Well, I'm using T2 for a while now but I still feel lost with projects especially version management, backup and such.
I'd like to know how you do to manage your projects/folders/backups/projects version in an organized way. Because it's so messy in my T...
e.g: a typical scenario when you create a new project to the backup when it's finished.
My concern is to have things lost if I decide one day to re-open a project for modification and I realize that some files (audio) are lost!!
Thank you.
How do you manage your projects in Tracktion?
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- KVRist
- 276 posts since 8 Feb, 2004 from France
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- KVRAF
- 2495 posts since 18 May, 2004 from ATL-USA
I keep all my music creation files under one dir...d:\Music\Projects\
All my audio and midi resides within the specific subdirectory I'm working with at the time.
e.g. d:\Music\Projects\Allthebass\ <---Is my current fetish
All my audio and midi resides within the specific subdirectory I'm working with at the time.
e.g. d:\Music\Projects\Allthebass\ <---Is my current fetish
Anti-aliasing is for "synthmonk%ys".
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- KVRAF
- 12977 posts since 29 Sep, 2003 from Ottawa, Canada
Indeed.
I have D:\Tracktion Projects
And then within that, I'd have each song. Not album, but song. I suppose if you were working on an album you could do it that way, too, but since Tracktion's browser itself doesn't seem to sort out anything other than "songs", I didn't bother.
So I'd have:
D:\Tracktion Projects\Freeztar Hymn
D:\Tracktion Projects\LunchMoney Blues
D:\Tracktion Projects\Song For Jan Contest
etc.
When I'm working on the song, I ALWAYS say "Yes" to making a 'local' copy, which is then stored in the song's directory.
Meanwhile, I have an external hard drive for backups, so I have I:\Tracktion Projects which is an exact mirror of D:\Tracktion Projects that gets synced (using SyncBack Free) daily.
Finally, when I'm also feeling 'done' with a project, I export it as a no-compression or lossless compression archive. This archive gets saved to D:\Tracktion Archives, I:\Tracktion Archives, and to Optical Media.
It's actually a lot simpler than it sounds. It's basically the same task, not 3 different tasks, but done 3 times in redundant locations. And since the other 2 are just copies, it's a matter of letting SyncBack do its job nightly (backing up D:\Tracktion Projects and D:\Tracktion Archives to the external drive) and then burning the archives to DVD as needed.
Greg
I have D:\Tracktion Projects
And then within that, I'd have each song. Not album, but song. I suppose if you were working on an album you could do it that way, too, but since Tracktion's browser itself doesn't seem to sort out anything other than "songs", I didn't bother.
So I'd have:
D:\Tracktion Projects\Freeztar Hymn
D:\Tracktion Projects\LunchMoney Blues
D:\Tracktion Projects\Song For Jan Contest
etc.
When I'm working on the song, I ALWAYS say "Yes" to making a 'local' copy, which is then stored in the song's directory.
Meanwhile, I have an external hard drive for backups, so I have I:\Tracktion Projects which is an exact mirror of D:\Tracktion Projects that gets synced (using SyncBack Free) daily.
Finally, when I'm also feeling 'done' with a project, I export it as a no-compression or lossless compression archive. This archive gets saved to D:\Tracktion Archives, I:\Tracktion Archives, and to Optical Media.
It's actually a lot simpler than it sounds. It's basically the same task, not 3 different tasks, but done 3 times in redundant locations. And since the other 2 are just copies, it's a matter of letting SyncBack do its job nightly (backing up D:\Tracktion Projects and D:\Tracktion Archives to the external drive) and then burning the archives to DVD as needed.
Greg
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- KVRAF
- 4908 posts since 10 Aug, 2004 from Colorado Springs
I do it the same as Greg.
Recently successfully moved files from an old PC in C:\Program Files\Tracktion\Projects, to a new computer, in a completely different directory. I was worried like you oxbee, but it went without a hitch when I made my archives.
I always put new projects into their own folder, and make local copies of audio files.
-Scott
Recently successfully moved files from an old PC in C:\Program Files\Tracktion\Projects, to a new computer, in a completely different directory. I was worried like you oxbee, but it went without a hitch when I made my archives.
I always put new projects into their own folder, and make local copies of audio files.
-Scott
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 276 posts since 8 Feb, 2004 from France
Thanks a lot guys!
Greg,
I've printed your method and I'll do that this way. I thought that opening a new project was only linking things to a different directory and that I had to export things to have a safe and complete archive. So , I was exporting my song each time I worked on them for backup.
So, local copy when importing is the answer and I will do a sync on my external drive. This is a nice way to do that
Great. Now I have some work to reorganize everything !
Greg,
I've printed your method and I'll do that this way. I thought that opening a new project was only linking things to a different directory and that I had to export things to have a safe and complete archive. So , I was exporting my song each time I worked on them for backup.
So, local copy when importing is the answer and I will do a sync on my external drive. This is a nice way to do that
Great. Now I have some work to reorganize everything !
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- KVRian
- 703 posts since 15 Aug, 2005
I do pretty much the same thing as others - making a folder for each project, all of my record takes are in that folder, any samples or loops in their own subfolder. I use more than one app, so I have a folder for Tracktion, one for Digital Performer, etc. When I feel like the project is finished, I write it to a DVD (or multiple DVDs). I haven't had to export projects yet before archiving. I'm using a Mac Powerbook with external drives for recording. These are habits I've carried over from Graphic Design work and not wanting to worry later about finding all of the linked files.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 276 posts since 8 Feb, 2004 from France
Thanks Mike
All,
I spent the whole last night to reorganize my projects and harddrive with your tips and this is SO better. I discovered that I had a real web in my projects. Some files were linked to others folders, some audio files were not imported... Really messy. It's not because I am not organised (everything is usually very clear is the way I organize my files) but I just think that it's just a method/good practice to apply with Tracktion.
