Feature request - Better collaboration tools with takes (export auidio, OMF, bundle files)
Hello,
I already posted a thread detailing issues with how takes are handled while exporting audio for collaboration:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Feature-request-export-takes-m2907782.aspx#2907782 The gist is that the "export audio" feature needs to be updated to allow for exporting takes. I put in a feature request accordingly.
While looking for workarounds I discovered that other file sharing tools - OMF and bundle files -share similar issues. They don't handle takes in a manner that makes it easy to collaborate with other engineers using other DAWs. Ideally, one could check the "export broadcast wave files by default" option in settings and then use OMFs or bundle files to share projects with other DAWs. But there are issues that make both of these tools ineffective.
In the case of bundle files, BW files are created but are labelled in such a way that it is not possible to know which file corresponds to which take. For example, three takes of track named "bass" will result in something like "bass (23)", "bass(24)", and "bass (25)". If the numbers at the end of each file were at least in order (e.g., #23 is take 1, #24 is take 2 etc.) this could be workable. But the assignment of numbers appear to be random within each track.
For OMF files, audio files associated with multiple takes are given an "overlap" tag. For example, three takes of a track named "bass" will result in "bass" for take 1, "bass_overlap" for take 2, and "bass_overlap_overlap" for take 3. At least they appear to be in order, so as a workaround a simple file renaming script could be used to rename them something more meaningful like "bass_take2". More problematic is that the OMF audio is not Broadcast Wave, even though this option is checked in the "settings" panel.
Lack of such collaboration tools has already proven to be a major obstacle for sharing audio for files that use takes. I spent many hours manually doing what should take a few seconds automatically. What is necessary is for all three file sharing options (export audio, OMF export, and bundle files) is to have options to:
1) name takes logically (e.g., bass_take3).
2) export as broadcast waves
I will put this in as a feature request. If others have ideas for how to improve collaboration tools within Sonar please post them here. I would be interested in thought about how Gobbler integration, with its great collaboration potential, may affect recommendations for how Cakewalk could/should improve file management.
Cheers,
David