DAWproject file exchange standard

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

3 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

Not everyone wants to learn or maintain a ProTools centric workflow. Or has the money to do so.

I never said they did. I just said learn one DAW really well because they can all do everything. 

[Byron Dickens]

I much prefer the workflow and experience of mixing in Harrison Mixbus but editing (especially MIDI) is FAR better in Cakewalk.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

On 10/29/2023 at 9:13 PM, Byron Dickens said:

I much prefer the workflow and experience of mixing in Harrison Mixbus but editing (especially MIDI) is FAR better in Cakewalk.

But do the mixes come out any better ? 

[John Vere]

Few years ago during Covid a friend of mine who uses Pro Tools and Mac stuff asked me to record  a bass track and put a copy of the project in Google drive.
I had found this free version of Pro Tools First. It was pretty easy to do. I just was missing all his weird plug ins. Then I realized that I actually had a lot of them but was in the habit of unchecking the AXX box.  
I don’t understand the negative attitude towards Pro Tools often found  here as I find it very user friendly and it’s pretty high on my list of a suitable DAW for my workflow.  
I also have Cubase and Mixbus which haven’t seen the light of day since the last big panic in 2016 

[Starship Krupa]

I did some digging and PreSonus and Bitwig have DAWProject on GitHub.

@azslow3, you may find it interesting. I'd love to hear what you have to say about it if you take a look under the hood.

PreSonus have a page that points to developer resources for ARA and other extensions to the VST spec that they are involved with.

I'm especially intrigued by the PreSonus Plug-In Extensions. Among many other things, it seems to allow VSTi's to report to the DAW what articulations they have available.

I'm impressed by how cozy Studio One seems to be with certain manufacturers' plug-ins (specifically brainworx/Plugin Alliance), and now I know what's behind that. Kudos to them for putting the extensions out into the wild for everyone to use.

Cakewalk has a proud history of embracing stuff like this (ARA, Groove Clips), and I'd love to see that continue with Cakewalk Sonar.

[azslow3]

4 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I did some digging and PreSonus and Bitwig have DAWProject on GitHub.

@azslow3, you may find it interesting. I'd love to hear what you have to say about it if you take a look under the hood.

My opinion about DAWProject is still the same as early in this thread
I can write CWP to DAWProject, but not reverse direction. But ReaCWP followed by ProjectConverter (probably) can do the trick.

Every DAW has own "extensions" for VST. Some have more capabilities then other, some are published (f.e. SO, REAPER) other are proprietary (f.e Cakewalk). The same for not DAW specific extensions (ARA is proprietary, but corresponding registration is possible for any developer). Note that DAW extensions intersect even less then other features, I mean if you use specific DAW extension it probably will not exist in other DAWs.

 

[Starship Krupa]

34 minutes ago, azslow3 said:

DAW extensions intersect even less then other features, I mean if you use specific DAW extension it probably will not exist in other DAWs.

The closer one stays to an ecosystem the greater the chances of compatibility I'd think. My guess is that S1<>REAPER via DAWProject might stand a better chance of arriving with PreSonus Plug-in Extension API-specific information intact due to REAPER being a host that also makes use of the PreSonus Extensions API.

We may be focusing on and making a bigger deal about what happens with FX plug-ins than the expected use of the format warrants. To the extent that I use plug-ins during the tracking phase of an audio project, they're typically not in the critical path (comfort reverb, maybe some compression on backing tracks for easy monitoring). Mixing and mastering is when the plug-ins go on. An amp sim might be an important element while tracking but not much else I can think of at the moment.

I'm with you all the way on DAWProject being for one-way trip workflows. I can think of why some people might want to try going back and forth, but it seems like asking for trouble.

[satchmo-x]

This x 1000. I was going to suggest it, but found this thread. Thank you, @Starship Krupa! The more DAWs that support this, the more pressure other DAWs vendors will feel and get from their users to support it. OMF failed and is weak. AAF seems like it gets more stuff from DAW A to DAW B, but still lacking, appears complex, and I've seen what looks like active resistance from the Cakewalk Devs for the AAF format.

Honestly, project exchange is one "killer app feature" I feel holds back Cakewalk in professional settings. The new :: cough cough some other product :: version 13 release is just getting some feature parity with Cakewalk. I watched some "Look at the features!!!1!!11!" videos thinking "yup, lack of that is one reason it has felt clunky compared to Cakewalk!" Then I try to port projects from Cakewalk to said DAW, or another number "One" DAW , and wonder why these other 2 DAWs that have every business reason to be hostile to each other manage to exchange projects so much better than Cakewalk does with pretty much any other DAW out there.

