I generally follow @Tim's Advice on Diminishing Returns, however... for smaller sessions I have a workflow set up that picks up where his advice about separating things onto separate tracks leaves off.

Depending on your speed, it's entirely possible to have 2 hours worth of recordings neatly edited, named and archived in about 1-4 hours depending how much variation is in the session.

I posted about it somewhere on here once before. It was in relation to batch processing V/O lines, but it applies here as well. It's all mostly understanding how to make Pro Tools do your work for you.

It breaks down into steps like this:

0. Back up all recordings to a master folder labeled "Unedited" or "Original". Then create an editing session. Import/Copy all your files into your session.

1. CLEAN: Run Noise Reduction on the whole file (if it's all in the same location/has the same noise floor) if you want to get rid of Ambience/Roomtone. This step is optional depending on several factors.

2. ORGANIZE: Separate Sounds onto separate tracks according to noise type. Name your tracks after whatever the sound is. ie: Balloon_Inflate/Balloon_Deflate/Balloon_Squeak/Balloon_Pop (use singular terms if these are being chopped into singular sounds).

3. EDIT: Run Strip Silence to have it do most of your topping and tailing for you.

4. FADE: Batch Fade with the smallest fade possible.

5. CREATE NEW FILE/RENAME: Tab + Shift Tab (with Tab to transient Turned Off) to jump from region to region and Consolidate the regions one by one. Shift+Opt/Alt+3) This will then create a new file (and not just a child region) which is named after the track and it will add a number to it every time you consolidate. Delete empty and unwanted regions as you come across them. Also perform additional top and tailing if you need more done. Strip silence won't get all of them perfect. Be sure to leave small handles/buffer space and be careful with sounds that have a long tail. You don't want to accidentally chop these off. So preview questionable sounds before you commit to a consolidation.

6. CLEAN UP: Go track by track and select everything on the track and look in your look in your regions bin to make sure no child files are selected. If there are, select them one by one and delete them as you do not want these ending up in your master collection. Then with only the regions you want remaining make sure nothing is selected and hit Shift+CMD(mac)/Ctrl(pc)+U will select unused regions. Delete these from your session.

7. EXPORT: Select all remaining Regions and hit: Shift+CMD(mac)/Ctrl(PC)+K and this will export regions as files. Create a new Folder next to the "unedited" one you created earlier. Name this one "Edited". This will place copies of all your new neatly cleaned, edited with baked fades, renamed and numbered files into a neat and tidy folder.

In addition, sometimes if there are hundreds of similar variations I might select a handful of the prime examples and delete the rest if they are that similar. Or, I might take a batch of 10/20 sounds and make one file out of those as opposed to hundreds if they are not too drastically different and are similar but not exact.

If you need further explanation, just ask.

I generally follow @Tim's Advice on Diminishing Returns, however... for smaller sessions I have a workflow set up that picks up where his advice about separating things onto separate tracks leaves off.

Depending on your speed, it's entirely possible to have 2 hours worth of recordings neatly edited, named and archived in about 1-4 hours depending how much variation is in the session.

I posted about it somewhere on here once before. It was in relation to batch processing V/O lines, but it applies here as well. It's all mostly understanding how to make Pro Tools do your work for you.

It breaks down into steps like this:

0. Back up all recordings to a master folder labeled "Unedited" or "Original". Then create an editing session. Import/Copy all your files into your session.

1. CLEAN: Run Noise Reduction on the whole file (if it's all in the same location/has the same noise floor) if you want to get rid of Ambience/Roomtone. This step is optional depending on several factors.

2. ORGANIZE: Separate Sounds onto separate tracks according to noise type. Name your tracks after whatever the sound is. ie: Balloon_Inflate/Balloon_Deflate/Balloon_Squeak/Balloon_Pop (use singular terms if these are being chopped into singular sounds).

3. EDIT: Run Strip Silence to have it do most of your topping and tailing for you.

4. FADE: Batch Fade with the smallest fade possible.

5. CREATE NEW FILE/RENAME: Tab + Shift Tab (with Tab to transient Turned Off) to jump from region to region and Consolidate the regions one by one. Shift+Opt/Alt+3) This will then create a new file (and not just a child region) which is named after the track and it will add a number to it every time you consolidate. Delete empty and unwanted regions as you come across them. Also perform additional top and tailing if you need more done. Strip silence won't get all of them perfect. Be sure to leave small handles/buffer space and be careful with sounds that have a long tail. You don't want to accidentally chop these off. So preview questionable sounds before you commit to a consolidation.

6. CLEAN UP: Go track by track and select everything on the track and look in your look in your regions bin to make sure no child files are selected. If there are, select them one by one and delete them as you do not want these ending up in your master collection. Then with only the regions you want remaining make sure nothing is selected and hit Shift+CMD(mac)/Ctrl(pc)+U will select unused regions. Delete these from your session.

7. EXPORT: Select all remaining Regions and hit: Shift+CMD(mac)/Ctrl(PC)+K and this will export regions as files. Create a new Folder next to the "unedited" one you created earlier. Name this one "Edited". This will place copies of all your new neatly cleaned, edited with baked fades, renamed and numbered files into a neat and tidy folder.

In addition, sometimes if there are hundreds of similar variations I might select a handful of the prime examples and delete the rest if they are that similar. Or, I might take a batch of 10/20 sounds and make one file out of those as opposed to hundreds if they are not too drastically different and are similar but not exact.

If you need further explanation, just ask.