I need a file sharing service

Justice C. Bigler

Justice C. Bigler

Senior
Jan 11, 2011
698
0
16
Tulsa, OK
www.justicebigler.com
I'm looking for a file sharing service to upload some music files that I'm working on so that other guys in the band can download them and work on them also. I'm talking about full audio .wav files and Protools sessions files. Too big to email, and I don't want to have to deal with zipping a session file and uploading it as an attachment. Ideally something where I can set up an account for the whole band that everyone gets to log into. Something more sophisticated than FTP. Suggestions?

(Just to fend off the copyright whores, this is all original material that we are writing and recording as a group, not illegally shared stuff ala other infamous file sharing systems of years past.)
 
Re: I need a file sharing service

Well, Protools session files, depending on how long the audio tracks are and how many of them are can range from 300 or 400 MB to well over 1GB. Even a bounced stereo audio file can be between 40 and 70MB.

We're looking at having probably 2 to 5GB online at any one time.

I was looking at drop box, but it appears that it's only set up as a remote storage folder for your personal machines. Am I wrong about that? I guess I can set up an account and a folder just for the band stuff, but it doesn't seem as graceful as I'd like it. Some of my guys aren't that computer literate.

What I'm envisioning is a service where I can set myself and maybe one other person up as admins, and then have everyone log in and be able to download the session and then either upload a whole session or just their individual tracks to be added by someone else. I need a folder structure to keep the different audio files separate and the session intact. Maybe folders for individual members, where they have write access, and everyone else can read their files, but not over write them.

Drop box and You Send it, seem to be more of a replacement for email file attachments, rather than a sort of virtual hard drive.

Does what I'm looking for exist? Even in a paid form?
 
Re: I need a file sharing service

That is a pretty decent size of file transfer say you had a 1gig file and 5 people were uploading downloading that. I would doubt any free service will offer that much transfer.
I would imagine hosting on a server would be a little involved. I know with my server you can setup logins and restrictions to certain folders. I will look into how difficult it will be to setup if I get a chance.
 
Re: I need a file sharing service

I have a VPS server for a small two-bit website that I run. I've got 5GB of storage space and 100GB of monthly bandwidth. And I'm pretty sure that I have an FTP service with my hosting contract. I was just looking for something a little more sophisticated, and something that I didn't have to set up myself other than opening the account.
 
Re: I need a file sharing service

Justice -

having done this, you really don't want to be transferring full PT files back and forth - it gets messy.

I'm guessing one person (you) is the master holder of the PT session files and will do the edits, mixing -- you're looking for folks to collaborate on the track and add parts?

Mix whatever you have, and bounce down to a stereo WAV file. Send that one file at 16 bit/44.1 or even MP3 -- and have them create a PT session that imports that stereo track. They can then add their tracks and send you only the ones they've added. The only trick is to make sure they use Edit/Consolidate Region to give you a continuous audio file with no gaps that starts at zero - then when you get the files, it's easy to add them into the master PT session. No gaps, no problem. This also makes it easy for non PT folks to share tracks.
Have them bounce down without effects so that you get the raw track.

Dropbox for free has a 2GB limit; you can give people the password and they can logon via website or install on their computer. http://www.dropbox.com/help/5

Sound easy?
 
Re: I need a file sharing service

Justice C. Bigler said:
Well, Protools session files, depending on how long the audio tracks are and how many of them are can range from 300 or 400 MB to well over 1GB. Even a bounced stereo audio file can be between 40 and 70MB.
Click to expand...

1GB session? Dude you've only got 1/50th of the show... LOL

You might not think FTP is sexy but that's how we do it here when Le Mothership wants a session. Most folks we deal with use SFTP for the transfers including one place that is named after a famous space warrior and one place far away that works with Hobbits.

That, however, is if they only go out and don't need to go back and forth. Like Ned says version control can be a beotch. So can frame sync if you aren't using anything for LTC and you are moving multiple tracks. What we do if we have to send something out for someone else to add to is what Ned does. We make a mix minus track, or even a full mix and bounce it to stereo. The difference is we usually send the track and a session file that has our makers, etc. We use broadcast wave files so the positioning info is built into the file as as long as thy play in time with the original bounce, it should line up when we get it back.
 
Re: I need a file sharing service

Justice C. Bigler said:
I'm looking for a file sharing service to upload some music files that I'm working on so that other guys in the band can download them and work on them also. I'm talking about full audio .wav files and Protools sessions files. Too big to email, and I don't want to have to deal with zipping a session file and uploading it as an attachment. Ideally something where I can set up an account for the whole band that everyone gets to log into. Something more sophisticated than FTP. Suggestions?

(Just to fend off the copyright whores, this is all original material that we are writing and recording as a group, not illegally shared stuff ala other infamous file sharing systems of years past.)
Click to expand...

filemail.com
 
Re: I need a file sharing service

I don't think it's practical to upload huge 5GB+ files on regular home Internet connections. It's going to take literally all day to upload, and it's going to kill the user's connection in the meantime. If it fails, especially if it's a multi-file upload, someone with access is going to have to go in and delete all the scraps so the upload can be restarted.

If your users can operate ProTools, they should be able to zip a file and upload it through FTP (use FileZilla or something, drag and drop). It's not that hard.

I bet one of the content management systems (Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla) has a plugin available that can do what you want. I have a plugin running on my site that simply takes a folder and lists its contents on a web page, mainly to display my show recordings, so the file I/O capability is definitely there. I have 1&1 business Linux with unlimited traffic and storage space.

If you want 'real deal' file management, pay for Rapidshare. Hands down the industry-standard file storage and sharing service. And yes, it's not illegal, though many people do use it to share copyrighted content.
 
Re: I need a file sharing service

Tim Weaver said:
You a mac user? Sign up for mobileMe. It's a 100 bucks a year and gives you 20 gigs online. You can share folders with your muso's that contain the files.
Click to expand...
Which will work great until next June, when Apple pulls the plug. :(

I'm a MobileMe user who's trying to find replacements for what it did - I have a similar need to publish ~1GB files here and there for projects, as well as have a website and photo gallery. There isn't a good one stop shop replacement out there for Mobile Me - hopefully there will be somewhere. At the moment I've signed up for "unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth" shared hosting (be careful with this - the first company I talked to said they will only store files "related to the website" and would not accept large files for sharing or download), and am looking for a MobileMe-like plugin for user downloads.
 
Re: I need a file sharing service

Justice C. Bigler said:
I'm looking for a file sharing service to upload some music files that I'm working on so that other guys in the band can download them and work on them also. I'm talking about full audio .wav files and Protools sessions files. Too big to email, and I don't want to have to deal with zipping a session file and uploading it as an attachment. Ideally something where I can set up an account for the whole band that everyone gets to log into. Something more sophisticated than FTP. Suggestions?

(Just to fend off the copyright whores, this is all original material that we are writing and recording as a group, not illegally shared stuff ala other infamous file sharing systems of years past.)
Click to expand...

If you're a Mac user and have the hardware to do it, hook yourself up with Lion Server. This would give you the option to keep the files local on your machine, and have the band members log in for access to the files. You can setup Read/Write, Read Only, or No Access as you see fit. As a bonus, having the iCal server available is also pretty cool if you want a secure calendar for your band's upcoming commitments without relying on "the cloud".

Having to upload the files first before anyone can access them adds one more potentially long data transfer which is always susceptible to error.

Make sure that you're clear on your respective ISP data limits. With all of that collaborative file transfer, the data usage can climb pretty quickly.

If you are sending full Pro Tools sessions I think that compressing the folder to zip or Rar would help eliminate data transmission errors.
 
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