We’ve all done it: inadvertently linking to audio files on hard drives other than the one our session is on. That’s all well and good for the time being, but what happens when you have to move that session to another computer? Offline files! The bane of any Pro Tools user’s existence. What can you do to prevent this troublesome situation? Read on…
Maybe it’s a few sound effects that are on another hard drive. Maybe you downloaded a few off the internet, and they’re stuck in some download folder somewhere. Or perhaps you imported a few fix OMFs, and their attendant media is on another drive. First, let’s cover how you can prevent issues in the first place. In Preferences, under the Processing tab, you see the following “Import” section:
Notice the vital checkbox for “Automatically copy files on import” which forces Pro Tools to do just that to all audio files; automatically copy them to your session’s Audio Files folder when you import them. I also recommend the above checkbox for converting .wav files to Broadcast Wave, by the way.
“Well that’s just great,” you tell me, “but what if I already have files scattered around my hard drives?” I’m glad you asked! Here’s the solution:
With your session closed, go to your Workspace (Window Menu, Workspace) which should look a little something like this:
Notice those “A” and “V” columns to the right of the hard drive names. Those are for Audio and Video files, and the letter in the column represents how Pro Tools is able to interact with that drive for that media type. Basically this is where you tell Pro Tools if it can Record to that hard drive, only Playback from that drive, or only Transfer files from it (no direct playback at all). Right now I have “R” set for all 3 drives, meaning that Pro Tools can record and play audio from any of my drives. This is what’s allowing it to link to files all over the place. Your Workspace is probably configured similarly. So let’s fix things!
Change the A column of all drives other than your Pro Tools Sessions drive to T for Transfer. Keep your Pro Tools Session drive set to R. It should now look like this:
Now just open your session. If you indeed have scattered media across multiple drives, Pro Tools will present you with a warning message like this:
Just hit OK, choose your session’s Audio Files folder, and Pro Tools will copy all the files over! That’s it. And thus, you have saved yourself from the misery of missing audio files!