Import Module

Routing and matching modes

Every imported or organized track needs a destination inside your Pro Tools session. How fMusic assigns it is decided by the Placement mode picker in Settings > Import & Organize, with three values: Routing, Match template, and Track preset. Routing is available on every tier; the two template modes require fMusic Suite.

Routing

In the app's own words: "Tracks are routed to each category's output — new ones are created there, organized ones are re-routed in place."

Each import category carries its own default destination, set in the Destination column of the Categories table in Settings. Because categories are assigned the moment a track is recognized, the session lands pre-routed: Drums to the drum bus, Vocals to the vocal bus, and so on, with no manual patching after the import. When a category's bus is a routing folder's input, the Move into routing folders switch also creates the tracks inside that folder; see Routing Folders.

Track preset

In the app's words: "The template's structure comes in first, and every track receives its Pro Tools Track Preset — routing, plugins, inserts, sends and colour."

Instead of only pointing a track at a bus, each track is built the way a Pro Tools Track Preset defines it, recalled through Pro Tools' own Recall menu on the track: routing, plug-ins, inserts, sends, and color, applied in place. The preset each track receives comes from its category's configuration: the reference set on the category's row, or the default. Presets are read from the Track presets folder set in Settings, which defaults to ~/Documents/Pro Tools/Track Presets/Avid; Pro Tools' Recall menu only shows presets under ~/Documents/Pro Tools/Track Presets, and Settings warns you if the folder you pick sits outside it. Tracks that received their preset are excluded from the routing pass, since the preset already carries the routing; if a preset can't be recalled after two attempts, its tracks are routed to their category buses instead and the job reports it.

Match template

In the app's words: "The template's structure comes in first, and each track is created against the template row its category names — the routing folder it belongs to is matched automatically."

At run time the template's track structure is brought in first through Pro Tools' Import Session Data, without clips, media, or automation; if every referenced row already exists in the destination, the step is skipped. Each imported track is then created against the template row its category names, and in the wizard the Match Tracks column lets you pick that template track per row. The column is drawn only when the destination is describable by the template (destination Template or Current Session); with a New or Existing session the table falls back to the Output column without changing your saved mode.

Both template modes need a Pro Tools template loaded in Settings: until one is selected, tracks are created and routed as in Routing mode, and the Settings footer says so. See Using your mix templates for loading one.

How the table is prefilled

On the import setup page, every track's destination is prefilled with its category's default route. Only empty rows are filled: a destination you picked by hand is never overwritten. If a category's route doesn't exist in the destination session, the row gets a yellow warning and the tracks fall back to the physical output ("“ƒDRUMS” isn't available in this session. Those tracks are routed to “Out 1-2” instead."); tracks whose family has no configured category are listed under "No Import category for:" and arrive unrouted.

Right-clicking a row (or a selection) offers Change Category with the categories configured in Settings: the affected rows change color and position in the editor, and their destinations are forgotten and prefilled again from the new category.

The destination picker

In Routing mode each row's picker opens a popover with a Search outputs field and the session's catalog grouped as Outputs, Buses, and Routing Folders, plus a reset row to clear the choice. In the template modes it becomes a track picker (Search tracks) listing the Template Tracks, with Aux and VCA tags on the non-audio rows; with the current session as destination it offers the template's rows and the session's, deduplicated.

Multi-select and Assign Bus

Rows select like Finder items: click for one row, ⌘-click to toggle, ⇧-click for a range. Picking a destination on a row that is part of a multiple selection applies it to every selected row, so routing thirty stems takes one decision. The window toolbar adds Select All / Deselect All (⌘A) and the Assign Bus menu ("Assign one bus to every selected track"), whose first entry is Clear Routing.

Preflight: routes are verified before anything is created

When the job runs, fMusic verifies every route against the destination session before creating a single track. Four outcomes:

• Verified: no message, the routing proceeds.
• Partially verified: names that can't be judged are skipped, not accused: "3 route(s) couldn't be verified (DRUMS, KEYS, VOX) — their tracks were left unrouted".
• Not verifiable: the import still runs, the routing is skipped as a whole: "The session's routes couldn't be verified — tracks were left unrouted".
• Blocking: destinations that provably don't exist stop the job before it touches the session: "2 routing destination(s) don't exist in this session: ƒDRUMS, ƒKEYS. Fix them in the import screen — it offers this session's real routes — then run the import again."

A completed import whose bus assignments partly failed offers Retry routing on its card in the queue, which re-runs only the routing of the failed tracks. Nothing is re-imported.

The mode lives in Settings

The active mode is not chosen per import: it is set once in Settings > Import & Organize and the wizard reflects it. The reasoning: the placement mode is how a studio works, not a decision to re-make on every session. A template mode already saved, for example on a machine that had Suite, stays stored; on Studio it is read as Routing when the job is built, so the files still import.