Are Cake Walk Bundle files the Best Way to Save Everything?

Hi all. I'm trying to get used to Sonar, but have run into something I don't understand. I've been using Emulator X as a plugin to play some midi scores. Along with that I sometimes save audio recordings. I need a way to save my entire project and all settings so that when I reload later it will load all plugins, Emulator X and it's sound banks and sometimes audio recordings. The only way I've found is to save as something called a CakeWalk Bundle file.

However when I go to reload everything I get this dialog box that's titled "Unpack Bundle" and wonder why it needs to unpack it somewhere. It has a line for "Project Name", "Location" and "Audio Path". It comes up with the previous name I saved it under as a "Project Name". But When I click the OK button it opens an error box which says something like, "C:\Cakewalk Projects\Test1\Test1.cwp. This File already exists. Please choose a different Project Name". The name I saved it under "Test1" is no longer usable.

So I have to give it a name like Test2. Then it all loads and works perfectly. I work on it, save and close Sonar. But later I get the same message, only now it says Test2 exists. So I have to call it Test3. Under another situation that didn't include EmulatorX it wasn't doing this, but sometimes it still does. I'd think that it should just simply load what I saved before, but that's not how it's happening.


The only reason I choose bundle is because it sounded like it would do the job of saving everything. But is this the right way to do it or am I doing something wrong? Is there a better way to save everything together? Thanks

It may look something like this. In this case my title is called "EXP-Strange2"

http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/7743/messageuj7.jpg

The major problem with bundle files is that if the file becomes corrupt you lose everything. With project files the audio clips get saved separately so you could reconstruct the project from scratch given time and effort. Any MIDI clips created are still stored in the project file so exporting them to a separate file would be suggested.

I'm in the "don't save as a .bun" camp too. There's just too many things that can go wrong with a bundle file. I suggest the simple "Save As" into a backup hard drive with the store audio with project setting on, and then burning to a DVD to be extra safe.

I save as per project folders. then once a month or so I move old folders over to my offline storage. Once I get enough I burn a DVD backup of them. Inever use bundles since I had one go corrupt a few years ago.
Disk space is cheap, DVDRs are cheap. There is no pressing need to save every bit of space. I record every day and it takes months to fill up a 250GB drive!

I guess CWB's are okay for burning a CDR of project to share with someone. Not sure of the compression ratio? How much space you save?

Bundles are indeed compressed. I feel confident in saying this, as I just saved a project as a bundle, and while the total size of the project is roughly 70 megs, the saved bundle file is only 30.

ORIGINAL: calaverasgrandes
I guess CWB's are okay for burning a CDR of project to share with someone.

My son and I did that a couple of years ago. The CDR was corrupted but not the bun on his system.
He also had a bun that opened "ok" but a track was corrupted (all within his system, no movement anywhere).

We NEVER use bun's now.

I agree with every one else, and would go further and say that I have found them to be the worst way to archive or backup your or anyone else's precious music.

CWB files suck @#%. The only time i would use them is if your doing a project with someone over the net and you need to send the project back and forth via the net, otherwise stay clear and use CWP and per project. Dont use CWB for backing up, dont use CWB fro saving projects, I do not like them Sam i am, just dont use them with green eggs and ham.
Cj

Wow! Thanks for all the nice and informative responses

Ok, I see what you mean Mike. So if Sonar has already unpacked the bundle it won't allow me to unpack again. I haven't tried it yet, but I was hoping there is a way to go to the unpacked folder and load everything from there. I guess what I'm saying is that I just wanted everything to load all my soft synths, samplers, audio tracks and all settings at the click of a name on a new day. The strange thing I've encountered in the past is that sometimes it wants to unpack everything to a new folder, but other times it just loads everything the way I wanted. I kind of thought that it would unpack the bundle into memory, but apparently it copies everything to other folders at some point.

The paths example on D:\ makes sense, so I will take a better look at them later this weekend and try to understand what sonar really does when it does saving in either example.

Also Thanks for the warning on corrupt files Altima_boy_2001. Also thanks Nick, Funky, danterbill, calaveragrandes, bonster, HotCoolMusicGirl, Mick, bapu tecton and CJaysMusic for the warnings on bundle files. I will be trying out per-project for sure as it sounds like everyone has probably had horrible experiences with bundle files. Hopefully per-project will save everything the same way. I was going to ask why Sonar ever had bundles, but it sounds like they've replaced it with better ways anyway. Not to mention they don't really compress as HotCoolMusicgirl points out.. . I can hardly wait to try per project and other ideas out this weekend. Thanks scook for the link on how they bundle files are made. It would be interesting to see even if they are not used that much.

Thanks again for all the tips everyone! I really appreciate it.

I use CWB files to move data from my school computer to my home. Works well and hasn't left me down yet.