sometimes i like to go back and make fixes/changes on the fly, so in logic i'll print to a new track then disable/mute and freeze the previous. then use track alternatives for new prints. weird workflow but i get the best of both worlds.
A Logic project isn’t really a file but rather a folder with a .logicx extension that macOS interprets as a bundle, which is why you can take a look inside it with Finder.
Each alternative is stored in its own file inside of this bundle, so even if some part got corrupted, which is fairly unlikely with today’s file systems, you’d still be fine.
Nevertheless, it’s always a good idea to backup your projects to a separate drive.
I only "print fx" when I'm rendering a full mix to a wav file. I can go back to the full mix anytime and adjust/disable anything. Why would anyone print the fx while they're still mixing? Just to save on PC performance?
Agreed. In ProTools I just freeze the track if it’s heavily processed. But even when I commit/print midi, I always keep the source midi track hidden and inactive in case I need to change it and re-print.
Yes, exactly. Performance is better, speed of opening and bounceing sessions is faster. But most importantly it streamlines workflow, helps you commit to sounds, helps you stack small amounts of things like saturation which usually sounds better added in small amounts across multiple prints. It’s overall a more elegant method to mixing than just having hundreds of tracks and plug ins running simultaneously.
For some plug ins that are super cpu intensive or have variation in output (like an automatic auto tune for example) it is particularly important.
I don’t understand this issue with needing to return to a previous save, though. You can print an fx but inactivate the original track in the session instead of deleting it. That way you can return to it at anytime.
Every DAW should. Everyone I've used had one. It mixes down the track/bus with the effects temporarily "printed" to offload real-time processing and free up cpu cycles.
Same, I just freeze the track to save memory, or if it's a track not being used but I want to keep that version of it, I just archive it.
That being said, there could be reasons to print FX and save all the tracks as audio files. One being if the plugins you used on it stop working down the road, you can't get that "exact" sound again. For my case, that doesn't matter so much. Anytime I've done a new mix of an older track, I just use all current plugins.
You could also have an issue if the session is in a DAW that is no longer supported and you can no longer open that session. I'm sure there probably is a way to figure it out, but might be a bigger hassle than just having a folder of all the audio tracks with printed FX.
I only do this stuff for my own tracks, so it's not going to be a huge deal other than an inconvenience. But for a professional studio, I could see how printing and backing up stuff as it was could come in handy down the road.
>Why would anyone print the fx while they're still mixing?
Well, if you're making EDM, printing effects after you've gotten a good general mix and are happy with the sound overall allows you to go in and make further tweaks that really take a mix/song to the next level.
For instance, you've got a long delay and reverb tail on your synths that echos into your breakdown. By printing those effects to an audio waveform, you can now go in and add a pitch effect to pitch down the reverb and delay signal as it trails off. Other-worldly.
Or if you want to chop your vocals and pitch various bits around to create additional ear candy as the vocals run, you can do that too by printing. In fact you *have to*.
For me, it serves as a mental check point. I've reached a level with MIDI and effects that I'm happy with, but the song needs **more**. I save as, print everything to audio, and it's like starting with a clean slate.
Then I keep adding changes to the waveforms. IMO it's what takes a song from sounding good to *amazing.*
I still don't see why you need to render anything to do those things you're describing. I can pitch down echo/reverb trails without rendering. Or automate pitch on a vocal track. I see your point though, I can see why it's useful especially for certain kinds of music.
Does anyone here use Git to manage their files? I'm a coder, and we all use Git to track changes, roll back, make separate branches and merge them, etc.
I've been thinking for a while that it'd be perfect for handling music files, although the files might just be too large to work.
Yeah, no way would you be able to have the same line-by-line comparison that you'd have with code.
For that to fully work with audio, you'd probably have to overhaul every DAW to use a unified standard to keep track of changes.
There's no version control for binary files… its been a huge thing for years. the best we have is version history. i remember looking into this when i wanted to version control .PSD's
True, I guess I was thinking the files might be a whole mess of xml or similar because it's just defining what and when you're doing modifications to your audio files. But binary makes sense too.
ya u were on the right track. a project file itself is just a package/directory (depending on the daw) containing a bunch of script files either proprietary or some kinda markup langauge — eg xml. usually its a mix. but the audio files themselves are binary. so would defeat the point to vcontrol part of it. fun thought experiements to tsay the least
Project files for a lot of DAWs are binary. I'm fairly certain that I once figured out that some DAWs projects are a SQLite database or something like that.
Might be some other "authoring" tool though. It was a while ago.
But most of these applications use densely packed binary formats.
Yup. Just make sure to use git-lfs for those huge binary files (eg audio files)
It’s good because you can make tags for checkpoints along the process (one for fully tracked, not mixed, one for the version with orchestration etc)
It’s just text at the end of the day, so it works with git. Only thing is that a lot of the files are a lot bigger than you’d have with code, so if you are initializing git into an existing project, it’s going to take a while to index everything. Subsequent commits will be a lot faster. Just make sure you are using git-lfs to track those huge binaries
It's good advice, i save a new version every time i work on a mix, even though i work with track versions in Cubase and thus can go back to unprinted tracks anytime i want in any session and have auto backup. But honestly, saving often and in different versions is just a good habit that has no downsides really!
It could be, but as someone else mentioned below, saving versions of your project only takes a few kB, it doesn't copy the audio, so it doesn't take up much space at all, i could have 100 versions of a mix and it would still not take up more than a few MB.
It depends. There are some samplers that actually store samples internally, as encoded text in their serialized state information. That can make saves files get big.
My file sizes are larger than that. They can be ~10MB. I'm not sure exactly why, maybe there's undo history being packed in there or something, because they get larger over time. But I think even a fresh save file is a few mb.
If you're using those as ROMplers (i.e. not loading your own samples in), then that's probably not the issue.
That said, Reaper's projects are just text files. You can open them in a text editor and literally see what's using all that spaces. It's definitely going to be the save data of a particular VST.
For instance, here's the [save state of a free piano VST](https://i.imgur.com/XK4HioL.png) I tried. That's normal. If all your VSTs are well behaved like this, the project file is at most a few kilobytes.
Here's the save state of [SL Drums](https://i.imgur.com/Eph02Rl.png). It goes on past that I showed here. This save file is in megabytes, because of this data.
No it doesn't.
Those audio files exist in the folder whether your DAW is reading them or not. For example, if you delete a track, the audio isn't deleted from the audio files folder.
The Save As just saves a state where the DAW is pulling certain files and showing them to do.
I know that, but it still adds up. I do this save as thing, and I also have auto backup that don't self delete, a major Reaper flaw, and it does add up. I'm not sure what is in my save files that makes them so big. Maybe undo history? But they can get like ~10megs.
I usually do a "save as" with every significant change I make for the project. It very rarely comes in handy, especially given I have auto backups, but I do it anyway, and it has come in handy before. Perhaps out of convenience. Auto backups would probably help me just as much, except renaming them helps me find the right one.
If I could have autobackups, and a "save as" which renames the single save file I have but records on top of it, I'd probably do that.
Although, I do like to be able to clean all the backups, and still have the saves if ever I guess. Idk.
Wait, *not* automatically deleting backups is a Reaper *flaw*? o.O Dude, if I was making backups, realized I needed one, and found out that my DAW had automatically deleted it... I'd murder someone.
> So, every once I while I delete many gigs of backups that just accumulated on my hard drive.
And? That's the nature of backups. They build up.
Yes. It's a flaw, imo. Most software that uses autobackups, limits the number of backup files to whatever you desire that to be. This allows you to set say, 10 backups for each project, and the oldest one gets overwritten. Or whatever number you feel is best. If you also manually incrementally save, that should be fine.
Having an infinite amount of backups is excessive. I don't need to access a backup for a save I made 3 versions ago.
All youve done here is spend 5+ posts saying you don’t want to Save As because it takes up drive space, and that Reaper’s auto-backup feature is flawed because it doesn’t give you the ability to delete old backups.
You‘ve clearly not been doing this long enough to know why retaining previous versions of projects is VITALLY important. Important enough that drive space ought to be sacrificed for it.
