What a horrible title!!  I don’t know how to even categorize this and its admittedly a very simple concept but I wonder if others haven’t been doing it…if not it will save you TIME, future headaches and drive space.

Scenario: You make a football promo on Monday for “STATION A.”  It sounds great.  Client loved it, it had lots of football stuff and it was kind of generic but effective.  3 days later you got another quick football promo to make for “STATION B.”  You’ve got no time to start a new session, the basics are the same, BUT you dont really need or want another full copy of that first one with all the other crap you wont use.  Why not just quickly open the STATION A session, duplicate the promo elements, swap in STATION B’S VO’s, move some stuff around, maybe change one bed and you’re done.

1 year later you need to do a simple update to that STATION B promo…but…where the F%$K is that football promo I did last year for STATION B!?  Did I piggy back onto another station?  How will I ever find it?

What I have been doing: After I make the original FOOTBALL Promo amongst a bunch of other imaging.  I open it a few days later and do my duplicating, stealing piggy-backing, (whatever you want to say).  When I am done I simply make an ALIAS (mac) or SHORTCUT (pc) of the session file (ptx file in Pro tools).  Move that alias/shortcut to the station folder you were stealing FOR…

Station A (original)

Station B (copy)

The alias will open the original session.  You don’t need to copy an entire session wasting hard drive (especially if that original session was huge), you can name alias whatever you want so you will find it in a year, and you won’t spend time searching through year old sessions looking for that renegade promo to update.

I typically have stations coming to me with content for that month.  So in general it helps me to name my stuff “KXXX_AUG_2016” or the like, maybe add in a full 6-digit date, or other info.  Whatever works for you.  But gain, if I steal a session for another station, I’m screwed without my quick alias, rename and move procedure.

NOTE: I assume this is obvious but you do need to be using good habits keeping the integrity of your drive/file structures in tact.  Sure, Pro Tools (and other DAWs) can find missing audio but it can take time.  Plus…I think employing good file organization is REALLY key to be an efficient producer.

Hope this helped AND I hope I explained it so you understood me.  OR this is the worst work-flow ever and you can educate me on a better, more efficient way.