As people try to move away from tape-based workflows, it’s becoming more common to simply deliver mix stems on a hard drive instead of doing a layback to tape. Clients want to take the final stems and match them back to picture in the Avid, and then make various file-based outputs from there. The best way to provide mix stems to a client who wants to import them back into an Avid is to provide them an AAF. Let’s take a look at how to export an AAF of mix stems from Pro Tools for Avid import.
First off it’s a good idea to prep your stems to make sure that they import cleanly into the Avid. Start by naming your tracks thoroughly; when you consolidate your stems the new audio files will be named based on their track name. So it’s a good habit to name the track first in order to not end up with an audio files folder full of “Audio 01, Audio 02, Audio 03,…”
Now that your tracks are named, go ahead and add tones and 2-pops to each one. First create a selection for your tones from 00:58:30:00 to 00:59:30:00 across all stems tracks. Like so:
Then you can render -20dB 1000Hz tones by simply using the key command “control-option-shift-3”. This handy little shortcut avoids the need for the signal generator plugin.
Then repeat these same steps for exactly 1 frame at 00:59:58:00 to create your 2-pops. Like so:
A 2-pop is a one-frame-long clip of tone that is placed exactly 2 seconds before the first frame of picture. It is used as a sync reference when all else fails. Since every TV show starts exactly on hour 1, the 2-pops need to go exactly 2 seconds earlier at 00:59:58:00
Once you’ve created your tone beds and your 2-pops, go ahead and consolidate all your stems by selecting all and using the key command “option-shift-3”. This renders new, continuous audio clips for each stem and names them according to their track name. The name is also appended with a number to differentiate it from any other clips in your clip list. You can easily delete this from the file names once the consolidation is complete. Once consolidated, your stems will look like this:
Notice that the clip names (and corresponding file names) end in _03 currently. Rename each stem by double-clicking on its clip with the grabber tool and deleting the extra characters.
Now all your stems should look like this:
Now that your stems have been prepped, it’s time to export them to a new AAF for Avid import. First your need to select the tracks you want to export by clicking on their names to highlight them. All the tracks picture above are selected. Next go to the File menu and choose Export -> Selected Tracks as new AAF/OMF…
This brings up the “Export to OMF/AAF” window. Configure it as pictured:
Here we’ve chosen to export it as an AAF instead of OMF (it’s the newer format, and is more broadly supported these days). Then we’ve checked the box for “Enforce Avid Compatibility” for obvious reasons. The target timecode format should remain unchanged from your stems. In this case it’s 23.976 (commonly referred to as 23.98FPS). We won’t export any audio as multi-channel. Doing so results in fewer total files, but also reduces compatibility with older versions of Avid.
Under Audio Media Options we’re choosing a format of “Embedded,” which means that our exported AAF will be a single large file instead of a sequence file and a bunch of media files. Handle Size isn’t relevant here, since we’re delivering full-length continuous stems that don’t have any handles. At this point hit OK.
The next window that pops up allows you to name the sequence any enter any comments.
After we hit OK here we just pick where we want to save the AAF on our hard drive, and then Pro Tools exports it:
And that’s it! We’ve now created an AAF file of our mix stems that can be imported directly into Avid and matched back with the final picture. Just copy it to a hard drive and off it goes!
