How to make external SSD drive the default location for projects?

[GuitarPlayerinNYC]

I know this question has been asked a million times, but, after googling, I haven't found an answer. The user manual doesn't seem to have an answer.

I just got a new laptop, and managed to pull the the external drive from my old laptop, and managed to make the drive the default location, but, for the life of me, I don't know how I did it (possibly on setup of the new installation of WF?).

I meant to make my 2 TB external drive the default, but accidentally, made my 500 gig drive the default. I had all my WF projects copied to the 2 TB. I know I can create a new project, and point it to the larger drive.

The only other way that works, is opening a project from the old drive, then, saving the edit to the new one. There has to be an easier way.

Would appreciate some guidance. TIA.

[pough]

I think there is a chance that Waveform works fundamentally differently than you assume it does. As far as I can tell, the Project list is stored as XML in the main Waveform.settings file, along with many other bits of information. It can include Projects on multiple drives. When you create a new Project, it assumes that you want to save it in the same location as the last one that you created (or opened?).

I'm pretty sure that there isn't a default location for Projects.

[GuitarPlayerinNYC]

I think there is a chance that Waveform works fundamentally differently than you assume it does. As far as I can tell, the Project list is stored as XML in the main Waveform.settings file, along with many other bits of information. It can include Projects on multiple drives. When you create a new Project, it assumes that you want to save it in the same location as the last one that you created (or opened?).

I'm pretty sure that there isn't a default location for Projects.

For the life of me, I can't recall how I associated my external drive, that became the default. All my projects just appeared in the projects list.

I agree with everything else you said. I can save an edit to the larger drive, and it will appear as "active" in my projects list.

I can delete the Waveform settings file, and WF will respond as if I just installed it. I don't have a lot of settings to lose, I was hoping there was a setting I wasn't aware of, that could simply point to X as the projects location.

One by one, I can save an edit to the larger drive. I was just hoping for a mass import/export method.

Thanks again.

[pough]

For the life of me, I can't recall how I associated my external drive, that became the default. All my projects just appeared in the projects list.

Are you saying that on a fresh install of Waveform on a new computer with the external drive attached, all your projects "just appeared" in the projects list?

Any time I've moved Waveform to a new computer I manually copy my project folders where I want them to exist using the OS file explorer and then load them into a freshly-installed Waveform one by one. The active projects list is just bookmarks like in a web browsers - it's not a scan of a place with all your stuff.

It might be possible to drag and drop a folder that contains multiple project folders into Waveform. I've never tried that.

[GuitarPlayerinNYC]

For the life of me, I can't recall how I associated my external drive, that became the default. All my projects just appeared in the projects list.

Are you saying that on a fresh install of Waveform on a new computer with the external drive attached, all your projects "just appeared" in the projects list?

Oh, no. I'm sure there was intervention on my part, during the "Welcome" setup part of the installation, and there was a checklist type of thing I had to go through. There had to be a section that said something like, "location of saved projects" and I changed it from the a system drive location, to the external one. I was just hoping there was a way to change the location of saved projects now. In googling, there was an option for that- in Tracktion 4.

Any time I've moved Waveform to a new computer I manually copy my project folders where I want them to exist using the OS file explorer and then load them into a freshly-installed Waveform one by one. The active projects list is just bookmarks like in a web browsers - it's not a scan of a place with all your stuff.

This is my first major move, as, prior to 5 years ago, I only had audio files of me playing guitar for other people's projects, or online collabs. It was when my name was attached to projects with really horrible mixes that moved me to learn mixing 5 years ago.

Seems I'm going to have to do the "one by one" method.

It might be possible to drag and drop a folder that contains multiple project folders into Waveform. I've never tried that.

Hmm...not quite sure what you mean by that. Drop the folders where?

I accidentally reinstalled my Kontakt libraries into the smaller drive too. Moving them is far simpler, than relocating my WF project files.

[pough]

Hmm...not quite sure what you mean by that. Drop the folders where?

Never mind. I just tried it and it doesn't work. What you can do is drag a .tracktion (project) file from the OS file explorer to the Active Projects area and it adds it, but not with any kind of organization.

[jabe]

Okay, here's something for you to try, but it had its dangers.

I'm going to assume you're using Windows. I'm doing it on Windows 10 so what I describe might not be quite the same on your laptop if you are on Windows 11.


