What format for deliverables?

[coplinger]

The last time I worked in a commercial studio we were putting mixes on cassette tape and Sony Betamax digital. Most of my side work over the years has been delivered on cd.

Getting ready to open a studio. How do people expect mixes delivered these days? Download? Flash drive?

[losthighway]

The last time I worked in a commercial studio we were putting mixes on cassette tape and Sony Betamax digital. Most of my side work over the years has been delivered on cd.

Getting ready to open a studio. How do people expect mixes delivered these days? Download? Flash drive?

It seems We Transfer, Google Drive and Dropbox downloads are the standard for most folks.

Some folks still want a CDR to check out a mix if they have a player in their car. I like having a player in my car that takes USB cause I can just throw files on a flash drive and plug it in to check it out, I've only had a couple clients share this enthusiasm.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I can't think of the last time I burned a CDR. It's always a file transfer these days. WeTransfer, DropBox, Google Drive. I actually prefer WeTransfer because it puts the onus on the receiver to download the file before it deletes itself. I've had a few clients who would stream the files from my Google Drive link but never download them. Then I'd get calls from them when I clean up my drive six months later and they can't access their mixes.

Beyond that, I'll send MP3 references until the client is fully paid up. Then they can have the hi-rez file. For session back-ups the client has to provide a drive. I keep back-ups for at least 6 months, usually much longer but I don't tell them that. If they don't take a back-up of their files it's their responsibility.

[Rodgre]

What A.David just said.

If the project is going to mastering elsewhere, I will send a Dropbox/WeTransfer?GoogleDrive link to the mastering engineer with the wav files named as follows: " clientname.albumname.tracknumber.songtitle.revision.wav" so for example: "yes.90125.01.ownerofalonelyheart.03.wav"

I pretty much do the same for final masters I send to clients as well. They are free to rename them whatever they want, but I try to put all pertinent information into the filename. If I am mastering, I will add "master" before the final revision number.

Roger

[MoreSpaceEcho]

What the others said. Wetransfer is by far the best service IMHO, way faster than google drive or dropbox, and it cleans itself up, which is nice.

All I have to add is if anyone insists on using Dropbox, and you're sending a file to someone, for the love of all that is holy, just send a download link and don't invite them to share the folder.

[kslight]

What the others said. Wetransfer is by far the best service IMHO, way faster than google drive or dropbox, and it cleans itself up, which is nice.

All I have to add is if anyone insists on using Dropbox, and you're sending a file to someone, for the love of all that is holy, just send a download link and don't invite them to share the folder.

Yup, I have used them all, hate Dropbox with a passion. I use Google drive because I have a 1tb account with my Google fiber anyway, but some people can’t figure that out for whatever reason so I’ll use wetransfer.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

Fully agree about Dropbox being awful. Every year they seem to add another tier of service and strip functionality out of the tiers below that. I'm currently paying for Pro or some such crap because I'm working on a soundtrack and the rest of the team is using it. As soon as this gig is done I will be cancelling.

[Nick Sevilla]

Here's our standards, for USA engineers and producers.

https://www.grammy.com/technical-guidelines

Typically:

Backup is 3 different physical objects, be they hard drives etc., in three different locations.

Delivery is Broadcast Wave audio file format.

As to how to deliver to each client, that is a discussion between yourself and the client. Downloadable media via a server like Google drive, et al,
or a physical copy mailed to the client is also acceptable.

[digitaldrummer]

I also share your hatred for Dropbox. I will never give them a cent.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

I'm glad it's not just me!

[vvv]

Am I the only one reads "deliverables" and thinks this ain't about what it is 'ppears to be about?

[Scodiddly]

Am I the only one reads "deliverables" and thinks this ain't about what it is 'ppears to be about?

"Consumables"? You mean like gaff tape?

[vvv]

I ain' et no gaff tape since, like, high school.

And don' even think about using it for roll-ups - likely toxic.

[dave watkins]

In addition to the good advice everyone else has posted, data storage has become super cheap in recent years, flash drives up to like 128GB can be had for less than $20 usually. One thing I've started doing is getting a fresh one at the beginning of a session to use for physical backups on a project and at the end I can hand off final mixes etc. on it to clients and be like "this is your responsibility now, and it should prevent you from coming back to me in 3 years asking where that dropbox link went" and work more professional language into contracts alleviating myself from the responsibility of long term data storage. I still try and keep backups of backups of everything I do though, but in the event something catastrophic happens and I somehow lose all data everywhere, I don't want to be responsible for not having someone's mixes years later.

[Nick Sevilla]

In addition to the good advice everyone else has posted, data storage has become super cheap in recent years, flash drives up to like 128GB can be had for less than $20 usually. One thing I've started doing is getting a fresh one at the beginning of a session to use for physical backups on a project and at the end I can hand off final mixes etc. on it to clients and be like "this is your responsibility now, and it should prevent you from coming back to me in 3 years asking where that dropbox link went" and work more professional language into contracts alleviating myself from the responsibility of long term data storage. I still try and keep backups of backups of everything I do though, but in the event something catastrophic happens and I somehow lose all data everywhere, I don't want to be responsible for not having someone's mixes years later.

I tend to stay away from thumb drives though. They are notorious for not lasting long. I'd recommend to your clients a spinning disc type backup drive. They are super cheap too, but do not have the data disappear on them, unlike SSD tech. I personally have had at least 4 of them fail on me the past few years. I use them as "data shuttles", but do not rely on them as a long term solution. I use Blu Ray data discs, plus one to two hard drives which are spinning platens, with at least two port formats to access them with, USB plus Firewire or Thunderbolt. This way, even if a port goes bad on the enclosure, you can either access thru the other port type, or take out the drive itself and put it into another enclosure. Hell, if the project is less than 24 tracks, I'd go ahead and put it into a new 2" analog tape as well. Sadly this is out of most people's budgets.

https://www.ricksdailytips.com/how-long ... tain-data/