I have recently sold off my ADAT studio and went with a new mac and Logic 9. I have a company doing instrumental tracks for me and they are using Pro Tools for all of their recording. Is there a way (even software that I can purchase) that will allow them to save the session files in a way that I can open them in Logic 9 and not have too many issues in adding vocals and finishing out the project in Logic? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!!

PT to Logic and Logic to PT transfers are very commonly done by using a very simple but effective process. Using your situation, you'd ask the PT op to "consolidate all tracks from bar 1", meaning that they'd bounce all tracks from bar 1. When you lay them up in Logic, you align them all to bar 1 and you're good to go! That's the general vibe, now here's your checklist: 1. Consolidate all individual tracks from bar 1 2. Request AIFF or WAV files (this is important if you want to prevent from pulling your hair out dealing with SD2 files). There's no reason that the engineer should give you any flack about this. 3. Have the engineer export a MIDI file so that you have the tempo map as well as any markers that were in their original session file. IMPORTANT: if there are no MIDI tracks in their session, have them create a "dummy" MIDI track with a note at the downbeat and another at the end of the track. If they don't do this, the MIDI file you'll receive won't be readable by Logic. 4. When you get your files, load up the MIDI file in Logic by using the OPEN function, not the import function. This is important! Once you have your tempo map and other MIDI-file-derived info in your Logic project, add the audio files, making sure to set Logic's sample rate to match that of the files you receive before adding them.

Ski, Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks so much. I have been "surfing" since my post and ran across Solid State Logic's Pro-convert. Any thoughts on this software or is the way you suggested the best? Just thought I'd ask??

You're welcome! I'm not familiar with the software you wrote about, so I just looked it up and for (ouch!) $700 US I'd say that buying that software would only likely pay for itself (in time and expense) if you're going to do this kind of transfer on a regular basis. Otherwise, the method I suggested is "free" (save for the cost (if any) of the engineer's time) and what it costs you in time to load up the files and listen back to the tracks to check the files.

Cool... Think I'll stick to your method. If the Pro-Convert was the "fast and easy" way to be able to open PT session files, I thought I might worth looking into but for the $$$ and as often as I'll be converting, probably not. Thanks again for all your help.

Could you elaborate some more on the dummy midi track. I'm guessing it's for creating a grid for aligning any edits in Logic? Does the file need to be any certain length? Can it just be the 1st verse of "Mary Had A Little Lamb" for example? (in the correct tempo). Or does it need to be the whole length of the songs other tracks? Rob

[quote] I'm guessing it's for creating a grid for aligning any edits in Logic?[/quote] Yes. But it's also to let you import tempo (esp. if the PT session had a fluctuating tempo map) and markers as well. As far as content, it only needs to have a single track with two notes in it: one at the very top, one at the very end. Without the notes it won't import properly into Logic.

Hey Peter I needed a quick fix to tweak my PT to Logic transfers and you helped me out greatly I usually just say ¨Thank You¨ quit Firefox and go back to work but I thought that I would take a second to thank you for your timely and informative response Keep Rocking! Marten