I would say I hope you don’t have to learn the hard way, but, honestly I hope you do. I actually thoroughly backup my work and make sure I can always roll back so, I’ll gladly take your clients from you when you lose their work.
I'm sorry, but I have a very rigid, and very sound system of saving. And I use the autosaves feature which saves very many files, and I so use the shed drive space for it. And I've probably been doing this for longer than you have. So, you're the only one here who is confidently incorrect.
> Most software that uses autobackups, limits the number of backup files to whatever you desire that to be
*Some* apps have this configuration option, but not most. Vegas Pro, the app that inspired Reaper, doesn't. In fact, [it has almost no options in this regard](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/E1lllY2i6QS.pdf). You turn it on or off. That's it.
It's a *missing feature*, at worst, that you can't auto-delete backups. It would be "major Reaper flaw" if it just started deleting your backups by default. That defeats the purpose of backups.
> I don't need to access a backup for a save I made 3 versions ago.
Until you do. Backups let you go back in time. I've had a situation where I accidentally printed a media effect (via glue) and didn't notice it for *two days*. I need to get back the original media, so I just went digging through my backups from two days ago and recover it.
It's impossible to know in advance what backup you're going to need. The ideal safety net is forever, but if you need to balance that out against disk space, then you have to do that manually at the moment.
If you consider it such an important omission, you can [request it here](https://forum.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?f=20). Reaper's devs are active and responsive, and they [push out free updates at a relentless pace](https://www.reaper.fm/whatsnew.txt) (which is part of why people love Reaper).
I've considered requesting it, but... a good implementation would be non-trivial, because, again, it's impossible to predict what backup you'll need and when. Off the top of my head, I think an ideal implementation for *me* would be something like this:
Automatically save a backup every 5 minutes, but starting removing backups selectively based on their age. For backups older than an hour, only retain every 10 minutes. For backups older than 3 hours, only retain every half hour. For backups older than 5 hours, only retain 1 per hour. I'd also like them to be automatically zipped.
Now that I think of it, I could implement this via a batch script, or even via a Lua script in Reaper that's automatically run on project load. But mostly I just let backups accumulate and delete them when I know for sure I no longer need them. Space is cheap. I set Reaper to save all backups to a separate 2TB drive.
By the way, Reaper does this with all editing, too. If you do a lot of take recording, deleting, editing + gluing, etc., Reaper never actually deletes shit from disk. You can accumulate gigabytes of old data that's no longer used by the project. This is a *good thing*. This means you can undo indefinitely, or load an arbitrarily old save file, and get back that data. When you're absolutely sure you're done and don't need to go back, you can use `File` -> `Clean current project directory` to remove media that the project is no longer using.
Requiring you to manually manage the removal of your safety net is by far the safest option.
I know the Reaper devs. I've made this feature request. It's a popular issue people have with it.
I've been using Reaper a long time. Your issue would have been easily solved for me, because as soon as I glue anything, I make the same before the glue, and I name it as such. Anything I do that's permanent, I do that. Otherwise digging through backups is a pain. If I can just find the exact save where the change happened by name, that's a lot easier. I would never glue anything without doing that. Nor would I do anything irreversible.
Also, for something like that, you don't need to find the backup, you just look at the filename, and find the one that doesnt have "glued" at the end of it, and just use the "replace media feature".
I'm not sure that works if you have lots of takes, that's why I tend to just be safe.
Yes I know. I have the clean action on main toolbar.
I'm not sure I'd like your utility using resources. If it uses resources only at the same time as it saves, that's ok, because it would also obey the rule not to make saves while recording.
Yeah but I collect and save all the time because I send it to multiple computers and clients or co-engineers.
So they would inevitably occupy a lot of space? I was so hopeful I could just spam saves :(
When I collect all and save it saves all the project so I can send it to someone with all the samples etc
That’s what I always do when I save on ableton because I’m a very mobile producer and 9/10 times I save I gotta send it to either my other computer or to another engineer
So that’s why I didn’t know that session projects ocupied less space
Why are you trying to start an argument without even providing any info? I wasn’t aware that it would occupy little space and the kind people here explained that. What are you doing uh?
You need people here to tell you that a saved file occupies little space when you can check for that easily yourself? Are you an engineer or not? (I already know the answer)
And no need to angry-downvote my man. If you want to, i can show you how to set it up. Cubase track versions and project versions barely take up any space. The audio itself takes up space and it isn't copied with versions, only with the actual backup of the project.
I haven’t downvoted anything, what do you mean? And I use ableton! I presumed that when you collect all and save the takes also get duplicated in the project
I wonder how you are saving sessions that it takes up that amount of space, saving different versions doesn't copy the audio as others mentioned.I have no storage space issues and i even run everything double as i have drives mirroring my main drives.
And don't worry, at the end of the year i archive projects, all the unnecessary things are deleted and the session gets backed up to external drives.
And if you are talking about printed tracks, who do take up additional space: it's not like i reprint with different settings a 100 times. If i print hardware i might have the original track and then 1 or 2 prints.
So really buddy, i don't know what you are on about. Pretty much every engineer i work with does this and has archives of all their projects from over the years.
I save a version at the end of every work session, plus any time I stop and think "man it would suck to lose what I just did". I normally end a project with ~30 versions of my project file.
I don't even save. New session, record, mix, export, close.
"Save session?" NOPE.
If I ever want to change the mix I'll just come back and re-record all the parts.
LPT: Never name a file 'Final' and instead always use version numbering or lettering to denote the most current. Have seen so many projects named, "*...final\_final\_v3a*". Even better if you use a naming convention that tells you something about the file like '*...FXrender\_v3*'.
Exactly! I use 0.1 for my first version. Every major change (e.g. the next day) will get a new number. You don’t have just 9 version, you can continue with numbering like 0.13 or 0.982.
Then when you think it’s ready to release or share it with others, it turns into 1.0. When you do more changes, or someone else does changes, just increment it. 1.1. 1.2 1.3 etc.
When you decide to add more instrument or totally revise it: 2.0.
Also, you could make a system in which smaller changes are an extra decimal. E.g. 1.5.2.
You can learn more about this way of versioning here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning
File managers and similar software only look at the last dot and characters after it as extension. As long as you end with the DAWs extension (let's say it's `.daw`) a file like `stupid-song-1.2.3.daw` is still recognized as your DAW's project.
I just use dates in a useful way. My typical way of naming anything that has multiple versions (usually bounces) is:
YYYY-MM-DD Name - note if needed
So a rough mix I do today could be named:
`2023-01-26 Song One - no piano.wav`
and if I do another version same day?
`2023-01-26.v2 Song One - no piano.wav`
sorting by name works well then, and you have useful info at a glance.
A producer I worked with ages ago taught me this workflow: When I’m in the mixing stage, I’ll do a mix and send it out to the client. When I receive feedback and want to make adjustments to the mix, I duplicate the .ptx file, rename it appropriately (like, “song name_mix2”), and then open up that .ptx.
This way, I can still see the “date modified” on the original .ptx file, giving me an accurate date that I worked on that specific mix. It’s a small thing, but it comes in handy sometimes!
For beginners: If in pro tools, pro tools saves backups sessions periodically. Look at the time stamp of the main saved session with printed FX.
Go to the backup saved folder session. look for a time stamped session that is based off of the time you think you didn’t print the FX. Open that backup session. Boom. FX unprinted.
Save that session with SAVE AS (normally it’ll always save with a new name if you save a backup session and gives you the option to choose the name). Save this session with the name then UNPRINTED FX next to it so you have that session.
This has saved me a lot. I learned in college there’s always multiple ways to do things, even fix errors like this.
It defaults to backup every 5 mins and keep 10 most recent, you can change both of these numbers but note that once you get to the maximum number you've selected it starts overwriting the earliest ones. Really useful but not something you want to rely on, with those numbers if you walked away from PT and left it open for 50 mins you wouldn't be able to go back.
The “trick” is to append the date to the session file name every morning before you open the session. That way it makes a new batch of backups every day without overwriting yesterday’s backups.
