How to convert cakewalk .wrk files into a usable format

brundlefly
.... I have tons of them dating back to Cakewalk 2.0 for DOS.

brundlefly

gustabo

brundlefly
.... I have tons of them dating back to Cakewalk 2.0 for DOS.

I wish I could find mine. I put those floppies away for safe keeping but I forgot where I put them...
(doh!)

Check the hard drive on the old 286 out in the garage; that's where mine were. 

brundlefly
SONAR can open .WRK files directly. I have tons of them dating back to Cakewalk 2.0 for DOS.

BrownEE
Thanks for the quick reply and welcome.  I am using Sonar Home Studio 6.0 but so far it is not opening .wrk files.
I would like to use Win 7 instead of  the present Windows 98 SE system, and General Midi Modules instead of E-mu Proteous 1 Module.  Would appreciate your help, thanks.
 
Regards

SigiZ58
A bit behind the discussion, but some words.
I too have one file, that could not be opened with Sonar (because of missing audio reference). For my luck I had access to an older Version of Cakewalk (CW9) which at least allowed to open it - only giving an error message. So I opened it here and resaved.
 
But I have another "issue"
As much as I love Sonar, but I think the handling with older project files could be better. BTW - This was a reason I bought Artis one and a half year ago. It could open my (dozens) wrk files!
 
To make it clear: The time when we had wrk files was the time of WaveBlaster, Sound Canvas and General Midi / GS Standard. So pretty most (if not all of them) wrk files followed that standard. If I remember right, the first cakewalk I got was bundled with my WaveBlaster.
 
So, after the first enthusiasm, I found following limits when opening a wrk file in Sonar:
- At first I worked with the Windows GM Synthesizer. Not very nice but at least it works. I loaded the wrk and could play the file, the voices were correct. But I found two issues: The Microsoft GM Module uses Windows Sound, Sonar normally ASIO. Ok, I changed Sonar also to Windows Sound, but when I loaded additional VSTs, for instance a DrumModul, I got remarkable latency differences between the VST and the Microsoft GM. Finally I could not route back the Audio Output to the DAW for final processing. At first I needed a while until I understand why I had these issues.
- Second shot was to work with coolSofts Virtual Midi Synth. Here I had the same problems. 1) No Audio route back, 2) latency differences between VSTI and CoolSoft Engine . Another Problem was: When I changed projects, then the Cakewalk Engine very often gave no more audio, so I had to restart Cakewalk, sometimes even th PC to get Audio working again.
These solutions have in common: I had to manually reroute the Midi channels after loading, as there is no default GM Template here. And after manually adjusting I either had to save as cwp or dismiss my changes as Sonar does not support to save as wrk again. For different reasons I did not want to convert all my wrk files, but "keep" them adjusted only.
- Now I found another solution. I bought a used Sound Canvas. So I had no latency issues any more, but had an external device and to route the audio back - but not in the DAW. This is only a solution to listen to the files, but also to much work :-)
- I found the article relating the TTS-1. So I tested this. At least the first shot was nice: Use no Midi Device and load the wrk file - voila it plays (almost) out of the box. But it is not the best solution. I prefer to set a Midi device, so I have to toggle these settings often. I would prefer a tick box, that you can use the tts1-1 as your Standard General Midi Device that is used when you open Midi/WRK Files. In this case the Midi Channels could be set when loading/importing the project without making you to fiddle around with port settings. Workflow:
GM-Setting On -> loading wrk/midi -> Play the song. 
Another addition would be, if the Bakers could update the TTS-1 to a valid VSTi.  In this case The project can be loaded and we have a nice real GM Compliant Multitimbral VSTI. SO I could load my old project with one click, play around with it, load additional VSTIs and render all in common to audio. In the Bakery I asked this as idea, maybe some of you older wrk users like the idea of tts-1 as VSTI and GM-Template also ? Then vote here in the Bakery please :-)
 
http://bakery.cakewalk.com/Idea/15903/VST-Version-of-TTS-1-please-configurable-gm-gs-compatible-standard-midi-vsti
 
 
 
 

SigiZ58
 
This setting could be named like: Set TTS-1 as Standard GM-Synth for MID/WRK Files
It should work as if this setting ignore all other midi devices when loading a mid/wrk file. 

SigiZ58

Zargg

SigiZ58
 
This setting could be named like: Set TTS-1 as Standard GM-Synth for MID/WRK Files
It should work as if this setting ignore all other midi devices when loading a mid/wrk file. 

Hi. IIRC, if you select "None" as MIDI output in Preferences, it will do that.
TTS-1 will be used for play back, until another is chosen.
All the best.

Hi Zargg,
 
thank you, this I know and wrote also,  why I prefer another solution.
 
Kind regards