AAton Cantar-X2 User Manual Download

Page: 12 / 52

+33 4 7642 9550

www.aaton.com

User manual for Cantar-X1 & X2 v2.15 2008 March 28

p.12

Project, Day & Files

Error-free filing with NO disk partitioning!

When you cold-start Cantar, it assumes you want to con-
tinue working on your latest project, which is displayed at
the bottom of the rectangular screen.
When  you  rent  a  Cantar,  its  project  memory  should  be
empty; the rectangular screen should display ‘No Project’.
Once created, a ‘project name’ regroups all data related
to it, such as the days of recording, the tracks and the disks
used.  This name is stored in each audio file, there is no risk
of a file getting lost in a maze of terabytes.
Unlike other machines, the Cantar file sorting system doesn’t
rely on disk partitions.  Instead, it uses the

'Project/Work

Day/Filetag'

path tree, which allows for the intuitive and

safe retrieval of any audio file on unpartitioned disks, any-
where along the PostChain. It is

not

operator-error prone.

1. Project

If you are in a bind and have no time to select a project in
SESSION.01 ‘ProjectName’ (p.36), go directly to REC, your
audio files will be stored in a project named AACANTAR.
Later, with Majax you will move these audio files out of the
'AACANTAR' folder and into the project directory you would
have created in the mean time.

note:

in their iXML chunk, the moved files still hold ‘AACANTAR’

as the Project Name. You will need to manually replace that
provisional name with the correct name.

2. WorkDay

At startup Cantar displays '

New Workday?

' giving you the

opportunity to say ‘NO’. Note that going to TEST or REC

is a way to say ‘YES’.
The  ‘workday’  is  not  the  same
as  the  actual  ‘time-of-day’  as
defined by the sync clocks, it is
an  interpretation  of  the  ‘human’
day (see next page).
The  Cantar  recorded  ﬁles  are
multi-monophonic,  i.e.  indepen-

dent ﬁles stored in a ‘workday folder’.  That folder is auto-
matically  created  at  the  start  of  each  day  and  is  named
for the date, e.g. 20041206.AAD (see 'Calender Time',
p.13).
Because original multi-monophonic ﬁles sometimes have to
be interleaved into large polyphonic ﬁles for crippled

editing machines, Cantar also builds an

AAP sufﬁxed

‘shadow folder’ which stores the associated polyphonic
ﬁles for the day, e.g. 20041206.AAP.

3. Filename

In 1997, the Aaton Indaw multitrack digital recorder
introduced the Aaton ﬁlename system. Each ﬁlename con-
sists of: a unique machine generated

ﬁletag

; an optional

descriptor

that displays the scene, take-type and take; a

sufﬁx

that indicates the type and sequence of the ﬁle.

   The aim is to perform these tasks while remaining compatible with
   EDL standards which only handle ‘8+3’ DOS ﬁlenames, and with
   Mac OS 9 which is limited to 31 characters.

• The automatically incremented six character

filetag

(AD1234), differentiates 6.7 million takes, a sound mixer’s
lifetime!  ( Indaw generates a 3 letter and 3 number filetag
for 17.6 million takes). The filetag must remain untouched
all the way through the final mix.  One filetag represents
a complete ‘file group’, e.g. AD1234 is the unique filetag
of eight monophonic files from AD1234_1 to AD1234_8
and of its associated polyphonic file, e.g.  AD1234PR.
• The

descriptor

displays the scene, take-type, and

take #, e.g. scene A18:2a, take-type t, take 04

• The

suffix

is used to flag the nature of the file, either multi-

monophonic (_1 .. _8), or interleaved poly-Native (PN), or
interleaved poly-Rotate (PR), or poly miXdown (PX).
See ‘Cantar PostChain’

http://www.aaton.com/ﬁles/can-

tar-post-chain-23.pdf

Filename examples

A short filename: AD1234_1.wav
A long filename: AD1234==A18:2a t04==_1.wav

STOP 2,