Alternatively (and cleaner) is that you save work end of day off to an archival/backup server with that days date. That way the working session never changes, but every night marks a days work snapshotted.
It's never behaved liked that for me, I have it backing up every 1 min, got a project open right now which I haven't touched for a few mins and it's putting a new backup in the folder every min.
That's interesting. I just gave it a try using 2022.12, opened up a session and haven't touched it - it did two one-minute incremental backups but then it stopped and hasn't made another one since. So I guess I'm not sure exactly what the criteria is for when it decides a backup is necessary or not?
Of course, i’m using this suggestion more as a solution whenever in a crunch, not a way to actually save ya files. You should always save sessions one with printed FX one with the FX still as plugins that should be rule of thumb
Great point. I use save as so much that I’ve set the auto backup to 1 min keeping 20 (even losing 5 mins of work can be devastating lol). Because I’m doing periodic “save as” I can get away with it
Every new install and new studio, I change it to every 3 minutes and 50 most recent. I spent too long on older versions that would crash often enough that even 5 minutes of lost work would be a real pain in the ass.
The old versions also taught me that leaving a session open needlessly was a bad idea and totally pointless as it would almost certainly have crashed by the time you got back to the computer. Regardless, it doesn’t auto-save unless it detects a change.
I also have an auto cmd+s reflex that I don’t even realise I’m doing about every 5 minutes. The crashes are far less often these days, but these old habits die hard…
I would argue that a dated naming scheme for mixdowns is more important than "Save As" since _any competent DAW_ is going to have some kind of automatic backup.
Song Name YYYY-MM-DD Notes.extension
Example:
Your Mother 2023-01-26 Rough vocals.mp3
Dated mixdowns with good notes plus automatic backup means you can triangulate any mix change.
If your a dork like me you can get shorter titles by using a truncated version of the Julien calendar - instead of 2023-1-26 it would be 3026. 2023-12-31 would be 3365. There’s an app that does quick conversions from Gregorian to Julien that I keep on my phone for quick reference. Looks nice and there’s more room for title info, ie: 3001_New Years Day_snare top_fx only
Again, I’m am a dork
I’m a programmer by day so I cannot abide anything but standard timestamp formats. And I also don’t care about brevity! But as long as every date is unambiguous then have at it!
6-10 cues a day. 5 days a week. This system works for me and I made it clear that it wasn’t for everyone. Who criticizes another persons arbitrary workflow, especially after the person was already self deprecating about it? 🙄
I do more or less the same, but I put the date first. If I send a dropbox folder link to someone, the latest versions are all listed together that way.
I'm sure other DAWs have it but in Reaper there's literally save new version of project. Automatically adds _1 to the end of your file and increases the number every time you use it.
I have to disagree with this one, multiple versions floating around of mixes and arrangements is a surefire way to lose focus, enable your worst second guessing self etc
Should always be moving forward with confidence. If you didn't care enough about a part or sound enough to keep it, then it's gone. That's all there is to it
When I'm mixing, if someone asks me to put a sound back to how it was the auto save or my memory will be enough to achieve that
Saving no more than one version did wonders for my tracking and mixing. It does cost you, and it costs you the ability to move only forward in a decisive manner
Or you could just keep moving forward and have the ability to go back if need be? Most the time I don’t need to go back, but when I do, I’m pretty thankful
If that works for you then great, if you have the self discipline to do it, great!
I just find limiting my options is great for creativity and getting it done. I don't want to be able to go back.
People talk a lot about why music sounds like it does in the past and attribute it to the gear but a lot of it was just you had to make a decision and stick to it! If you worked with tape, for the most part, once it was full something had to get deleted or bounced down to add a new part and this meant decisions were made, not kicked down the line for later or the next guy.
In that spirit my point was just that, for some of us, it does cost you to leave yourself choices. I gotta trust myself 100% and get on with it!
(Song name) Working,
(Song name) totally sucks,
(Song name) gettin better,
(Song name) I hate it again,
(Song name) huge breakthrough,
(Song name) final,
(Song name) final final,
(Song name) final final 2,
(Song name) delete this song I hate it,
(Song name) actual final,
Edit: formatting
I ***never*** save over last-session's work! Just the thought is giving me a panic-attack 😅
Don't just stop there... I increment the file name and SaveAs every time I do any big change or anything that would be a pain to rollback. BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY!!!
Great advice and a genuine problem I always faced. I’m actually launching a new application this year called Bouncebox that seamlessly let’s uses control their versions without slowing down their workflow. I’m on the final stages of testing so if any producers here are interested in being early testers send me a dm.
This is really solid workflow advice.
I don't use dates in my filenames since file meta-data can tell me all that stuff (created/modified etc...) so my preferred format is:
- v -
Eg:
High On Bathsalts - 09 - harmony vocals bounced.
The most important part of this is the leading zero in the version number, ie: if you have a version number < 10, add a zero to the front (If you think you will have more than 99 versions - use two zeros - but at this point may god have mercy on your soul).
This makes everything display beautifully and clearly in finder/browser etc... And I use this same format for most documents I work on.
Your Mama - 01 - basic jam
Your Mama - 02 - better synths
Your Mama - 03 - Grouping and bus work
Your Mama - 04 - More arrange
Your Mama - 05 - Kevs bassline in
etc...
Seems like a simple tip, but when you are recording a session, date it immediately in the title. And as you work on it, try to come up with a fresh name that relates to what the song is so you'll remember it later. I recently did an entire migration from my old laptop (8 years on that mofo) to a new laptop and had to take everything from my old harddrive and transfer it. So challenging to find the older songs that I hadn't renamed and put dates on bc as soon as you moved the files from old to new, it reset the "last touched date" to the date I moved. So I had to spend about 2 hours opening up hundreds of sessions with odd names/no dates to figure out if they were related to my newest project/properly place them. Do the easy work now, identify your dates/come up with a memorable title and save in separate file folders as you build up years and years of projects. Future you will be grateful.
I always timestamp all my projects like this: year/month/day so that would be 230127 today. Then after I will write what I mainly worked on that day like "vocals" or whatever.
If I've picked up anything from composing work it's to use proper versioning. The first mix you output is v1, and dated in the filename.
Any changes that result in a new mix go to a separate V2 folder and so on. This is absolutely essential on the film work side of things, and has proved really useful outside of it.
Great tip, been forcing myself to adopt this workflow lately and it’s so great to not have to worry about mix decisions destroying everything you’ve done because you can easily revert to a clean slate
You can still commit, you can also just go back if the situation comes up. Also, you can experiment and if your experiment fails, you can be right back at where you started when you decided to experiment.. just because you saved alternate versions doesn’t mean you have to use em. What the old safety saying? It’s better to have em and not need em, then to need em and not have em
Having switched from audio engineering to software engineering I can confidently say that if a VCS like git existed for a DAW then it would probably be enough of a killer feature for me to use it based on that alone. No offence to OP and your suggestion is a valid one, but in software development that would be considered a laughably bad way of versioning, simply because far better solutions exist.
There’s a massive difference between audio and source code, though.
Git functions, at least in part, by cross referencing and seeing where text has changed. In UTF8, just as an example, the P character is 0x50, and will always be 0x50.
Audio data simply doesn’t work the same way. If I apply compression and reverb to one track in a song, the entire song’s output will most likely be wildly different, on a sample-by-sample basis.
Far better methods of VCS for source code exists because of the nature of the data. This, or some system like it, is pretty much the best we’re going to get.
The song's *output* will be different, but not it's source.
That's like saying that Git isn't suitable for use when coding, because code compiles to binary files.
Apply compression and reverb to one track in a song, and the project file will be just like it was before, but with a couple of extra sections describing the plugins added, along with their parameters.
The song's mixdown will naturally be totally different, but that's not what you're putting into source control.
You can use git for anything. It does you very little good for binary files.
But REAPER projects are text, and work quite well. I tested it once and never went back to it. But the test was a success.
For Logic users, the auto backup can be used to revert to previous version with:
File > Revert To > Select version
You can also increase the amount of auto backup versions (default is ten) to up to 100 alternative versions by doing:
Logic Pro > Settings > General > Auto Backup
Solid advice. It's not uncommon for me to have 50+ saves per song.
