Combine Projects

[Michael Richards]

I need to combine tracks of one project with another project. I’ve done this in the past, but I don’t think it was the best method possible. Any thoughts on this?

michael

[gustabo]

Open both projects and copy/paste between them.

 

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

1 hour ago, Michael Richards said:

I need to combine tracks of one project with another project. I’ve done this in the past, but I don’t think it was the best method possible. Any thoughts on this?

michael

This problem will not have  an elegant solution until Cakewalk allows us to do something you can already do in ProTools, Cubase and Studio One, which is importing only certain elements of a project into another.

[gustabo]

24 minutes ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

This problem will not have  an elegant solution until Cakewalk allows us to do something you can already do in ProTools, Cubase and Studio One, which is importing only certain elements of a project into another.

With everything you complain about, it's a wonder you haven't switched...

[John Vere]

If these are audio tracks  what I do is to export the tracks from the first project. Make sure the range is starting at zero. Leave the export location open afterwards.( a Second monitor is handy)  Now open the other project and simply drag and drop those tracks to that project.

Of course the tempo will have to be identical.

If it’s midi I drag and drop with the 2 open. just resize to fit screen. 

Another option is copy paste as mentioned above. both audio and midi. 
The reason I prefer to export audio as a track or stem is it will be starting at zero. And if the track was split up then there’s no weirdness 

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

2 hours ago, gustabo said:

With everything you complain about, it's a wonder you haven't switched...

Without deviation from the norm, progress is impossible.

[gustabo]

2 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

Without deviation from the norm, progress is impossible.

So find something that better suits you.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

1 hour ago, gustabo said:

So find something that better suits you.

Likewise. Complaining about people just wanting to voice their dissatisfaction with their tool of choice or aspects of it changes precisely nothing. Should I start complaining about you instead?

[sjoens]

[Xoo]

This isn't perfect (see later), but it's a way of getting all the track and bus information - minus clips - into a project.

1 - Say you have 2 projects A.cwp and B.cwp and want to merge them into C.cwp
2 - Copy (Windows Explorer) A.cwp as C.cwp
3 - Make sure B.cwp is closed
4 - Copy B.cwp (Windows Explorer) and rename it B.cwx
5 - Open C.cwp
6 - Right click in track view (left pane) and "Insert from track template -> More track template" and browse to B.cwx

[gustabo]

4 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

Likewise. Complaining about people just wanting to voice their dissatisfaction with their tool of choice or aspects of it changes precisely nothing. Should I start complaining about you instead?

Lol! Go for it!

If you find a bug, report it, if you have a suggestion, post it in the Feedback Loop…

[Michael Richards]

15 hours ago, Xoo said:

This isn't perfect (see later), but it's a way of getting all the track and bus information - minus clips - into a project.

1 - Say you have 2 projects A.cwp and B.cwp and want to merge them into C.cwp
2 - Copy (Windows Explorer) A.cwp as C.cwp
3 - Make sure B.cwp is closed
4 - Copy B.cwp (Windows Explorer) and rename it B.cwx
5 - Open C.cwp
6 - Right click in track view (left pane) and "Insert from track template -> More track template" and browse to B.cwx

I'm away from my little studio, but I will give this a try. I think this will solve my problem. Unfortunately, it is not a snap-your-fingers process. My tracks are always a combination of midi instruments and wave files and sometimes the wave files are guitars that utilize a guitar vst like neuraldsp. I don't want to freeze all these tracks before combining.

Thank you, Michael

[Glenn Stanton]

i export the tracks on project A (using export dialog and whole tracks) and import into project B (either import dialog or drag and drop). for MIDI, save the project A as a MIDI file and import the MIDI file into project B. then re-arrange the tracks as desired 🙂 also helpful to make presets for effects and instruments if you need to re-use those and can re-apply them in the project B.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

21 hours ago, gustabo said:

Lol! Go for it!

If you find a bug, report it, if you have a suggestion, post it in the Feedback Loop…

I'll glady report you that there's at least FOUR instances of threads in this very forum either asking if this feature exists in Cakewalk and how to use it or suggesting it because other DAWS (Like ProTools, Cubase and Studio One) have it. Plus it's a very convenient feature to have.

[gustabo]

23 minutes ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

I'll glady report you that there's at least FOUR instances of threads in this very forum either asking if this feature exists in Cakewalk and how to use it or suggesting it because other DAWS (Like ProTools, Cubase and Studio One) have it. Plus it's a very convenient feature to have.

🤔 what?

[msmcleod]

The best way to copy tracks from one project to another:

1. Open both projects in Cakewalk
2. In the source project, select the tracks you want to copy over and save them as a track template.
3. In the destination, insert the track template
4. In the source project, "copy special" the tracks, selecting everything in the options
5. In the destination, ensure the first track that was inserted with the template is active and the now time is at zero
6. Paste Special in the destination project.

You may end up with some superfluous tracks at the end of the project (which you can just delete), but the rest of the tracks should be fine.

I agree that much more could be done to improve inter-project copying, and being a Cakewalk user myself, I'd love to see it happen.  However we're a small team, and it's a matter of juggling priorities.

[Glenn Stanton]

well, sounds like the real short cut is using the "save as" feature 🙂 

[Michael Richards]

On 5/23/2023 at 4:34 AM, msmcleod said:

The best way to copy tracks from one project to another:

1. Open both projects in Cakewalk
2. In the source project, select the tracks you want to copy over and save them as a track template.
3. In the destination, insert the track template
4. In the source project, "copy special" the tracks, selecting everything in the options
5. In the destination, ensure the first track that was inserted with the template is active and the now time is at zero
6. Paste Special in the destination project.

You may end up with some superfluous tracks at the end of the project (which you can just delete), but the rest of the tracks should be fine.

I agree that much more could be done to improve inter-project copying, and being a Cakewalk user myself, I'd love to see it happen.  However we're a small team, and it's a matter of juggling priorities.

Okay, I like this method the best, even though it took a good amount of my brain power to understand it. So, thank you Mark and Xoo for coming in 2nd place in this confusing process. Can you streamline this by combining steps 2 and 4 and then follow with steps 3, 5, and 6?

Michael

Edited May 24, 2023 by Michael Richards
Forgot to say that even though this worked it crashed Cakewalk 3 times.

[bitman]

On 5/23/2023 at 2:34 AM, msmcleod said:

The best way to copy tracks from one project to another:

1. Open both projects in Cakewalk
2. In the source project, select the tracks you want to copy over and save them as a track template.
3. In the destination, insert the track template
4. In the source project, "copy special" the tracks, selecting everything in the options
5. In the destination, ensure the first track that was inserted with the template is active and the now time is at zero
6. Paste Special in the destination project.

You may end up with some superfluous tracks at the end of the project (which you can just delete), but the rest of the tracks should be fine.

I agree that much more could be done to improve inter-project copying, and being a Cakewalk user myself, I'd love to see it happen.  However we're a small team, and it's a matter of juggling priorities.

Firstly, it's not save as track template but export as. - I thought I was stupider than I am.

Secondly, when I tried inserting the track template, the tracks appear then then cakewalk never returns from it's busy state.. over and over.

Using the latest Cake by Bandlab version. the source project is Huge but plays and the destination has 2 tracks one with a region effect that has a lot of work done to it. The region effect cant be edited in the big project due to load.