Open File Explorer.

On the View menu
- tick the box for File Name Extensions
- tick the box for Hidden Item
(You might want to untick those when we've finished. They're permanently ticked on mine.)

Make sure Waveform is closed.


First we're going to back up your new settings file by taking a copy.

Navigate to C:\Users\GPinNYC\AppData\Roaming\Tracktion\Waveform (but using the name on your new computer).

There should be a file called Waveform.settings.

Right-click on this file and choose Copy from the list.
Press Ctrl-V (right-click somewhere and choose Paste) to create a copy.

You should now have a file called
Waveform - Copy.settings

Just in case anything bad happens.


Second we're going to copy the project names out of the old settings file on your external drive.

Navigate to X:\Users\GPinNYC\AppData\Roaming\Tracktion\Waveform (but using the name you used on your old computer and the letter of your old drive).

Right-click on this file and choose Edit. Unless you have another text editor this will open the file in Notepad.exe.

Search in this file for <ACTIVE
This should take you about four lines into a section called <VALUE name="projectList">

Your active projects will all be listed individually within PROJECT tags, like this:

<PROJECT file="C:\Users\GPinNYC\Documents\SongName\SongName.tracktion" uid="34af2d69"/>

I should mention at this point that I have no idea what the uid value is.

Next, highlight all of the <PROJECT song details /> lines and copy them to the clipboard. Note that some may wrap onto a second or third line). Note that the last line you highlight for copying will be followed by one with </ACTIVE> on it, unless you decide to omit some.

At this point you can close the Waveform.settings file.


Third, we're going to paste the copied list of old projects into the settings file on your new laptop.

Navigate to C:\Users\GPinNYC\AppData\Roaming\Tracktion\Waveform on your new laptop.

Right-click on the file and choose the Edit option.

Search for <ACTIVE again to get to the place in the new file where active projects are listed.

Place the cursor on a new line (you can add a blank line(s) if you wish. You might want to insert after other existing <PROJECT .... /> lines or, if there are none, between tags that look like this:

<ACTIVE uid="34fcd513">

</ACTIVE>

You may insert blank lines if you wish.

Choose a position either in the list of projects or between the two PROJECT tags and paste the contents of the clipboard into the file.

If you did add blank lines, you may delete them, but it doesn't matter.

If that hasn't quite gone according to plan, you can used Undo to go back, and if the paste you attempted inserted something else, with the cursor in an appropriate place press WindowsKey and V together and paste your project list from the list of items on the clipboard.

Once you have your list of projects inserted in the new settings file, you have to go and change all the drive letter to the drive letter of your external drive.

Save the file.

Check in File Explorer that the last file saved in the folder is called Waveform.settings (NotePad used to have a terrible habit of adding .txt to filenames even if the opened filename had a different ending. If this HAS happened, click to SAVE AS and put the filename in quotes, i.e: "Waveform.settings", then click to save, and say yes if it asks about overwriting an existing file of that name. Check again that the most recently saved file in the folder is called Waveform.settings)

That SHOULD have done the trick. Fingers crossed.

Close the file.


Fourth, it's time to see whether that worked.

Open Waveform. If you are religious it might help to pray.

On the Projects page, check that you have the list you wanted to see. Try opening a project. You may well have some missing plug-ins, but that's a viper's nest of additional fun for you to deal with.

Let us know if it worked or if I wasn't clear enough at any point.

[GuitarPlayerinNYC]

Hmm...not quite sure what you mean by that. Drop the folders where?

Never mind. I just tried it and it doesn't work. What you can do is drag a .tracktion (project) file from the OS file explorer to the Active Projects area and it adds it, but not with any kind of organization.

I just tried that, based on your experiment.

I dragged a project file from my E (2TB) drive into projects, and it opened, and was highlighted in the active projects area. Buuut...When I clicked Save Edit As, it "defaulted" to the smaller D drive.

Now that I think about it, after installation, and I was going through the Welcome checklist, I *think* I saw something like, "this is where your projects will be saved" and that's when I elected to change it to the external drive.

It's really weird there was an option to change the projects location in T4, but not now.

[GuitarPlayerinNYC]

Okay, here's something for you to try, but it had its dangers.

I'm going to assume you're using Windows. I'm doing it on Windows 10 so what I describe might not be quite the same on your laptop if you are on Windows 11.


Open File Explorer.