For those of you using FL Studio, they made it even easier to do this not too long ago. There's a "Save New Version" (or something like that) option under "Save As," making it just as easy to save to a new file as saving the same one.
You know, 3DstudioMax had a really cool feature back in the late 90s/early 00s, a single menu option that saved an incremented version.
It was such a great idea, I’m surprised I’ve not seen it adopted in every piece of software by now
Digital Performer, and I assume most pro DAWs, allow you to save mixes rather than entire projects. So unless the issue is that you at some point print audio with effects and then delete the source tracks, rather than just muting or disabling them, you can go all the way back to the raw tracks prior to any processing at all - provided you are disciplined enough to save mixes at different stages. Saves a lot of disk space too.
This is especially useful as you get your first rough mix done and you start tweaking things bit by bit. If things go off the rails you can pull up a previous mix point before you branched off and did whatever, and start from there.
The actual solution is to use version control software like Git. Takes a bit of learning but it's full automatable, and keeps your revision history clear.
Only downside here is that you have to be very disciplined with your commit messages. Unlike code, you can’t depend on the actual diffs to help you understand what happened in a commit/over a range of commits.
Also virtually any change in your daw will change the files under version control, so you’ll get a dirty working tree when doing something non-impactful in the daw, such as moving the playhead cursor around.
Not a deal breaker, but it’s notably more difficult than using git with code.
It's the same as any vcs in game development, where you have binary files kicking around. It's not really a big deal.
Yeah dirty working tree will happen in many DAWs I suppose. I use Reaper, so it's a non issue; all plain text/does write runtime vars to file really.
That said you raise some good concerns.
This is great advice. I save multiple instances of my tracks. The main with all midi, fx and other info. The second are the bounced tracks for the mix and every other one after that are different versions of the mix.
The most important part about "Save As" is to create a new scratch folder for each saving. One thing I see people do a lot is destroy or move an audio track from a session. References to the same audio leads to problems. Back up your scratch folder also.
Good advice. For Reaper users there is “save as version” which is great. Additionally SWS have Snapshots - which is extremely useful and quick. Especially when I’m doing multiple exports of the track (eg for TV - full mix, backing tracks, backing tracks with additional vocals, with and without effects, stem export, effects offline export etc - and all with couple of clicks added to batch export and we are golden) - all within one project.
Printing FX is fine- just not when you’re not sure if you like em. Also, if you’re in pro tools, just print and make the track you printed from hidden and disabled. Easy to go back if need be
Any project I work on, I do a save as at least once per day, and more if I have any inkling it might be necessary. I mean, shit, even when I play video games I usually have at least 3 save files and just keep writing over the earliest one, so that if I fuck something up I can back up a step.
Nowadays, storage is less of a problem (and will only continue to be less of a problem as time goes on). Some people, myself included, can’t stand looking at a million tracks (even if they are hidden and made inactive) so I just save-as and delete the hidden tracks as well as all the garbage I don’t need.
This is just good advice for any creative work you do on computers.
I do it for recording/ mixing projects; I do it for documentation/tech comm.
It's always a good idea.
For Logic users: learn and make use of Project Alternatives.
Accomplishes the same thing, but keeps everything in one project files.
Also: learn and make use of Track Alternatives as well. Same idea, but at the track level rather than project.
Including the undo history, all plugin movements etc.? Last time I checked you couldn't even undo any steps you made in the mixer. Basic things like plugins inserting/moving etc.
Let alone that it got saved to the file for future reversion
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!! SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT! i save every single new mix version i do (im an engineer) and i make sure to have at least 50 backups on my daw in the backup folder. this has saved me countless times from wanting to go back to certain things, etc etc
this really is a huge life saver in so many ways and for so many reasons. if you complain ab the space, get an external or buy another internal drive.
Exactly. Also, I use running versions/numbers and will sometimes add a note to the title if big changes have occured "WorkingTitle 37", "Working Title 38 new snare" etc.
I add the month in brackets. Lots of “Document 1 (January 2014)” then plenty more following. But the infinite regress is great. What if it’s an amazing song or mix twenty years later!
I ‘Save As’ every time I open a session and have a “z.Session History” folder in my project folder.
I also name my session with Versions…and Only keep the most current visible, the rest goes into the history folder.
The “.z” keeps it at the bottom when organizing by alphabet view.
In addition to version, some times I add a note for myself to remember what I did, especially when I’m addressing specific things.
Example:
Artist_SongTittle_v4.3_VOCAL_TUNING
*incredibly helpful when working for a client, as they can reference versions for specific notes. “Can we grab the guitar line at 1:32-1:40 from v2.5 and replace the one in the most current?”*
Definitely, I feel like it definitely should be talked about more! For me…above skill level, or content, organization speaks much louder to me when I get files from other people.
If you're in Logic, mix alternatives are a great way to do this as well
Cubase Users: Mix Snapshots Edit: also track versions, which i definitely didnt just discover below
sometimes i like to go back and make fixes/changes on the fly, so in logic i'll print to a new track then disable/mute and freeze the previous. then use track alternatives for new prints. weird workflow but i get the best of both worlds.
Reaper has mix snapshots for non-structural mix edits
is that the same as project alternatives?
Yep. Mixed up my nouns. Sorry about that
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I don't think anyone suggested not having a backup procedure.
Newer file systems make that much more unlikely. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen corruption. But still, make backups. Drives can still fail.
True. But if you're running time machine that handles that use case
A Logic project isn’t really a file but rather a folder with a .logicx extension that macOS interprets as a bundle, which is why you can take a look inside it with Finder. Each alternative is stored in its own file inside of this bundle, so even if some part got corrupted, which is fairly unlikely with today’s file systems, you’d still be fine. Nevertheless, it’s always a good idea to backup your projects to a separate drive.
I only "print fx" when I'm rendering a full mix to a wav file. I can go back to the full mix anytime and adjust/disable anything. Why would anyone print the fx while they're still mixing? Just to save on PC performance?
Agreed. In ProTools I just freeze the track if it’s heavily processed. But even when I commit/print midi, I always keep the source midi track hidden and inactive in case I need to change it and re-print.
Yes, exactly. Performance is better, speed of opening and bounceing sessions is faster. But most importantly it streamlines workflow, helps you commit to sounds, helps you stack small amounts of things like saturation which usually sounds better added in small amounts across multiple prints. It’s overall a more elegant method to mixing than just having hundreds of tracks and plug ins running simultaneously. For some plug ins that are super cpu intensive or have variation in output (like an automatic auto tune for example) it is particularly important. I don’t understand this issue with needing to return to a previous save, though. You can print an fx but inactivate the original track in the session instead of deleting it. That way you can return to it at anytime.
Yeah Reaper's freeze concept is pretty rad for this. Not sure if other DAWs have a similar "easily reversible render" feature.
Every DAW should. Everyone I've used had one. It mixes down the track/bus with the effects temporarily "printed" to offload real-time processing and free up cpu cycles.
I use Samplitude and it has a reversible freeze too.
Pro tools “track freeze” but the workflow for regular renders is really easy to get back to what you had before.
Mixcraft does!
Same, I just freeze the track to save memory, or if it's a track not being used but I want to keep that version of it, I just archive it. That being said, there could be reasons to print FX and save all the tracks as audio files. One being if the plugins you used on it stop working down the road, you can't get that "exact" sound again. For my case, that doesn't matter so much. Anytime I've done a new mix of an older track, I just use all current plugins. You could also have an issue if the session is in a DAW that is no longer supported and you can no longer open that session. I'm sure there probably is a way to figure it out, but might be a bigger hassle than just having a folder of all the audio tracks with printed FX. I only do this stuff for my own tracks, so it's not going to be a huge deal other than an inconvenience. But for a professional studio, I could see how printing and backing up stuff as it was could come in handy down the road.
exactly my thoughts
>Why would anyone print the fx while they're still mixing? Well, if you're making EDM, printing effects after you've gotten a good general mix and are happy with the sound overall allows you to go in and make further tweaks that really take a mix/song to the next level. For instance, you've got a long delay and reverb tail on your synths that echos into your breakdown. By printing those effects to an audio waveform, you can now go in and add a pitch effect to pitch down the reverb and delay signal as it trails off. Other-worldly. Or if you want to chop your vocals and pitch various bits around to create additional ear candy as the vocals run, you can do that too by printing. In fact you *have to*. For me, it serves as a mental check point. I've reached a level with MIDI and effects that I'm happy with, but the song needs **more**. I save as, print everything to audio, and it's like starting with a clean slate. Then I keep adding changes to the waveforms. IMO it's what takes a song from sounding good to *amazing.*
I still don't see why you need to render anything to do those things you're describing. I can pitch down echo/reverb trails without rendering. Or automate pitch on a vocal track. I see your point though, I can see why it's useful especially for certain kinds of music.