So, pls let me know if something is wrong on the way I did it:
- Just to avoid cold sweat, I backed up all my major projects.
- I checked all my projects one by one (40 to do...).
- When necessary, I searched for orphan clips. (just remove items, not source files)
- Then, I renamed and exported all the projects to a G:\Tracktion Projects
- Once done, I closed all the current projects.
- I moved my old directory (with the messy projects) to an external drive.
- I reimported the new and lighter projects from G:\Tracktion projects to Tracktion projects manager.
- I tested project one by one.
Sometimes, clips were missing because I think I was a bit brutal with "find orphan clips" function. No matter, I have recovered them from my external drive by copying it manually to the new project folder.
I will try to use a kind of project version tracking and to put more comments in the project area.
Of course, I will use SyncBack tool (thanks Greg) to synchronize everything.
Thanks again guys.
All,
I spent the whole last night to reorganize my projects and harddrive with your tips and this is SO better. I discovered that I had a real web in my projects. Some files were linked to others folders, some audio files were not imported... Really messy. It's not because I am not organised (everything is usually very clear is the way I organize my files) but I just think that it's just a method/good practice to apply with Tracktion.
So, pls let me know if something is wrong on the way I did it:
- Just to avoid cold sweat, I backed up all my major projects.
- I checked all my projects one by one (40 to do...).
- When necessary, I searched for orphan clips. (just remove items, not source files)
- Then, I renamed and exported all the projects to a G:\Tracktion Projects
- Once done, I closed all the current projects.
- I moved my old directory (with the messy projects) to an external drive.
- I reimported the new and lighter projects from G:\Tracktion projects to Tracktion projects manager.
- I tested project one by one.
Sometimes, clips were missing because I think I was a bit brutal with "find orphan clips" function. No matter, I have recovered them from my external drive by copying it manually to the new project folder.
I will try to use a kind of project version tracking and to put more comments in the project area.
Of course, I will use SyncBack tool (thanks Greg) to synchronize everything.
Thanks again guys.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 276 posts since 8 Feb, 2004 from France
Synchronizing: Syncback (free) can do it. It means it does not only copy roughly the files from a place to another. It only copies what has changed between two directories.
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- KVRAF
- 12977 posts since 29 Sep, 2003 from Ottawa, Canada
Actually, there are many options-- but to me it's less confusing to synchronize and therefore make the 'backup' directory identical to the intact one.
Oxbee, it sounds to me like you did everything perfectly in terms of re-organizing your directory. Export and re-import is really the only way I know of to fix non-local links.
As a side note, though, and just so that there's no confusion in the future: The raw copy of D:\Tracktion Projects located at I:\Tracktion Projects won't work properly on its own. In the event of a disaster, I'd have to move the backup back to exactly "D:\Tracktion Projects" or re-letter the I: drive to be D:.
Only an exported archive when re-imported will create new directory structure information, otherwise the edits contain non-relative directory info.
Oxbee, it sounds to me like you did everything perfectly in terms of re-organizing your directory. Export and re-import is really the only way I know of to fix non-local links.
As a side note, though, and just so that there's no confusion in the future: The raw copy of D:\Tracktion Projects located at I:\Tracktion Projects won't work properly on its own. In the event of a disaster, I'd have to move the backup back to exactly "D:\Tracktion Projects" or re-letter the I: drive to be D:.
Only an exported archive when re-imported will create new directory structure information, otherwise the edits contain non-relative directory info.
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- KVRian
- 1379 posts since 26 Apr, 2004 from UK
I have M:\the name of the album\the songs
The problem of the backup taht must have the same path than the original if it is not archived is a real pain in the ***.
The problem of the backup taht must have the same path than the original if it is not archived is a real pain in the ***.
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- KVRAF
- 6490 posts since 14 Jun, 2004 from Rochester, NY
i requested a feature to have subfolders like say we have a band and songs within that folder... apparently they may thnk of it in the next major release (as in t3 or so)
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 276 posts since 8 Feb, 2004 from France
That's a good news because I think that the indexing of projects is really poor in T. I understand the concept. I mean, I think the goal of Jules was to:
-open one global project for your album.
-all songs has its own edit in the project.
-all audio is imported in this project.
Everything is centralized in other words.
From this point of view, it's not so bad, but it's not a really logic way of working with directories and having a clear view.
-open one global project for your album.
-all songs has its own edit in the project.
-all audio is imported in this project.
Everything is centralized in other words.
From this point of view, it's not so bad, but it's not a really logic way of working with directories and having a clear view.
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- KVRAF
- 12977 posts since 29 Sep, 2003 from Ottawa, Canada
Yeah, with that left panel updated to have a hierarchy, all would be solved.
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- KVRist
- 418 posts since 8 May, 2003 from Somewhere in the triangle...
Could you please explain?Lunch Money wrote: When I'm working on the song, I ALWAYS say "Yes" to making a 'local' copy, which is then stored in the song's directory.
If I import something I do not get that option.