On the View menu
- tick the box for File Name Extensions
- tick the box for Hidden Item
(You might want to untick those when we've finished. They're permanently ticked on mine.)

Make sure Waveform is closed.


First we're going to back up your new settings file by taking a copy.

Navigate to C:\Users\GPinNYC\AppData\Roaming\Tracktion\Waveform (but using the name on your new computer).

There should be a file called Waveform.settings.

Right-click on this file and choose Copy from the list.
Press Ctrl-V (right-click somewhere and choose Paste) to create a copy.

You should now have a file called
Waveform - Copy.settings

Just in case anything bad happens.


Second we're going to copy the project names out of the old settings file on your external drive.

Navigate to X:\Users\GPinNYC\AppData\Roaming\Tracktion\Waveform (but using the name you used on your old computer and the letter of your old drive).

Right-click on this file and choose Edit. Unless you have another text editor this will open the file in Notepad.exe.

Search in this file for <ACTIVE
This should take you about four lines into a section called <VALUE name="projectList">

Your active projects will all be listed individually within PROJECT tags, like this:

<PROJECT file="C:\Users\GPinNYC\Documents\SongName\SongName.tracktion" uid="34af2d69"/>

I should mention at this point that I have no idea what the uid value is.

Next, highlight all of the <PROJECT song details /> lines and copy them to the clipboard. Note that some may wrap onto a second or third line). Note that the last line you highlight for copying will be followed by one with </ACTIVE> on it, unless you decide to omit some.

At this point you can close the Waveform.settings file.


Third, we're going to paste the copied list of old projects into the settings file on your new laptop.

Navigate to C:\Users\GPinNYC\AppData\Roaming\Tracktion\Waveform on your new laptop.

Right-click on the file and choose the Edit option.

Search for <ACTIVE again to get to the place in the new file where active projects are listed.

Place the cursor on a new line (you can add a blank line(s) if you wish. You might want to insert after other existing <PROJECT .... /> lines or, if there are none, between tags that look like this:

<ACTIVE uid="34fcd513">

</ACTIVE>

You may insert blank lines if you wish.

Choose a position either in the list of projects or between the two PROJECT tags and paste the contents of the clipboard into the file.

If you did add blank lines, you may delete them, but it doesn't matter.

If that hasn't quite gone according to plan, you can used Undo to go back, and if the paste you attempted inserted something else, with the cursor in an appropriate place press WindowsKey and V together and paste your project list from the list of items on the clipboard.

Once you have your list of projects inserted in the new settings file, you have to go and change all the drive letter to the drive letter of your external drive.

Save the file.

Check in File Explorer that the last file saved in the folder is called Waveform.settings (NotePad used to have a terrible habit of adding .txt to filenames even if the opened filename had a different ending. If this HAS happened, click to SAVE AS and put the filename in quotes, i.e: "Waveform.settings", then click to save, and say yes if it asks about overwriting an existing file of that name. Check again that the most recently saved file in the folder is called Waveform.settings)

That SHOULD have done the trick. Fingers crossed.

Close the file.


Fourth, it's time to see whether that worked.

Open Waveform. If you are religious it might help to pray.

On the Projects page, check that you have the list you wanted to see. Try opening a project. You may well have some missing plug-ins, but that's a viper's nest of additional fun for you to deal with.

Let us know if it worked or if I wasn't clear enough at any point.

Yes, I'm on Windows 11. Not a big difference from Win 10.

Oh, I'm well acquainted with the .settings file. On the Settings page, there's now a button that you can click, that takes you right to the folder where waveform.settings is.

I really appreciate the time it must have taken you to have written all that out. I'm pretty adventurous in hacking my computer, like registry entries, etc, but I think an easier way to fix this, is to simply delete the .settings file entirely. This will make Waveform act like it's a fresh installation. I'll have to reauthorize, then go through the Welcome setup steps. It was there, that I believe I noticed where the Projects were to be held (probably in Documents), and I was simply able to redirect it to my external drive.

I could attempt deleting the .settings file now. While I'm not at all religious, I can't help but think I pissed off some deity. I've been having tech related issues for months (I lost my internet for awhile tonight, and I still have to d/l some plugins).

In the scheme of things, this isn't the worst thing to happen; I'm just running out of room on the smaller drive- I accidentally installed all my Kontakt libraries there too.

Thanks again.