Importing old SawPro EDL, regions in regions view but not MT

[Seancom]

Hi all,

I am dusting off some legacy projects and using the import dialog in SS to update some old SawPro EDLs. I am using the guide in section 3-14 in the manual for importing. Most of the time, I am getting predictable behavior: After clicking a few hundred times, SS will put empty regions on the MT and a list of regions in the Regions view. I then use the file dialog to remap. Easy-peasy.

But I have an EDL that is putting regions in the Regions View but no regions on the MT. Is this a corrupted data problem? Double-clicking the regions in the Regions View goes to the correct location in the SoundFile view so I know that the EDL retained some of the info correctly.

So that leaves me with the challenge - how do I resurrect the session? How can I get the regions to go to the right track and location in the MT?

I seem to remember - wasn't there a command that would take a region in the Regions View and place it into the MT according to its metadata? Or am I remembering that wrongly?

Thanks!

Eric

[Ian Alexander]

I don't have the answer to your question, but if it turns out there isn't one, do you still have SawPro? If so, did it have an Export Tracks to Sound Files option? That would get you on the MT.

[Ian Alexander]

This section of the help file might be what you want, especially at the *.

Adding Regions To The MultiTrack


Selecting a single Region and [Left-Clicking] the Insert To MT button or pressing the [Insert] key will add it to the MultiTrack at the current cursor position on the current Hot Track.


Selecting multiple Regions in the Regions List before performing this function will add the Regions to successive MultiTrack tracks, starting at the current Hot Track and incrementing from there for each additional Region.


Pressing [Ctrl] when using the Insert To MT button in the Regions View or pressing [Ctrl-Insert] in the MultiTrack View to add a Region or group of Regions, will insert the entries to the current Hot Track back to back, one behind the other. If a Marked Area has been defined, multiple copies of the Regions will be added to the MultiTrack to form a repeating loop within the Marked Area. Multiple selected Regions will be looped onto successive tracks.


When using the Snap-To-Grid feature while [Ctrl-Inserting] a region in a Marked Area, the length of the region is automatically truncated to the grid length forcing all entries to add properly on the next grid point regardless of whether the region length is too long to fit. This operation tracks tempo map changes. This makes building a click track to tempo an extremely simple procedure.


* Every Region created by recording directly into the MultiTrack, maintains its original time-stamped position. Inserting the Region to the MultiTrack later by pressing the [Shift] key when using either the Insert To MT zone or pressing the [Insert] key, forces the insert at the original time-stamped position. All time-stamped Regions display the '@' symbol after the name. This operation forces an insert which overwrites any underlying region data.


Pressing [Alt] when using the Insert To MT button in the Regions View or pressing [Alt-Insert] in the MultiTrack View to add a Region or group of Regions, will insert the entries to the current Hot Track and overwrite any underlying data. This differs from the [Shift-Insert] function by forcing even time-stamped data to the current cursor position.

[Seancom]

Thanks, Ian. That was the note I was looking for. Unfortunately, my regions must have lost their time stamps because they aren't snapping to any location but Track 1, @ 00:00:00.000.

I dusted off my copy of SawPro and can open the EDL and play out. But a fresh copy of the EDL when imported by SS gives me a "Region has Zero Length" error and no regions in the MT.

If I have to, I can export track by track and then cut to individual region lengths but that would be a bummer.

Eric

[Ian Alexander]

A few other ideas:

Open a new, empty SawPro project and import the troubled one into SawPro. Save that with a different name. Maybe that will import in SawStudio.

In SawPro, change something easily fixable in the troubled project, like lengthen a region. Save As a different name, then see if that edl will import into SawStudio.

If you can identify anything different about the project, say a plug-in or something, that that isn't in the edls you have successfully imported, delete the plug or whatever, Save As new name, and try again.

HTH

Just curious: What type of project is it? I was assuming that a music project wouldn't need to be chopped up into regions, because the portions with no regions in the original would be silent anyway, but maybe this is something different.

[Seancom]

Hi Ian, thanks for the assistance.

This is a radio theater production - so a lot of dialog, effects, and a musical score.

I tried all of your suggestions, but no go.

Instead, I exported each track to new soundfiles. I will then import into SS and begin trimming the regions. The project is preparing these sessions for language translation - so I am preparing a D-M-E mixdown. The original sessions are messy so I am cleaning them up so I can group the effects tracks together, music, and voicetracks etc.