files that purposely deleted. ("I restored the project from backup and those three useless vocal tracks came back!")

I recommend running this clone script after the day's work is done, as per Joe's request. The backup exists so that you CAN go back and get something from last night if need be.

There are other variations on this scheme. You can do "rolling backups," where you have, say, a backup directory with seven subdirectories, namely the days of the week, and you can back up today's (Sunday, as I type this) work to the Sunday directory, tomorrow's work to the Monday directory, etc. If you deleted something yesterday, that won't be in yesterday's backup but it will be in Friday's, so you can still go get it.

A third option is to simply archive everything to a unique directory each night, so you can always go back to whatever day.

The trick to all of these backup/archive schemes is tracking changes.

Of course, on a Mac, you can use Time Machine, but to be honest I don't know if that's workable when you have multiple projects, each of which needs its own backup.

-a

[Nick Sevilla]

The statement in red makes me nervous just reading it... Why delete anything on the backup?

Mi no comprende...

Unless I misread his request, Joe's just making a clone of his session's work disk. The last thing you want in such a clone is crufty leftover files that purposely deleted. ("I restored the project from backup and those three useless vocal tracks came back!")

I recommend running this clone script after the day's work is done, as per Joe's request. The backup exists so that you CAN go back and get something from last night if need be.

There are other variations on this scheme. You can do "rolling backups," where you have, say, a backup directory with seven subdirectories, namely the days of the week, and you can back up today's (Sunday, as I type this) work to the Sunday directory, tomorrow's work to the Monday directory, etc. If you deleted something yesterday, that won't be in yesterday's backup but it will be in Friday's, so you can still go get it.

A third option is to simply archive everything to a unique directory each night, so you can always go back to whatever day.

The trick to all of these backup/archive schemes is tracking changes.

Of course, on a Mac, you can use Time Machine, but to be honest I don't know if that's workable when you have multiple projects, each of which needs its own backup.

-a

I was nervous about that because as early as my last mix project, the artist tried to get an earlier vocal take with the correct word, and could not get it back, since his backup was only for the keeper stuff. At least that was not my fault, it came this way from the previous studio.
We found only the ONE vocal take... so it had to be re-recorded, EQ'ed properly, and then remixed.
There was at least 1/2 hour wasted on this one word.
If there had been a backup of EVERYTHING, I would not have wasted that 1/2 hr.

Cheers

[joel hamilton]

Joe,
Incremental backups are kind of scary with protools, as there is really not proper criteria with just a simple scripted backup to distinguish between names, rather than unique identifiers from within protools. (i.e. "kick 01-01" gets overwritten by "kick 01-01" from a different song potentially, or other such nonsense and scariness).

The best way I have found is to use really fast drives for backing up, and/or running a RAID 1 setup to mirror the information to 2 drives at the same time. then when you are done tracking, you are already backed up to two drives when you are just doing daily overdubs and stuff... then back up the raid ("redundant array of independent disks") to yet ANOTHER drive for transport.. like the OWC mercury pro-mini series with eSata and FW800 ports it will totally deal with a LOT of info in a short amount of time. If you need help setting something up with some RAID 1 situation, call me and I could help out. We do have the same manager, after all...

[Andy Peters]

The statement in red makes me nervous just reading it... Why delete anything on the backup?

Mi no comprende...

Unless I misread his request, Joe's just making a clone of his session's work disk. The last thing you want in such a clone is crufty leftover files that purposely deleted. ("I restored the project from backup and those three useless vocal tracks came back!")

I recommend running this clone script after the day's work is done, as per Joe's request. The backup exists so that you CAN go back and get something from last night if need be.

There are other variations on this scheme. You can do "rolling backups," where you have, say, a backup directory with seven subdirectories, namely the days of the week, and you can back up today's (Sunday, as I type this) work to the Sunday directory, tomorrow's work to the Monday directory, etc. If you deleted something yesterday, that won't be in yesterday's backup but it will be in Friday's, so you can still go get it.

A third option is to simply archive everything to a unique directory each night, so you can always go back to whatever day.

The trick to all of these backup/archive schemes is tracking changes.

Of course, on a Mac, you can use Time Machine, but to be honest I don't know if that's workable when you have multiple projects, each of which needs its own backup.

-a

I was nervous about that because as early as my last mix project, the artist tried to get an earlier vocal take with the correct word, and could not get it back, since his backup was only for the keeper stuff. At least that was not my fault, it came this way from the previous studio.
We found only the ONE vocal take... so it had to be re-recorded, EQ'ed properly, and then remixed.
There was at least 1/2 hour wasted on this one word.
If there had been a backup of EVERYTHING, I would not have wasted that 1/2 hr.

Cheers

So the simple answer here is : don't delete anything! The take disappeared as a result of workflow, not because of the tools or the backup program.

-a