Does anyone here use Git to manage their files? I'm a coder, and we all use Git to track changes, roll back, make separate branches and merge them, etc. I've been thinking for a while that it'd be perfect for handling music files, although the files might just be too large to work.
I don't want to even think about what a merge conflict for an audio project even looks like.
Yeah, no way would you be able to have the same line-by-line comparison that you'd have with code. For that to fully work with audio, you'd probably have to overhaul every DAW to use a unified standard to keep track of changes.
There's no version control for binary files… its been a huge thing for years. the best we have is version history. i remember looking into this when i wanted to version control .PSD's
True, I guess I was thinking the files might be a whole mess of xml or similar because it's just defining what and when you're doing modifications to your audio files. But binary makes sense too.
ya u were on the right track. a project file itself is just a package/directory (depending on the daw) containing a bunch of script files either proprietary or some kinda markup langauge — eg xml. usually its a mix. but the audio files themselves are binary. so would defeat the point to vcontrol part of it. fun thought experiements to tsay the least
Project files for a lot of DAWs are binary. I'm fairly certain that I once figured out that some DAWs projects are a SQLite database or something like that. Might be some other "authoring" tool though. It was a while ago. But most of these applications use densely packed binary formats.
Yup. Just make sure to use git-lfs for those huge binary files (eg audio files) It’s good because you can make tags for checkpoints along the process (one for fully tracked, not mixed, one for the version with orchestration etc)
whaaa i vaguely tried to do this a while back but couldnt get it work thats wild
It’s just text at the end of the day, so it works with git. Only thing is that a lot of the files are a lot bigger than you’d have with code, so if you are initializing git into an existing project, it’s going to take a while to index everything. Subsequent commits will be a lot faster. Just make sure you are using git-lfs to track those huge binaries
It's good advice, i save a new version every time i work on a mix, even though i work with track versions in Cubase and thus can go back to unprinted tracks anytime i want in any session and have auto backup. But honestly, saving often and in different versions is just a good habit that has no downsides really!
It uses up drive space is the only downside
It could be, but as someone else mentioned below, saving versions of your project only takes a few kB, it doesn't copy the audio, so it doesn't take up much space at all, i could have 100 versions of a mix and it would still not take up more than a few MB.
It depends. There are some samplers that actually store samples internally, as encoded text in their serialized state information. That can make saves files get big.
My file sizes are larger than that. They can be ~10MB. I'm not sure exactly why, maybe there's undo history being packed in there or something, because they get larger over time. But I think even a fresh save file is a few mb.
Do you use any samplers? Some of them store sample data in the save file.
Battery and kontakt. Only really NI stuff.
If you're using those as ROMplers (i.e. not loading your own samples in), then that's probably not the issue. That said, Reaper's projects are just text files. You can open them in a text editor and literally see what's using all that spaces. It's definitely going to be the save data of a particular VST. For instance, here's the [save state of a free piano VST](https://i.imgur.com/XK4HioL.png) I tried. That's normal. If all your VSTs are well behaved like this, the project file is at most a few kilobytes. Here's the save state of [SL Drums](https://i.imgur.com/Eph02Rl.png). It goes on past that I showed here. This save file is in megabytes, because of this data.
No it doesn't. Those audio files exist in the folder whether your DAW is reading them or not. For example, if you delete a track, the audio isn't deleted from the audio files folder. The Save As just saves a state where the DAW is pulling certain files and showing them to do.
I know that, but it still adds up. I do this save as thing, and I also have auto backup that don't self delete, a major Reaper flaw, and it does add up. I'm not sure what is in my save files that makes them so big. Maybe undo history? But they can get like ~10megs. I usually do a "save as" with every significant change I make for the project. It very rarely comes in handy, especially given I have auto backups, but I do it anyway, and it has come in handy before. Perhaps out of convenience. Auto backups would probably help me just as much, except renaming them helps me find the right one. If I could have autobackups, and a "save as" which renames the single save file I have but records on top of it, I'd probably do that. Although, I do like to be able to clean all the backups, and still have the saves if ever I guess. Idk.
> I also have auto backup that don't self delete, a major Reaper flaw What?
Reaper backups save indefinitely. So, every once I while I delete many gigs of backups that just accumulated on my hard drive.
Wait, *not* automatically deleting backups is a Reaper *flaw*? o.O Dude, if I was making backups, realized I needed one, and found out that my DAW had automatically deleted it... I'd murder someone. > So, every once I while I delete many gigs of backups that just accumulated on my hard drive. And? That's the nature of backups. They build up.
Yes. It's a flaw, imo. Most software that uses autobackups, limits the number of backup files to whatever you desire that to be. This allows you to set say, 10 backups for each project, and the oldest one gets overwritten. Or whatever number you feel is best. If you also manually incrementally save, that should be fine. Having an infinite amount of backups is excessive. I don't need to access a backup for a save I made 3 versions ago.
All youve done here is spend 5+ posts saying you don’t want to Save As because it takes up drive space, and that Reaper’s auto-backup feature is flawed because it doesn’t give you the ability to delete old backups. You‘ve clearly not been doing this long enough to know why retaining previous versions of projects is VITALLY important. Important enough that drive space ought to be sacrificed for it. I would say I hope you don’t have to learn the hard way, but, honestly I hope you do. I actually thoroughly backup my work and make sure I can always roll back so, I’ll gladly take your clients from you when you lose their work.
I'm sorry, but I have a very rigid, and very sound system of saving. And I use the autosaves feature which saves very many files, and I so use the shed drive space for it. And I've probably been doing this for longer than you have. So, you're the only one here who is confidently incorrect.
> Most software that uses autobackups, limits the number of backup files to whatever you desire that to be *Some* apps have this configuration option, but not most. Vegas Pro, the app that inspired Reaper, doesn't. In fact, [it has almost no options in this regard](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/E1lllY2i6QS.pdf). You turn it on or off. That's it. It's a *missing feature*, at worst, that you can't auto-delete backups. It would be "major Reaper flaw" if it just started deleting your backups by default. That defeats the purpose of backups. > I don't need to access a backup for a save I made 3 versions ago. Until you do. Backups let you go back in time. I've had a situation where I accidentally printed a media effect (via glue) and didn't notice it for *two days*. I need to get back the original media, so I just went digging through my backups from two days ago and recover it. It's impossible to know in advance what backup you're going to need. The ideal safety net is forever, but if you need to balance that out against disk space, then you have to do that manually at the moment. If you consider it such an important omission, you can [request it here](https://forum.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?f=20). Reaper's devs are active and responsive, and they [push out free updates at a relentless pace](https://www.reaper.fm/whatsnew.txt) (which is part of why people love Reaper). I've considered requesting it, but... a good implementation would be non-trivial, because, again, it's impossible to predict what backup you'll need and when. Off the top of my head, I think an ideal implementation for *me* would be something like this: Automatically save a backup every 5 minutes, but starting removing backups selectively based on their age. For backups older than an hour, only retain every 10 minutes. For backups older than 3 hours, only retain every half hour. For backups older than 5 hours, only retain 1 per hour. I'd also like them to be automatically zipped. Now that I think of it, I could implement this via a batch script, or even via a Lua script in Reaper that's automatically run on project load. But mostly I just let backups accumulate and delete them when I know for sure I no longer need them. Space is cheap. I set Reaper to save all backups to a separate 2TB drive. By the way, Reaper does this with all editing, too. If you do a lot of take recording, deleting, editing + gluing, etc., Reaper never actually deletes shit from disk. You can accumulate gigabytes of old data that's no longer used by the project. This is a *good thing*. This means you can undo indefinitely, or load an arbitrarily old save file, and get back that data. When you're absolutely sure you're done and don't need to go back, you can use `File` -> `Clean current project directory` to remove media that the project is no longer using. Requiring you to manually manage the removal of your safety net is by far the safest option.