Not meant to be a bash on Cakewalk, but my oh my, trying to collaborate with other DAW users feels like a clubbing skull bash on me, the end user.

I add a vote for DAWProject support in the upcoming SONAR release!

Edited November 3, 2023 by satchmo-x

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

6 hours ago, satchmo-x said:

Not meant to be a bash on Cakewalk, but my oh my, trying to collaborate with other DAW users feels like a clubbing skull bash on me, the end user.

I collab with lots of people on music for TV ( vocalists , more specialised instrumentalists etc. )  and I'm yet to meet anyone working in that part of the industry that exchanges DAW files with each other. We all just send audio stems, even the folks that use the same DAW because the likelihood of everyone having the same plugins and VSTi's is slim to none.  A guitarist buddy of mine once sent me his project to mix and we made sure he didn't use any plugins I hadn't got so I just cake his Cakewalk Project....Ughhhh..garish colours everywhere, things laid out in the wrong order, no busses etc.

It's just far easier to import audio into your own preferred template and on the rare occassion we ever decide we need to re-do a midi part we just ask for it.

6 hours ago, satchmo-x said:

I add a vote for DAWProject support in the upcoming SONAR release!

 So I vote "No" and to spend the dev time on more fundamental issues like the big missing features people have been asking for at least the last 5yrs ( ie. Sampler - Chord track - Better Hardware integration etc )   rather than devising a complex solution to a problem that is better solved in other ways.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Mark Morgon-Shaw

[Starship Krupa]

24 minutes ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

I collab with lots of people on music for TV ( vocalists , more specialised instrumentalists etc. )  and I'm yet to meet anyone working in that part of the industry that exchanges DAW files with each other.

Did you look at the pages I linked to?

The motivation isn't collaboration:

Quote

About the DAWproject file format

DAWproject is an open and free file format that makes it much easier to move from one DAW to another, enabling producers to choose their preferred DAW for specific tasks.

The target use isn't collaborators who prefer different DAW's and want to go back and forth.

It's for "I like composing in Bitwig due to the MIDI tools specific to Bitwig, but when the project gets closer to completion I prefer Studio One's console and the ability to sync to video."

The ability for person A at facility 1 to start their project in one DAW and sending it off to person B at facility 2 for completion is less likely and not even mentioned by the sources I linked to.

The target use is a single user or organization that wants to be able to start a project in one DAW and then continue working on it in a different DAW. Not incidentally, a situation where licenses for any plug-ins involved will be owned by the person(s) doing the migrating.

I'd like to pronounce that straw man beaten to death, but since people seem to leap to the conclusion that it's about enable multiple creators who prefer different DAW's to collaborate that I'm sure he'll rise again....

And for the record, it's not a feature that I personally would make use of at this point. My DAW of choice is Cakewalk, and if that were to change, migration would take place via the traditional audio and MIDI files. I'm advocating for it because I think that it would benefit Cakewalk Sonar (and users other than me) to support it. Practically and symbolically. If Sonar were to be an early supporter, it would get the name out there and being discussed by people who need to know that such a program even exists.

Here's a joke I thought of that illustrates my attitude toward interoperability standards.

Q: Remember the synthesizer companies that decided not to support MIDI?

A: Yeah, me neither.

[Xoo]

4 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I'm advocating for it because I think that it would benefit Cakewalk Sonar (and users other than me) to support it. Practically and symbolically. If Sonar were to be an early supporter, it would get the name out there and being discussed by people who need to know that such a program even exists.

This!

[Bapu]

On 11/2/2023 at 2:53 AM, azslow3 said:

I can write CWP to DAWProject

Really? Where? How?

The reason I ask is when I use ReaCWP to open a new .rpp and then use ProjectConverter to write the .rpp to DAWProject format,

That DAWproect file opens in Bitwig and pretty much works (some VSTs come over with odd states compared to the original).

However, the DAWProject file opens in Studio One but no audio clips are present, all the tracks/folders are there though.

[Bapu]

On 11/2/2023 at 10:37 PM, satchmo-x said:

I add a vote for DAWProject support in the upcoming SONAR release!

+1,000,000

[Bapu]

18 minutes ago, Bapu said:

Really? Where? How?

The reason I ask is when I use ReaCWP to open a new .rpp and then use ProjectConverter to write the .rpp to DAWProject format,

That DAWproect file opens in Bitwig and pretty much works (some VSTs come over with odd states compared to the original).

However, the DAWProject file opens in Studio One but no audio clips are present, all the tracks/folders are there though.

@azslow3 
On further testing this *only* happened with a ReaCWP created .rpp. If I use ProjectConverter on a .rpp fully created from scratch it loads with all audio clips in Studio One and of course Bitwig. This would indicate that there is something about how ReaCWP created the .rpp and passed that off to Project Converter that boinks up Studio One but not Bitwig.

