4 Services That Allow For Seamless Audio Post-Production Collaboration
Collaboration is not foreign when it comes to audio post-production. In fact, it is what gives studios constructive feedback, ideas, solutions and different perspectives to work on altogether, helping all parties involved produce better pieces of work.
Audio, sound, and video collaboration happens all the time. When it comes to audio and sound, for instance, it has never been so plausible to write a song with another individual on the other side of the world or to hire a full orchestra or session musicians to record music for the score and original soundtrack purposes.
In this post, we address some services and other software that make the whole collaboration workflow much easier, but more importantly, productive.
The Audio Hunt
The Audio Hunt is best known for being an online collaboration platform where hundreds of studio owners and audio professionals make their gear available for other colleagues to run their tracks through. How does it work? Imagine you want to run your mix through a specific piece of equipment/software. You will then be required to, first, open a account, find the piece of hardware you want to use, start a chat with the vendor, book the job depending on the fare (fares and fees vary depending on what type of hardware/software you want to use), and, finally, wait for the service to be completed so you can download the files.
Pro Tools Cloud Collaboration
Not long ago, Avid introduced Cloud Collaboration for Pro Tools in the Pro Tool 12.5 version. This allows Pro Tools users to share parts of projects, or the whole project if necessary, with other Pro Tools users around the globe without even having to close the application. It’s a rather fancy system that seamlessly integrates between different Pro Tools versions.
Pro Tools Cloud Collaboration gets rid of the traditional audio post-production collaboration process that involved exporting files out of the application followed by sharing them on different cloud services for other collaborators and editors to receive. Now, the 12.5 and above allows editors to collaborate with other Pro Tools users in a much quicker and simpler way.
Source Elements Source-Connect
In case you’re wondering what is Source-Connect, Source-Connect is what replaced the ISDN. Conceived as an industry-standard replacement, Source-Connect comes with a solid set of features for remote audio and sound recording and monitoring, allowing audio and sound professionals to undertake several aspects common in the audio post-production industry such as overdub, ADR and voice-over, regardless of whether the origin of these files took place anywhere in the world, over a decent internet connection integrated to their digital audio workstations.
Source-Connect works as an application, and it does not require complex digital audio workstations setups. It allows audio and sound professionals to work directly in the DAW of their preference, which ultimately allows them to harness the full set of features the application comes with.
Besides, Source-Connect comes with a built-in Pro Tools support, which is also compatible digital audio workstations that almost exclusively support VST plug-ins, including, but not limited to, Cubase, Nuendo, Pyramix, etc.
Audiomovers LISTENTO
Listento allows users to move low latency audio files from Digital Audio Workstations (DAW) to browse through the use of plug-ins. Imagine having a client who cannot physically visit your studio to listen and give you their insights on the final mix you’ve developed. By using Listento to play the mix directly from your workstation master track to the client’s browser, you eliminate such complication.
Listento seems to be still under development. One of the things the software is working on is the future implementation of a built-in chat to communicate with your client, allowing you to move away from third-party app messengers such as Skype or Google Hangouts to discuss the intricacies of your mix with the other individual.
Listento includes several transmission formats, such as:
PCM 16Bit
PCM 32Bit
AAC 128Kb
AAC 192Kb,
AAC 256Kb (MacOS only)
AAC 320Kb (MacOS only)
Additionally, Listento is a free plug-in; however, in order for sound professionals and audio editors to use it, they will be required to subscribe to Audiomovers in order for them to stream audio files directly from their digital audio workstations. Lucky enough, Audiomovers subscription tiers are quite affordable:
Weekly: $3.99
Monthly: $9.99
Yearly: $99.99
When sharing your files, sign up to your Audiomovers account to both send and receive the live stream. Send your client a link like if you were sharing with them a Google Sheets download link. And in case you’re still wondering whether you should pay one Audiomovers tier of service, the software comes with a one-week free trial.
A final word on collaboration: the fourth industrial revolution has come indeed with many pieces of software and hardware that has made possible to collaborate between professionals and studios. It is nonetheless as important to always nurture the collaborative spirit by being willing to work alongside other professionals in a specific workflow. This, of course, demands a more proactive and receptive attitude towards collaboration, otherwise, by not consider other perspectives, the chances of developing and learning something new are lower.
*The images used on this post are taken from Pexels.com