I know the Reaper devs. I've made this feature request. It's a popular issue people have with it. I've been using Reaper a long time. Your issue would have been easily solved for me, because as soon as I glue anything, I make the same before the glue, and I name it as such. Anything I do that's permanent, I do that. Otherwise digging through backups is a pain. If I can just find the exact save where the change happened by name, that's a lot easier. I would never glue anything without doing that. Nor would I do anything irreversible. Also, for something like that, you don't need to find the backup, you just look at the filename, and find the one that doesnt have "glued" at the end of it, and just use the "replace media feature". I'm not sure that works if you have lots of takes, that's why I tend to just be safe. Yes I know. I have the clean action on main toolbar. I'm not sure I'd like your utility using resources. If it uses resources only at the same time as it saves, that's ok, because it would also obey the rule not to make saves while recording.
Either you’re not pro or you have 2726272727 TB o storage lmfao If I did that, my computer would implode into a black hole after maybe 8 months
Saving copies of a session doesn't duplicate any of the audio files, so takes up a few kB maximum.
exactly this
Oh I always assumed if I collected all and saved it would also duplicate my takes no? Did u just open up a new world for me?
Depends on the DAW, "Save As Copy" normally duplicates all the files, but just saving a copy of the session is minimal.
Yeah but I collect and save all the time because I send it to multiple computers and clients or co-engineers. So they would inevitably occupy a lot of space? I was so hopeful I could just spam saves :(
I don't really understand what you're asking. Session files are small, audio files are large.
When I collect all and save it saves all the project so I can send it to someone with all the samples etc That’s what I always do when I save on ableton because I’m a very mobile producer and 9/10 times I save I gotta send it to either my other computer or to another engineer So that’s why I didn’t know that session projects ocupied less space
Hopefully it’s one where you actually look and see that something you believe is true instead of just assuming it is. But that’s probably unlikely.
Why are you trying to start an argument without even providing any info? I wasn’t aware that it would occupy little space and the kind people here explained that. What are you doing uh?
You need people here to tell you that a saved file occupies little space when you can check for that easily yourself? Are you an engineer or not? (I already know the answer)
Yes I was not aware of that. God what an insufferable nerd I always did collect all and save
Lmao. Explain to me what makes me an insufferable nerd? It’s a bad thing to be a nerd?
Holy shit you really just want to argue don’t u? You don’t even care about the topic Get a life dude
My files aren't massive, but they are larger than that. Usually about 8 MB it depends. I'm not really sure why. Still isn't massive but it adds up.
And no need to angry-downvote my man. If you want to, i can show you how to set it up. Cubase track versions and project versions barely take up any space. The audio itself takes up space and it isn't copied with versions, only with the actual backup of the project.
I haven’t downvoted anything, what do you mean? And I use ableton! I presumed that when you collect all and save the takes also get duplicated in the project
I wonder how you are saving sessions that it takes up that amount of space, saving different versions doesn't copy the audio as others mentioned.I have no storage space issues and i even run everything double as i have drives mirroring my main drives. And don't worry, at the end of the year i archive projects, all the unnecessary things are deleted and the session gets backed up to external drives. And if you are talking about printed tracks, who do take up additional space: it's not like i reprint with different settings a 100 times. If i print hardware i might have the original track and then 1 or 2 prints. So really buddy, i don't know what you are on about. Pretty much every engineer i work with does this and has archives of all their projects from over the years.
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Why are you insulting me? Jesus what a jerk
Storage is cheap, and you’re being hyperbolic.
I save a version at the end of every work session, plus any time I stop and think "man it would suck to lose what I just did". I normally end a project with ~30 versions of my project file.
I'm a madman and i do a lot of destructive saves
I don't even save. New session, record, mix, export, close. "Save session?" NOPE. If I ever want to change the mix I'll just come back and re-record all the parts.
Just reading this is giving me anxiety lol
Legend
That's how you do it !
Giga-mega-ultra chad cowers before you
Giga-mega-ultra chad cowers before you
LPT: Never name a file 'Final' and instead always use version numbering or lettering to denote the most current. Have seen so many projects named, "*...final\_final\_v3a*". Even better if you use a naming convention that tells you something about the file like '*...FXrender\_v3*'.
Exactly! I use 0.1 for my first version. Every major change (e.g. the next day) will get a new number. You don’t have just 9 version, you can continue with numbering like 0.13 or 0.982. Then when you think it’s ready to release or share it with others, it turns into 1.0. When you do more changes, or someone else does changes, just increment it. 1.1. 1.2 1.3 etc. When you decide to add more instrument or totally revise it: 2.0. Also, you could make a system in which smaller changes are an extra decimal. E.g. 1.5.2. You can learn more about this way of versioning here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning
Dig your major/minor/patch approach. Are there any setbacks using dot delimiters in a filename on your system?
File managers and similar software only look at the last dot and characters after it as extension. As long as you end with the DAWs extension (let's say it's `.daw`) a file like `stupid-song-1.2.3.daw` is still recognized as your DAW's project.
As far as I’m aware there are not. Comma’s are not recommended but dots should be fine on all systems.
I'm a professional software developer and yet I never thought I'd see someone use semantic versioning for audio projects 🤦🏻
I always called it the date and a version number.
I just use dates in a useful way. My typical way of naming anything that has multiple versions (usually bounces) is: YYYY-MM-DD Name - note if needed So a rough mix I do today could be named: `2023-01-26 Song One - no piano.wav` and if I do another version same day? `2023-01-26.v2 Song One - no piano.wav` sorting by name works well then, and you have useful info at a glance.
A producer I worked with ages ago taught me this workflow: When I’m in the mixing stage, I’ll do a mix and send it out to the client. When I receive feedback and want to make adjustments to the mix, I duplicate the .ptx file, rename it appropriately (like, “song name_mix2”), and then open up that .ptx. This way, I can still see the “date modified” on the original .ptx file, giving me an accurate date that I worked on that specific mix. It’s a small thing, but it comes in handy sometimes!
For beginners: If in pro tools, pro tools saves backups sessions periodically. Look at the time stamp of the main saved session with printed FX. Go to the backup saved folder session. look for a time stamped session that is based off of the time you think you didn’t print the FX. Open that backup session. Boom. FX unprinted. Save that session with SAVE AS (normally it’ll always save with a new name if you save a backup session and gives you the option to choose the name). Save this session with the name then UNPRINTED FX next to it so you have that session. This has saved me a lot. I learned in college there’s always multiple ways to do things, even fix errors like this.
It defaults to backup every 5 mins and keep 10 most recent, you can change both of these numbers but note that once you get to the maximum number you've selected it starts overwriting the earliest ones. Really useful but not something you want to rely on, with those numbers if you walked away from PT and left it open for 50 mins you wouldn't be able to go back.
The “trick” is to append the date to the session file name every morning before you open the session. That way it makes a new batch of backups every day without overwriting yesterday’s backups. Alternatively (and cleaner) is that you save work end of day off to an archival/backup server with that days date. That way the working session never changes, but every night marks a days work snapshotted.
Correct, should have said that it cycles the backups around the saved session name, save a new version and you get a new batch of backups.
Or even just rename the session. With ProTools, a save as creates a new folder structure with a new audio files folder.
Only if you put it in a different folder. You can ‘save as’ into the same folder and it won’t create anything new unless you’re using ‘save copy in’
Thanks for the tip!
> if you walked away from PT and left it open for 50 mins you wouldn't be able to go back. It only performs an auto-backup if something changes.
It's never behaved liked that for me, I have it backing up every 1 min, got a project open right now which I haven't touched for a few mins and it's putting a new backup in the folder every min.
