I've always been terrified of using the Clean Audio Disk feature... I get worried that it's actually going to delete audio tracks that are still in use by a project or whatever. That said, if all my projects had been saved as a BUNDLE then technically I can clean the whole audio file folder (every file in it) so it's totally empty, because the actual audio data that I'd want is found in the bundle itself. Then I can go thru each bundle, save it as .cwp and select PPAF and I should be good to go right?

So once I convert to Per Project Audio Folders, the directory where the Audio Data usually had files in it would now remain empty right? And as long as I can see stuff being saved in the Per Project folders, I can always clean the audio disk and not worry about losing important data?

One final question... If I go with PPAF and record some tracks. Whenever I make changes to the project and save the .cwp file, do the CHANGED audio tracks overwrite the original tracks that had been initially saved in the PPAF?

I just want to cover all my bases before I go and ruin projects and lose data... :)

Dave

ORIGINAL: RRabbi

I've always been terrified of using the Clean Audio Disk feature... I get worried that it's actually going to delete audio tracks that are still in use by a project or whatever. That said, if all my projects had been saved as a BUNDLE then technically I can clean the whole audio file folder (every file in it) so it's totally empty, because the actual audio data that I'd want is found in the bundle itself. Then I can go thru each bundle, save it as .cwp and select PPAF and I should be good to go right?

Dave

Yes! However, I would wait before deleting the present audio folder (unless you have disk space issues).

Change to Per Project and make sure you've selected the option to copy audio to new folder (or something like that). Open your bundle file, which should prompt you to create a project name and location. Once the bundle has opened and everything is intact, save it as a project file. (You can use the same name as before, since it should be in a different folder.)

Once you have reopened and resaved all your projects, then go and delete you old audio folder.

One final question... If I go with PPAF and record some tracks. Whenever I make changes to the project and save the .cwp file, do the CHANGED audio tracks overwrite the original tracks that had been initially saved in the PPAF?

Not to my knowledge. Each take is saved as a seperate wave file. The only change is that the project file references the new take rather than the old take.

FWIW, I have used the Clean Audio Disk tool since PA9 and have never had a problem. On the other hand, I've been told that Murphy was actually an optomist.

ORIGINAL: Brad

Whoa! What a mess now.. I tried saving my last project.. as a cwp. Well the wavs associated with this were a wopping 650MB. The cwb file for this same project previuosly saved as cwb was only 93MB....Something here is not right.

Try running "Consolidate Project Audio" before you back up your project. It's under "Tools".

Also when you finish a project, select everything and Apply Audio Trimming. That will get rid of any audio data the project doesn't use, stuff outside of cropped clips and so on.

I usually save as CWP while I am working on a project and then save as a CWB when I'm done and put it in an archives folder.

Regards,

Neil.

I use CWP for the project as it rolls along and back it up in its various different stages (recording, mixing versions etc) to CWB. The CWBs go to another disc and to a DVD-RW.

I have not lost anything yet (I don't believe I just typed that...)!

Lofty

In Craig Anderton's book Sonar 3 Mixing and Mastering he makes a good point about the absolute best way to back up files. He says bundle files, etc are all good and fine. But the sure way to do it is to always backing up the actual wave files from the tracks... He made the point that in 10 years we really don't know if the latest software will be able to read bundle files or whatever... However, pretty much everything should be able to always read .wav files... Even years from now... FYI

Dave

ORIGINAL: neilius

Also when you finish a project, select everything and Apply Audio Trimming. That will get rid of any audio data the project doesn't use, stuff outside of cropped clips and so on.

I usually save as CWP while I am working on a project and then save as a CWB when I'm done and put it in an archives folder.

Regards,

Neil.

Just one word of caution on the above advice. Please be aware that this will elminate all of your slip edits. IOW, if you have anything hidden via a slip edit, once you Apply Trimming you will no longer be able to uncover it.

Since the recommendation was to do this with a "finished project" it is probably not an issue. It just seems for me, though, that a project is NEVER finished. [sm=rolleyes.gif]

Dave - you've got a point there...or you and Craig Anderton have. Maybe I should look at backing up the Per-Project folders after tidying them up at each stage. CWB just seems so easy - one project - one file. Sonar has always been backwards-compatible though, hasn't it? You could always open a bundle file created by a prior version?

Lofty

Well so far this has been my experience.

It take longer to open these file up now (CWP), than before.. (.CWB)
It saves them as much larger files..
Clean up audio doesn't seem to do it well enough. Leavng plenty of .WAV files

I have to look further, but this looks like a very cluttered way to save and work with a single song (project). and if I work on 3 or 4 songs at a time then I'll have wav files all over the place..And projects that take quite a while to open. By the way, before I tried this I defragmented my computer.
At 40GB showing as my hard drive with 27GB space left. This will get used up very fast going the route of .CWP At least that's hte way it looks now.

Brad

Oh man... now i'm really confused... On the one hand, bundles can get corrupted, but on the other hand .cwp supposedly have leftover wave files that get cluttered, the projects take longer to load and altogether take up more hd space (so i'm hearing...) As far as the Clean Audio Folder tool goes, when I run that will it clean the per project audio folders of unused wav files based on what the .cwp specifies? That should take care of some of the clutter I suppose...

Dave