The Experts team wondered what we thought people would want to find behind the windows of a dream studio advent calendar. Some of the things we own, some we wish we did. Owned or not, we think any of the things we name in the next 9 days would be a gift to a professional studio owner
Day 21 - Source Connect
Paul Maunder chooses Source Connect.
I remember my first encounter with Source Connect. I was doing some cover work at a production facility and we needed to record a voice over remotely. The session was due to be conducted over ISDN which at that point was still the most common way of conducting remote recording sessions. 10 minutes before the session was due to start, the producer announced that we’d now be doing it via Source Connect. This was 2005 and I’d never used it before. With clients waiting in reception to attend and direct the session, I had a few minutes to figure out how this software worked and make it look like I knew what I was doing. Fortunately, Source Connect is extremely easy to use and, after a brief conversation with one of the other engineers, I was able to get the session going with no problem at all.
What Is Source Connect?
For those of you who haven’t used it before, Source Connect from Source Elements is software which allows a full duplex bi-directional connection between studios for recording, approval and monitoring of audio. Audio is encoded in AAC format and channel formats from mono to 7.1 are supported (in Source Connect Pro X). When synchronisation of systems is needed, as is the case when recording ADR, Source Connect provides a feature called Remote Transport Sync. This allows you to control and sync a remote DAW. Your DAW sets the timeline position and you trigger the remote side to play. The remote system acts as the timecode master and your receiving system chases the sync information. The latency is offset so audio is received in perfect sync to your session. For reviewing audio, there’s another Remote Transport Sync Mode called Review mode which sets your system as the master and the receiving end follows. This is good for reviewing mixes in sync with video. The receiving end runs video with timecode in the Pro Tools session and the audio received from you is perfectly timed to be in accurate synchronisation.
Using an internet connection to transmit audio means that there are inevitably occasions when a less than ideal connection speed can cause drop outs. Source Elements have this in hand with the Auto Restore and Auto Replace features. Auto restore checks what data has been sent and if it finds an error due to bandwidth issues, it sends the missing data via a background FTP site to automatically update your audio files and timeline edits in Pro Tools. This is facilitated by something called Q Manager. This allows support of full PCM audio via Auto Replace so your audio recordings and timeline edits are automatically replaced with uncompressed PCM recordings if required.
I’ve chosen to include Source Connect in this advent calendar of gear because it changed the way I do remote recording sessions. Offering way more features and versatility than ISDN, along with better audio quality over a standard internet connection without the need for a dedicated hardware box, it’s hard to imagine conducting remote sessions without it now! Source Connect is available in various versions from the free Source Connect Now which runs in a Chrome browser up to Source Connect Pro X with 7.1 audio support and a variety of other features.
For more information on Source Connect and its features check out the video below: