ProTools and old Dual-Mono SD2 files
Finder window side preview of a Sound Designer 2 file.
In sorting out some very old Pro Tools sessions (I started using it at version 4) I came across many audio files that were still in Sound Designer 2 format, which is what ProTools used to use back in the day. Some apps can still work with these files, but in my case, the computer didn’t really know what they were because they were lacking a file extension. They were actually viewed as resource files, used by Xcode… which they certainly are not!
First off, if you want your Mac to show file extensions to make these directions easier… check this out first.
Single SD2 file:
First we start out with a sound designer 2 file.
Click the file, hit Return, and add “.sd2”
You’ll be asked if you want to add .sd2 as an extension. Click “Add” or use Command-A
Then Right-Click, or Control-Click on the file, and you can convert it into a format that can at least be previewed without importing into a DAW. At the Bottom, choose “Encode selected files”
What you choose here may depend on what you want to use it for. None of these formats are common for Audio Production, however like I mentioned, you can at least preview them in the finder, which is what I’m after. Just be careful here NOT to delete the original!
You can see here, hitting space bar in the finder to get a quick preview, we still can’t listen to it, although we can open it other apps now.
The resulting m4a file will be much smaller, and you can audition files in Finder without creating a session and setting things up.
DUAL MONO SD2 files:
Back in the day, ProTools used to save stereo audio in pairs, and would give each a .L or .R extension. Nowadays, these extensions cause issues.
Trying to Preview these files, they are often seen as a generic resource file, and offers to let you open in something like Xcode which is not what we want.
Delete the dot before the end L or R (you can keep it there but I recommend not confusing any other file system that your files encounter.) and then add “.sd2” at the end. It will ask you to confirm.
Click “Use .sd2”
You can also hit Command-U
The result are two mono sound designer files, but now with the correct file extension, and LR are still clearly marked.
You can convert these into other formats now for playback.