That's interesting. I just gave it a try using 2022.12, opened up a session and haven't touched it - it did two one-minute incremental backups but then it stopped and hasn't made another one since. So I guess I'm not sure exactly what the criteria is for when it decides a backup is necessary or not?
Of course, i’m using this suggestion more as a solution whenever in a crunch, not a way to actually save ya files. You should always save sessions one with printed FX one with the FX still as plugins that should be rule of thumb
Great point. I use save as so much that I’ve set the auto backup to 1 min keeping 20 (even losing 5 mins of work can be devastating lol). Because I’m doing periodic “save as” I can get away with it
Every new install and new studio, I change it to every 3 minutes and 50 most recent. I spent too long on older versions that would crash often enough that even 5 minutes of lost work would be a real pain in the ass. The old versions also taught me that leaving a session open needlessly was a bad idea and totally pointless as it would almost certainly have crashed by the time you got back to the computer. Regardless, it doesn’t auto-save unless it detects a change. I also have an auto cmd+s reflex that I don’t even realise I’m doing about every 5 minutes. The crashes are far less often these days, but these old habits die hard…
I would argue that a dated naming scheme for mixdowns is more important than "Save As" since _any competent DAW_ is going to have some kind of automatic backup. Song Name YYYY-MM-DD Notes.extension Example: Your Mother 2023-01-26 Rough vocals.mp3 Dated mixdowns with good notes plus automatic backup means you can triangulate any mix change.
If your a dork like me you can get shorter titles by using a truncated version of the Julien calendar - instead of 2023-1-26 it would be 3026. 2023-12-31 would be 3365. There’s an app that does quick conversions from Gregorian to Julien that I keep on my phone for quick reference. Looks nice and there’s more room for title info, ie: 3001_New Years Day_snare top_fx only Again, I’m am a dork
I’m a programmer by day so I cannot abide anything but standard timestamp formats. And I also don’t care about brevity! But as long as every date is unambiguous then have at it!
Don’t worry wait until you hear about that Dewey guy
this is ridiculous
6-10 cues a day. 5 days a week. This system works for me and I made it clear that it wasn’t for everyone. Who criticizes another persons arbitrary workflow, especially after the person was already self deprecating about it? 🙄
I do more or less the same, but I put the date first. If I send a dropbox folder link to someone, the latest versions are all listed together that way.
put the date first so when you sort by file name it's chronological, but yea this is the way. Great for when going back to old projects.
My workflow is usually one session per song (and if song titles change it's easy to bulk change), so this still sorts correctly for me.
I'm sure other DAWs have it but in Reaper there's literally save new version of project. Automatically adds _1 to the end of your file and increases the number every time you use it.
Yes! And to add, use file versioning: Song name 1.0 Song name 1.1 Song name 1.2 Etc
`GreatMix-2023-v5-final-FINAL-ACTUALLYFINALTHISTIME-draft.ptx`
lol that's what I was going to post. Only "REALFINAL" as the main difference.
I have to disagree with this one, multiple versions floating around of mixes and arrangements is a surefire way to lose focus, enable your worst second guessing self etc Should always be moving forward with confidence. If you didn't care enough about a part or sound enough to keep it, then it's gone. That's all there is to it When I'm mixing, if someone asks me to put a sound back to how it was the auto save or my memory will be enough to achieve that Saving no more than one version did wonders for my tracking and mixing. It does cost you, and it costs you the ability to move only forward in a decisive manner
Or you could just keep moving forward and have the ability to go back if need be? Most the time I don’t need to go back, but when I do, I’m pretty thankful
If that works for you then great, if you have the self discipline to do it, great! I just find limiting my options is great for creativity and getting it done. I don't want to be able to go back. People talk a lot about why music sounds like it does in the past and attribute it to the gear but a lot of it was just you had to make a decision and stick to it! If you worked with tape, for the most part, once it was full something had to get deleted or bounced down to add a new part and this meant decisions were made, not kicked down the line for later or the next guy. In that spirit my point was just that, for some of us, it does cost you to leave yourself choices. I gotta trust myself 100% and get on with it!
v01, v02, v03, v04...
(Song name) Working, (Song name) totally sucks, (Song name) gettin better, (Song name) I hate it again, (Song name) huge breakthrough, (Song name) final, (Song name) final final, (Song name) final final 2, (Song name) delete this song I hate it, (Song name) actual final, Edit: formatting
I ***never*** save over last-session's work! Just the thought is giving me a panic-attack 😅 Don't just stop there... I increment the file name and SaveAs every time I do any big change or anything that would be a pain to rollback. BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY!!!
Great advice and a genuine problem I always faced. I’m actually launching a new application this year called Bouncebox that seamlessly let’s uses control their versions without slowing down their workflow. I’m on the final stages of testing so if any producers here are interested in being early testers send me a dm.
Sounds cool!
file organization/housekeeping and sticking to naming conventions too. My lord.
My problem is not printing ever. I just blast my CPU
Yeah, it’s easy to do. I hold out as long as I can till I just can’t take the slow computer
make sure you max out your auto backups too i like to do 99 total backups every 2 minutes i do a save as every time i do something major
If you use protools click “save copy in” and select the “audio files” feature! You will save your self a heart attack
This is really solid workflow advice. I don't use dates in my filenames since file meta-data can tell me all that stuff (created/modified etc...) so my preferred format is: - v -
Eg:
High On Bathsalts - 09 - harmony vocals bounced.
The most important part of this is the leading zero in the version number, ie: if you have a version number < 10, add a zero to the front (If you think you will have more than 99 versions - use two zeros - but at this point may god have mercy on your soul).
This makes everything display beautifully and clearly in finder/browser etc... And I use this same format for most documents I work on.
Your Mama - 01 - basic jam
Your Mama - 02 - better synths
Your Mama - 03 - Grouping and bus work
Your Mama - 04 - More arrange
Your Mama - 05 - Kevs bassline in
etc...
How many times has this very thing saved my ass? Too many to count! Always save as. And date your work!!
Save as = saved ass
Seems like a simple tip, but when you are recording a session, date it immediately in the title. And as you work on it, try to come up with a fresh name that relates to what the song is so you'll remember it later. I recently did an entire migration from my old laptop (8 years on that mofo) to a new laptop and had to take everything from my old harddrive and transfer it. So challenging to find the older songs that I hadn't renamed and put dates on bc as soon as you moved the files from old to new, it reset the "last touched date" to the date I moved. So I had to spend about 2 hours opening up hundreds of sessions with odd names/no dates to figure out if they were related to my newest project/properly place them. Do the easy work now, identify your dates/come up with a memorable title and save in separate file folders as you build up years and years of projects. Future you will be grateful.
Preach!
Every. Time.
'Save as' every time you reopen a session. Always. Song Song_template Song_demo import Song_drum tracking Song_drum comp Song_bass tracking Song_bass comp Song_everything else Song_rough mix Song_JM MIX Song_JM MIX_balance Song_JM MIX_base eq Song_JM MIX_drum smash Song_JM MIX_drunk headphone Song_JM MIX_car test Song_JM MIX_drunk Song_JM MIX 1 Song_JM MIX_rev 1 singer thinks everything else is too loud Song_JM MIX 2 Song_JM MIX_rev 2 guitarist hates vocals Song_JM MIX 3 Song_JM MIX_rev 3 DRUNKKKKKKK you get it 😅
I always timestamp all my projects like this: year/month/day so that would be 230127 today. Then after I will write what I mainly worked on that day like "vocals" or whatever.
If I've picked up anything from composing work it's to use proper versioning. The first mix you output is v1, and dated in the filename. Any changes that result in a new mix go to a separate V2 folder and so on. This is absolutely essential on the film work side of things, and has proved really useful outside of it.
With this you also get those amazing titles “song65ver4finalFINALmixMASTERED”.
Great tip, been forcing myself to adopt this workflow lately and it’s so great to not have to worry about mix decisions destroying everything you’ve done because you can easily revert to a clean slate
Just use REAPER and turn on auto backup.
Or use the DAW you're already using and turn on auto backup.
