MACKIE HDR24/96 - Manual (Page 40)

HDR 24/96
Project Management
Projects and Playlists – Recorder Housekeeping
What’s A Project?
A Project contains all the audio that you’ve recorded while that project name is active. It also
contains all the Playlists for that project, as well as housekeeping data such as sample rate and bit
depth.
What’s A Playlist?
A Playlist is a road map for playback of all the audio files recorded for a project. It can be
straightforward track playback, or incorporate edits and decisions as to which take, or
combination of takes, you want to hear. If you’re familiar with non-linear editing terminology
you may understand that the Playlist is an EDL (Edit Decision List).
NOTE: You can create multiple Playlists from the material in one Project to save several
different versions of the Project.
How You Should Organize Your Projects
If you’ve had experience working with tape-based recorders, you’ve probably just written the
name of the CD, band, or artist on the tape box and track sheets and that’s that. Since the
HDR24/96 can store considerably more material on its disk drives than would fit on a reel of tape,
you may want to organize your “big reel” differently, depending on your working situation.
Many people new to hard disk recording are intimidated with file names, objects, folders, and the
like. It’s common at first to be uncertain as to when you should create a new project or version,
or to wonder at the naming of pieces of audio, or for that matter keeping track of "regions" of
audio on each track in the first place.
Before we get on with a detailed explanation of disk files and data organization, you should know
that there are automatic defaults built into the HDR24/96 that will let you ignore almost all of this
computerese; push the buttons and go. While every Project needs a name, the HDR24/96’s
operating system will automatically assign a unique and workable name each time you start a new
project. In fact, within your Project everything that can be named will get an automatic name.
You’ll still want to keep track-notes somewhere, either on a computer or on paper just as you
would with tape.
NOTE: There is one new consideration, and that is you should save your Project frequently,
something perhaps a little foreign to the seasoned tape-meister. But it's not the recordings you are
saving. The HDR automatically saves your audio after each recording pass, but it’s up to you to
save your Project to capture your editing. The HDR does remind you to do this whenever you
run the Shutdown command from the GUI or start a new project. Whenever prompted to Save,
you should assume that the Project is not yet saved to its current state.
So here are some hints that will help you make reasonable decisions about when to start new
Projects or Playlists and how to name them.
Album Projects: If you’re working on an album of songs, it’s logical to envision the disk (either
internal or external) as a reel of tape, one that’s probably long enough to contain the whole
album. One approach is to simply have a single Project name for the entire album, separating the
songs by their starting time, just as you would do with tape. Cues are stored along with the
Project, so you can easily navigate from song to song by hopping among cues. The disadvantage
to this approach is that each time you back up the Project (and you should!) you’ve backing up a
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