OMF files?

mathew · Post by **mathew** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:29 am

I just received an omf file (and a quicktime file as reference) for a project doing some editing and sound design for a movie. I run ableton.

how screwed am i?

Is there a way to convert the audio into something usable and use the quicktime movie as reference, and somehow get back into an import.

The studios they use usually run protools, so I know that that will work, except I do not, so I would need to get it, and get it figured out with a quickness. What about Cubase or Sonar?

Ableton, OMF seems fairly universal for large platforms. I know you are a live performance tool, but since you are heading into the DAW area, can we get into some pro daw features?

blank · Post by **blank** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:22 pm

omf is a post production feature, not a pro daw one imo.

You will need protools le with the dv toolkit ( or protools academic 7.3)

Other solutions are probably logic and steinberg nuendo ( dunno for cubase)

Dunno for sonar too, there is prolly something to import omf but my recent experiments with this platform ( sonar 7 ) have been pretty short and disapointing.

Protools is the top in post production, live never pretended it but once rewired into a protools post prod session it becomes a serious adition.

Now stop bitchin and go work

-B

Left Eye Dominant · Post by **Left Eye Dominant** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:13 pm

The best thing to do is to talk to the post production house or editor that provided you with the OMFI files in the first place and ask them to provide you with files you can work with. Should be quite easy to sort on either an Avid system (using Media Mover perhaps) or FCP and you could probably avoid the OMFI file format altogether. There are shed loads of potential pitfalls for the sound designer with OMFI exports anyway (even with PT or Nuendo). It is always best to talk to the post production people and get a work flow sorted as soon as poss, what file formats are required, what is required in the mix or he tracklay from the picture editor etc. There are always loads of things that need to be clarified before the sound designer can get to work.

A quick and nasty solution for you if you are only using Live would be to ask the editor to export a WAV or AIFF file for every single track used in the picture cut for the entire length of the project. This will allow you to easily sync up all of the tracks with the QT reference movie.

forge · Post by **forge** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:35 pm

I dont know but Reaper has a lot of things and is a good one stop solution - might be worth checking if it does

blank · Post by **blank** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 3:12 pm

forge wrote:I dont know but Reaper has a lot of things and is a good one stop solution - might be worth checking if it does

Don't know if reaper support omf import for now but at the speed they are developping it it's prolly just a matter of time.

This application is starting to be a really good alternative to other daw, this is pretty impressive.

-B

forge · Post by **forge** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:40 am

blank wrote:
forge wrote:I dont know but Reaper has a lot of things and is a good one stop solution - might be worth checking if it does
Don't know if reaper support omf import for now but at the speed they are developping it it's prolly just a matter of time.

This application is starting to be a really good alternative to other daw, this is pretty impressive.

-B

you could probably email the developer and he'd stick it in for you!

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:01 am

Just piggybacking here, but somebody sent me some stems to do a remix and they were in SD2 format, don't know what the Hell that is. I tossed them in live and they were distorted and glitchy as fuck.

I don't know why people would send other people file formats that aren't standard like wav or aiff, and if they aren't then why not ask if you can use none standard files first. It would save everybody a lot of time. I'm not sure if SD2 is a ProTools format but it might be just another case of somebody being "all the pros use this and you should too".

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:05 am

Use Sonar. it can open OMFs. Export each track as WAV

forge · Post by **forge** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:11 am

beats me wrote:Just piggybacking here, but somebody sent me some stems to do a remix and they were in SD2 format, don't know what the Hell that is. I tossed them in live and they were distorted and glitchy as fuck.

I don't know why people would send other people file formats that aren't standard like wav or aiff, and if they aren't then why not ask if you can use none standard files first. It would save everybody a lot of time. I'm not sure if SD2 is a ProTools format but it might be just another case of somebody being "all the pros use this and you should too".

"sound designer 2" an old mac format, I know logic opens them because I used to use them in it

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:30 am

Cubase supports .omf since VST 5. All of the SX range and now Cubase 4 support it. All versions of Nuendo support it.

SDII is Digidesign's original PCM stereo wave file, I'm surprised you were able to get it to import at all into Live, distortion or not.

The only non Pro Tools DAW I know that opens it natively is MOTU Digital Performer. You can get conversion tools on the web *shareware stuff* that will convert SDII to .wav or .aiff

.omf should be a consideration. It took 7 versions of Live to get .rex support, maybe .omf support is coming in the next release

OMF is pretty useful actually as it carries quite a bit of information beyond the .wave file, which speeds up mixing between 2 different platforms that support it.

EDIT - yes, apparently Logic also supports it. But non of the PC only DAWS do.

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 3:31 am

I thought SD2 might have something to do with Pro Tools, and again, why would somebody just shoot that over without asking first? Does Pro Tools import to Wav?

Whenever I am doing collaboration work with somebody I always ask what format would work best for them. It seems like a normal standard question. Hell, I even ask people that I know are using Live how they would like me to send over the tracks.