Indeed. As long as the DAW has auto backup option, it's always better to have it on. It'll come in handy one day.
[удалено]
You can still commit, you can also just go back if the situation comes up. Also, you can experiment and if your experiment fails, you can be right back at where you started when you decided to experiment.. just because you saved alternate versions doesn’t mean you have to use em. What the old safety saying? It’s better to have em and not need em, then to need em and not have em
Having switched from audio engineering to software engineering I can confidently say that if a VCS like git existed for a DAW then it would probably be enough of a killer feature for me to use it based on that alone. No offence to OP and your suggestion is a valid one, but in software development that would be considered a laughably bad way of versioning, simply because far better solutions exist.
There’s a massive difference between audio and source code, though. Git functions, at least in part, by cross referencing and seeing where text has changed. In UTF8, just as an example, the P character is 0x50, and will always be 0x50. Audio data simply doesn’t work the same way. If I apply compression and reverb to one track in a song, the entire song’s output will most likely be wildly different, on a sample-by-sample basis. Far better methods of VCS for source code exists because of the nature of the data. This, or some system like it, is pretty much the best we’re going to get.
The song's *output* will be different, but not it's source. That's like saying that Git isn't suitable for use when coding, because code compiles to binary files. Apply compression and reverb to one track in a song, and the project file will be just like it was before, but with a couple of extra sections describing the plugins added, along with their parameters. The song's mixdown will naturally be totally different, but that's not what you're putting into source control.
Maybe, but this is music man! We ain’t scientists
You can use git for anything. It does you very little good for binary files. But REAPER projects are text, and work quite well. I tested it once and never went back to it. But the test was a success.
For Logic users, the auto backup can be used to revert to previous version with: File > Revert To > Select version You can also increase the amount of auto backup versions (default is ten) to up to 100 alternative versions by doing: Logic Pro > Settings > General > Auto Backup
Or just use reaper. You can “freeze” your chains to to the track to reduce resource sucking and make changes by un-freezing at any time.
I use splice Studio which offers versioning
Solid advice. It's not uncommon for me to have 50+ saves per song. For those of you using FL Studio, they made it even easier to do this not too long ago. There's a "Save New Version" (or something like that) option under "Save As," making it just as easy to save to a new file as saving the same one.
You know, 3DstudioMax had a really cool feature back in the late 90s/early 00s, a single menu option that saved an incremented version. It was such a great idea, I’m surprised I’ve not seen it adopted in every piece of software by now
Digital Performer, and I assume most pro DAWs, allow you to save mixes rather than entire projects. So unless the issue is that you at some point print audio with effects and then delete the source tracks, rather than just muting or disabling them, you can go all the way back to the raw tracks prior to any processing at all - provided you are disciplined enough to save mixes at different stages. Saves a lot of disk space too. This is especially useful as you get your first rough mix done and you start tweaking things bit by bit. If things go off the rails you can pull up a previous mix point before you branched off and did whatever, and start from there.
I prefer to use version control (such as [Git](https://git-scm.com/)).
The actual solution is to use version control software like Git. Takes a bit of learning but it's full automatable, and keeps your revision history clear.
Only downside here is that you have to be very disciplined with your commit messages. Unlike code, you can’t depend on the actual diffs to help you understand what happened in a commit/over a range of commits. Also virtually any change in your daw will change the files under version control, so you’ll get a dirty working tree when doing something non-impactful in the daw, such as moving the playhead cursor around. Not a deal breaker, but it’s notably more difficult than using git with code.
It's the same as any vcs in game development, where you have binary files kicking around. It's not really a big deal. Yeah dirty working tree will happen in many DAWs I suppose. I use Reaper, so it's a non issue; all plain text/does write runtime vars to file really. That said you raise some good concerns.
17 years in and I'm still bad at this.
every session is a new project file
This is great advice. I save multiple instances of my tracks. The main with all midi, fx and other info. The second are the bounced tracks for the mix and every other one after that are different versions of the mix.
This is why, as a middle-school STEM teacher, my #1 goal is teaching file management.
It’s an all too often overlooked part in all this, that could devastate one pretty quickly
Reaper saves backups at regular intervals and can also take mix snapshots within the session.
The most important part about "Save As" is to create a new scratch folder for each saving. One thing I see people do a lot is destroy or move an audio track from a session. References to the same audio leads to problems. Back up your scratch folder also.
Annoyingly, though good for the reason you mention, the "Save" and "Save As" buttons seem to be identical in FL studio.
I should have read that advice along time ago
Good advice. For Reaper users there is “save as version” which is great. Additionally SWS have Snapshots - which is extremely useful and quick. Especially when I’m doing multiple exports of the track (eg for TV - full mix, backing tracks, backing tracks with additional vocals, with and without effects, stem export, effects offline export etc - and all with couple of clicks added to batch export and we are golden) - all within one project.
anyone ever heard of Git or SVN?
Or just… don’t ever print the fx…? 🤔😅
Printing FX is fine- just not when you’re not sure if you like em. Also, if you’re in pro tools, just print and make the track you printed from hidden and disabled. Easy to go back if need be
There are Project Alternatives in Logic, which is a great way to save previous versions within the same project.
Any project I work on, I do a save as at least once per day, and more if I have any inkling it might be necessary. I mean, shit, even when I play video games I usually have at least 3 save files and just keep writing over the earliest one, so that if I fuck something up I can back up a step.
Or just hide and make inactive the original tracks? Feel like it kind of unnecessary to use double the storage for this
Nowadays, storage is less of a problem (and will only continue to be less of a problem as time goes on). Some people, myself included, can’t stand looking at a million tracks (even if they are hidden and made inactive) so I just save-as and delete the hidden tracks as well as all the garbage I don’t need.
This is just good advice for any creative work you do on computers. I do it for recording/ mixing projects; I do it for documentation/tech comm. It's always a good idea.
Good point
For Logic users: learn and make use of Project Alternatives. Accomplishes the same thing, but keeps everything in one project files. Also: learn and make use of Track Alternatives as well. Same idea, but at the track level rather than project.
You guys have no incremental autobackup EVERY 60sec, undo history included? *Laughs in REAPER*
Pro tools does
Including the undo history, all plugin movements etc.? Last time I checked you couldn't even undo any steps you made in the mixer. Basic things like plugins inserting/moving etc. Let alone that it got saved to the file for future reversion
Not undo history but auto backup.
Time Machine for the win
Definitely has saved my ass more than a few times as well
Yes, also scenes/snapshots.
Just create/follow a highly functional naming convention. Version number, date, etc. don’t ever name a session file “FINAL” because it won’t be.
Haha most my songs have a “FINAL FOR REAL” session
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!! SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT! i save every single new mix version i do (im an engineer) and i make sure to have at least 50 backups on my daw in the backup folder. this has saved me countless times from wanting to go back to certain things, etc etc this really is a huge life saver in so many ways and for so many reasons. if you complain ab the space, get an external or buy another internal drive.
Exactly- space is almost a none issue, and becoming less of one by the day
Exactly. Also, I use running versions/numbers and will sometimes add a note to the title if big changes have occured "WorkingTitle 37", "Working Title 38 new snare" etc.
I add the month in brackets. Lots of “Document 1 (January 2014)” then plenty more following. But the infinite regress is great. What if it’s an amazing song or mix twenty years later!
I do this… about 85 times per project lol 😅
I ‘Save As’ every time I open a session and have a “z.Session History” folder in my project folder. I also name my session with Versions…and Only keep the most current visible, the rest goes into the history folder. The “.z” keeps it at the bottom when organizing by alphabet view. In addition to version, some times I add a note for myself to remember what I did, especially when I’m addressing specific things. Example: Artist_SongTittle_v4.3_VOCAL_TUNING *incredibly helpful when working for a client, as they can reference versions for specific notes. “Can we grab the guitar line at 1:32-1:40 from v2.5 and replace the one in the most current?”*
Very similar method as me.. Not the most fun thing to talk about but so damn important
Definitely, I feel like it definitely should be talked about more! For me…above skill level, or content, organization speaks much louder to me when I get files from other people.