Export Tracks as Track Names

[Light Grenade]

I'm regularly boucing stems and tracks, either for archiving or for sending to another engineer to mix. I'd really benefit from the track export function to keep the same names as the cakewalk track names.  I know Reaper lets you do this.

If this existed, I could name tracks like:
01_Kick In
02_Kick Out
03_Snare Top

and they would appear in the window file explorer, in order, and in a naming convetion most engineers are happy with. It would also mean tracks could be imported into any DAW in order.
 
As it currently stands, the export with a convention like:
Songname-TrackName-Number

They're then all out of order in the file explorer, and I have to go in a rename every single track, which can be time consuming.

Edited January 31, 2020 by Light Grenade

[chuckebaby]

56 minutes ago, Light Grenade said:

I know Reaper lets you do this.

I like the use of Reaper as a "Dramatic effect" ?

But to be totally honest, i agree with you. I would love to have tracks exported with same track names. Makes life easy when you can drag and drop 20 tracks and have them remain in order with names you gave tracks.

[Bill Phillips]

1 hour ago, Light Grenade said:

I'm regularly boucing stems and tracks, either for archiving or for sending to another engineer to mix. I'd really benefit from the track export function to keep the same names as the cakewalk track names.  I know Reaper lets you do this.

If this existed, I could name tracks like:
01_Kick In
02_Kick Out
03_Snare Top

and they would appear in the window file explorer, in order, and in a naming convetion most engineers are happy with. It would also mean tracks could be imported into any DAW in order.
 
As it currently stands, the export with a convention like:
Songname-TrackName-Number

They're then all out of order in the file explorer, and I have to go in a rename every single track, which can be time consuming.

Have you tried exporting tracks? You'll need to add some text in the file name box ("Latest Edit" for example). The exported track files will be named "Latest Edit Track Name." Does that work for you? If it does either pick an export preset that works or define and save a new one.

[Light Grenade]

2 minutes ago, Bill Phillips said:

Have you tried exporting tracks? You'll need to add some text in the file name box ("Latest Edit" for example). The exported track files will be named "Latest Edit Track Name." Does that work for you? If it does either pick an export preset that works or define and save a new one.

Yeah, that's what I do, but the tracks export with a much longer name than needed, and then I have to rename in the file explorer. I'd just like exported tracks to use the track name only.  With the Cakewalk naming convention, DAW's, or the file explorer don't know how to automatically order the tracks,

Examples attached.

[Base 57]

If you export Clips and leave the name field blank the resulting files will have the same name as the source clips.

[Bill Phillips]

1 hour ago, Light Grenade said:

Yeah, that's what I do, but the tracks export with a much longer name than needed, and then I have to rename in the file explorer. I'd just like exported tracks to use the track name only.  With the Cakewalk naming convention, DAW's, or the file explorer don't know how to automatically order the tracks,

Examples attached.

Wouldn't omitting the word "Silencer" leaving only the"-" solve the problem? You'd have the edited name you show preceded by a dash.

[Light Grenade]

31 minutes ago, Bill Phillips said:

Wouldn't omitting the word "Silencer" leaving only the"-" solve the problem? You'd have the edited name you show preceded by a dash.

No, because I'd still need to go in and edit the ''-'' out of every file, and the numbers would still occur at the end.

The idea is that a mixing engineer could import every single file, to any daw, in order without renaming anything at all.

I bounce tracks weekly, so it's time consuming renaming 50+ tracks all the time.

Edited January 31, 2020 by Light Grenade

[Light Grenade]

1 hour ago, Base 57 said:

If you export Clips and leave the name field blank the resulting files will have the same name as the source clips.

Cheers, I'll have a look at this.

[Bill Phillips]

6 hours ago, Light Grenade said:

No, because I'd still need to go in and edit the ''-'' out of every file, and the numbers would still occur at the end.

The idea is that a mixing engineer could import every single file, to any daw, in order without renaming anything at all.

I bounce tracks weekly, so it's time consuming renaming 50+ tracks all the time.

I don't use Reaper. So I can't be sure but it appears that you've adopted Reaper's file naming convention as the only acceptable way to name a file. Since you're using Cakewalk, why not adopting Cakewalk's naming convention and save yourself some work?

For me "01_Kick In" is incomplete particularly if I have 50+ tracks a day to keep track of. I include the artist and song name, as well as the date in every project file name.

 

[Davydh]

A great suggestion

[Light Grenade]

9 hours ago, Bill Phillips said:

Since you're using Cakewalk, why not adopting Cakewalk's naming convention and save yourself some work?

Because not every engineer I'm working with uses Cakewalk. The majority of them ask for tracks to be named this way, it's pretty standard. 

If more control over file naming existed, everyone would save time. 

[HIBI]

Yes, it would be nice if there will be customize option of file name format when export.

• Add Song (Project) name to the beginning of the file names
• Add Track numbers to the beginning of Track names
• Add Date to all files
• Add Time to all files

etc...

[Bill Phillips]

5 hours ago, HIBI said:

Yes, it would be nice if there will be customize option of file name format when export.

• Add Song (Project) name to the beginning of the file names
• Add Track numbers to the beginning of Track names
• Add Date to all files
• Add Time to all files

etc...

That that along with track or clip name would be nice for everything (import, export and bounce).

Edited February 1, 2020 by Bill Phillips
Clarification

[Jim Fogle]

Keeping the track number first and then the track label as the name for exported tracks makes sense to me.  One of the things that makes Cakewalk by BandLab useful to so many different people is how adaptable the program is. 

It's not unusual for studios and libraries to have a unique track naming convention so allowing a user to specify a naming convention for exported tracks makes sense.

[grannis]

It wouldn't be hard to create an option to tokenise the filename - choose the contents, the order and the separator so you can have them exactly as you want. 

One connected and equally annoying "feature" is that if you deselect a track during the export (let's say you are re-exporting to fix an issue, but some of the tracks were ok and don't need to be re-exported) Cakewalk re-numbers the tracks, so instead of overwriting the previous version, you get both, with different track numbers - very confusing until I figured out what it was doing.

In the unlikely event that I do want the track number (and I can't think that I will, if we have an option to suppress it) I would want it at the beginning of the file name, and to contain the actual track number in the project.

A minor gripe in an otherwise great tool!  

[Jim Fogle]

CD burner programs and other programs that export files in batches typically have a batch file title editor that applies whatever naming convention the user desires.  The screen shot below is from the free file naming program, MP3 Tag.

Essentially you want a file naming editor that lets a user select various track and project properties, reorder the properties as desired and the file naming editor automatically applies the track names during export.

[Josh Wolfer]

Working in film, I have to batch rename tracks all the time. Powershell is your friend.

Example: 

dir | rename-item -NewName {$_.name -replace "c1","Mix.L"}
dir | rename-item -NewName {$_.name -replace "c2","Mix.R"}
dir | rename-item -NewName {$_.name -replace "c3","L"}
dir | rename-item -NewName {$_.name -replace "c4","R"}

[Glenn Stanton]

also - handy for renaming: https://tools.stefankueng.com/StExBar.html you can also use a regex in a simple ui to do the replacements...

[Xoo]

And the new PowerToys has a shell extension (Power Rename) that may do what you want too:

https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

[Jim Fogle]

Power Toys, StExBar, Power Shell are all answers that exist outside Cakewalk by BandLab.

Imagine accessing Preferences, selecting "Export Track Name Editor" and then set up exactly how you want the track names to read when they are exported.   There could be multiple editor pages so you could swap pages to manage different needs.