I used Ableton Live 8 for some dialogue editing for an iPad game and now I'm coming up to the stage where I'll need to render the edits as individual WAVs.
The sounds are very short (quick "oohs" and "aahs" generally), but there are a lot of them (315) and I'm shuddering at the though of going File>Export>Render Settings>Name File>Export 315 times.
I want to be able to render the many clips separately, with automatic file naming if possible (ooh 1, ooh 2, ooh 3 etc).
Any suggestions? Thanks!
I took a look through Ableton and it is possible, though potentially more time-consuming depending upon how you have your session set up.
If your edits are clean and each "ooh", "aah", etc. is its own separate region, bring all of the regions into the "session" view as clips. Make sure they are edited with proper start/end times using the start/stop markers in Live's clip view (leave some silence at the end, if possible).
Make sure 'warp' is turned off on all of the cues, unless you somehow used it—this can be done by selecting all of the clips and turning off the warp button in clip view.
Once they are edited, select all of the clips, right click and select "crop clips"—this will make each clip an individual audio file. All you need to do afterward is select all of the clips and drag them onto your desktop or into a folder.
As for the issue of file naming, there are a couple of steps you can take. The name you place on the Ableton clip doesn't necessarily reflect the name that is assigned to the file once you drag it. Check out a really handy piece of software called "Rename It" (or any other batch renaming software). If you work in game audio, you will most definitely find use for batch renaming. It allows you to add, remove, or alter text across hundreds of files by defining simple rules. For your task, I would recommend dragging the files out of Live by category: for instance, drag out the 'oohs' and batch rename them to "ooh_1", "ooh_2", etc... then repeat with the 'aahs'.
MrToBe is somewhat right that this would be somewhat easier in Pro Tools, which has an 'export regions to audio files' function, but we all have our workflows and it's worth making Live work for you if that is your preferred software.
Hope this helps!
~Matt
Figured out a solution to this, can't believe it didn't hit me before:
1. Mix and edit the sounds with processing on individual channels, and master channel if necessary
2. Render the entire sequence, taking the output from the master channel.
3. Add this rendered file back into the set on a new audio channel. Right click this audio clip and choose 'Crop Samples'. Hey presto, it cuts 'em up into individual files, stored in the directory Project/Samples/Processed/Crop (or something similar)
4. Use batch renaming software (NameChanger works for me) to rename the files.
DONE!
Hey there!
If you have Protools:
Export all the files in one sample. Import them in protools and use strip silence ore tap to transient to cut out the needed samples. then use the export function in the filebrowser of protools to export the 315 samples.
If you do not have Protools: you have troubles! Workaround:
You could try to treat the samples in a small way. for example reverse them twice. then you will find them in the temporary file browser as far as i know.
good luck, and get a cheap version of protools if you do not have (m powered version is like 40 euro)
You can do a freeze then flatten process on each track, then select all the clips and right-click to crop them, it will render your clips with all your fx, but you'll still have 1 problem: -you'll miss your master track fx chain (and all your clips will be rendered as stereo files, which could be a problem)