[Bapu]

@azslow3 Of course I could probably use ReaCWP -> Reaper -> ProjectConverter -> Bitwig ->DAWproject -> Studio One if it was needed

 

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

On 10/31/2023 at 12:15 PM, John Vere said:

I don’t understand the negative attitude towards Pro Tools often found  here as I find it very user friendly and it’s pretty high on my list of a suitable DAW for my workflow.

I can give you a few:

- Workflow based around and makes use of terminology that only people that have worked with tape machines are familiar with.

- Keyboard shortcuts are hard coded to your keyboard layout. The program is not smart enough to detect you don't have a US keyboard and you manually have to change it in the settings on top of manually remapping conflicts for shortcuts you'll probably never use.

- Unnecessary separation between stereo an mono plugins that often generates unnecessary duplication on modern plugins which can tell which signal they're receiving. This is on par with how Waves still makes plugins.

This one is a pet peeve of mine:

- The demo song which is specifically made for Intro has more tracks than Intro can open.

[Bapu]

15 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

I can give you a few:

- Workflow based around and makes use of terminology that only people that have worked with tape machines are familiar with.

- Keyboard shortcuts are hard coded to your keyboard layout. The program is not smart enough to detect you don't have a US keyboard and you manually have to change it in the settings on top of manually remapping conflicts for shortcuts you'll probably never use.

- Unnecessary separation between stereo an mono plugins that often generates unnecessary duplication on modern plugins which can tell which signal they're receiving. This is on par with how Waves still makes plugins.

This one is a pet peeve of mine:

- The demo song which is specifically made for Intro has more tracks than Intro can open.

- 1980's archaic infrastructure with a 2000's paint job

 

 

Disclaimer, I have a perpetual license for Pro Tools with three more years of maintenance.

[azslow3]

On 11/4/2023 at 9:03 PM, Bapu said:

Really? Where? How?

Sorry, that statement was theoretical... I mean apart from Cakewalk, I am the only person which knows CWP format sufficiently to convert it into something...

On 11/4/2023 at 9:03 PM, Bapu said:

The reason I ask is when I use ReaCWP to open a new .rpp and then use ProjectConverter to write the .rpp to DAWProject format,

That DAWproect file opens in Bitwig and pretty much works (some VSTs come over with odd states compared to the original).

However, the DAWProject file opens in Studio One but no audio clips are present, all the tracks/folders are there though.

For VST conversion problems... Is it about VST2, VST3 or both?

Recently I have found that ReaCWP doesn't convert correctly some VST3 presets. I have a bit better code, but I have not put it into ReaCWP yet (it was written for other VST presets related utility...).

But there is yet another possible problem, not really tested by me nor confirmed by someone else: https://forums.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=281800
So it can happened I have overseen something.

In case:

1) the problem you observe is with VST3
2) the state of the VST is correct in REAPER
3) you have a minute (since you know exact VST and state which does not work, I guess the test will not take long),

Please for VST/state in question save .vstpreset (state file) in REAPER and load it in Bitwig. Does it loads correctly?
Note that REAPER bug (if there is real bug) probably affect just some VST3 and particular states, since many don't use the second section for state (or ignore it).

On 11/4/2023 at 9:22 PM, Bapu said:

On further testing this *only* happened with a ReaCWP created .rpp. If I use ProjectConverter on a .rpp fully created from scratch it loads with all audio clips in Studio One and of course Bitwig. This would indicate that there is something about how ReaCWP created the .rpp and passed that off to Project Converter that boinks up Studio One but not Bitwig.

"Standards", especially complex, especially at the beginning, are rarely implemented completely and without bugs. I guess something about audio clips as created by ReaCWP is not implemented in Studio One (DAWProject importer) yet. ReaCWP tries to match clip parameters in Cakewalk (time base, length, offsets, loops). Directly created in REAPER project follows current defaults, which can be different. If you give an example to Jürgen (the author of ProjectConverter), he can probably understand the reason quick (since he knows exactly what and how is converted, so he can guess what from that can be incompatible).

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

On 11/3/2023 at 1:42 PM, Starship Krupa said:

It's for "I like composing in Bitwig due to the MIDI tools specific to Bitwig, but when the project gets closer to completion I prefer Studio One's console and the ability to sync to video."

Ah. The dabblers and dilettantes  . Gotcha.  They are the prevailing demographic after all I guess.  

[Starship Krupa]

9 hours ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

Ah. The dabblers and dilettantes  . Gotcha.  They are the prevailing demographic after all I guess.  

The preferred term is "hobbyists," thankyouverymuch. 🤨