AAF export and runway archives: two processes, two problems

**AAF export

I’m trying to export an AAF session to Pr Tools and, like many users over the years and versions, if I’m to believe the forum, Nuendo is unable to keep the stereo tracks in the process. For various reasons of detail that don’t really matter, when mixing, it exports in mono. That’s 500 tracks for me. Pro Tools can remake a stereo track with two mono tracks by dragging and dropping, but the work would be cumbersome. Creating 250 stereo tracks, naming them and then dragging the mono files two by two onto a stereo track is not a reasonable solution. It would be better if Nuendo did its job properly in the first place.

Question: can this problem be circumvented at present?

Update: the XML problem has been fixed.

If I remember correctly it is a Pro Tools problem not a Nuendo problem.

No, because Nuendo indicates as a message that it converts to mono at the end of its process. So before importing into PT.

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I think AAF protocol only works with mono tracks.

I actually tried this in PT and exporting a stereo track into an AAF and then re-importing that AAF yields a stereo track in PT.

What I think might be happening is that Avid is using a non-standard implementation of the AAF standard. Steinberg has pretty stubbornly followed the standard rather than adapt to what Avid does, and probably for good reasons. I’m pulling this from memory though so I could be wrong about it.

Basically the problem with deviating from a standard is that if you’re then adapting to your competitors all they would have to do is change something in their implementation and you’ll then have to troubleshoot that to adapt again. They could basically make your life miserable just by doing that.

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From a moderator in the Avid Forums:

There is no native interleaved stereo. Inside MC, just like in PT, stereo clips or stereo tracks are merely stereo by metadata, the media itself is always monophonic, never interleaved.

Fredo

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I compensate for what you say, but I think the first principle should be to follow audio logic, monos in monos, STs and STs, and the rest. Any other consideration takes us away from the rationale. On the other hand, it has been proven that the vas-clos policy is bad for everyone, and first and foremost for the person who locks himself in. After all, the customer is not enclosed. Developed by Avid, but also Microsoft, Sony and Autodesk, the idea behind the AAF format is precisely interoperability. And this could serve SB more than Avid.

Interesting. I note, however, that SB informs of this impossibility of exporting to ST in an error message linked to the session, with a list of solutions (which don’t work here, by the way). Also, to the best of my knowledge, PT’s (and Samplitude’s) AAF exports respect the number of channels in the tracks, even if it’s by means of an automatic mono reordering function.

In the meantime you could use “Save As” for an export session, convert all your stereo tracks to dual mono and export an AAF from that session.

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Does that give us a fundamentally different AAF though?

It shouldn’t. In PT you can just change them back to stereo tracks.

Interesting. I didn’t remember there was this double mono function. I’ll give it a try.

Hmm, I’m missing something. I don’t see that possibility. I can’t see the sequence to convert all tracks to dual mono in Nuendo.

This is the Pro Tools problem, you can try exporting aaf from Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, and you will encounter the same problem in Pro Tools.

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As I said, at the end of its process, Nuendo displays a message saying that the tracks are exported in mono. We’re not in PT or any other DAW yet.

What @mixRyan means (i think) is that any daw except maybe PT will export as mono. So then you run into your issue. It’s not a Nuendo problem as it is well explained by @MattiasNYC

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Sounds like what you’re saying. I had a memory of transferring stereo sessions to AAF. I must have been dreaming.

Select the stereo tracks then click “convert tracks” in the drop down menu under Audio or Project, I can remember which one right now.

We’re discussing a different issue.

I was replying to someone’s comment about how to make a dual mono session for AAF export.