Is it possible to move/ copy track folder between projects?

[Misha]

Today is my noob day

Can somebody please let me know if it is possible to move a "track folder" from one project to another.

Track folder contains several tracks with about 100 or so take lanes in them most of them are muted of course.., but I do want to keep it like this.

Please let me know.

Thank you.

[msmcleod]

If you select all the tracks in your folder, you can use Copy Special / Paste Special.

None of the effects or instruments get copied across though.

Edited February 28, 2019 by msmcleod

[Misha]

msmcleod, 

Thanks, but it does not work well, because copy/paste track command does not preserve "mutes" on take lanes. So when I paste track on new project dozens of take lanes play simultaneously 

[msmcleod]

Copying tracks between projects is incredibly bad in Cakewalk.

The best you'll get is the basic events (e.g. audio / midi events). Hardly anything else is copied across.

If I want to copy an instrument track from one project to another, I've got to set up the instrument track in the destination project first with the right soft synth patch etc, then I can copy the events across.

Even dragging a project in from the media browser doesn't solve this, although you do at least get all your audio & midi tracks created... they're just not hooked up properly, and none of the effects or ProChannel settings are duplicated.

I made a suggestion a while back that the "Duplicate Track" function allowed a "destination project" selection if more than one was loaded. Obviously with a folder, it would mean a multiple selection of tracks, but the same thing applies.

Let's hope the CbB developers do something about it.

Imagine not being able to copy a formatted paragraph from one word document into another. This is really bread & butter functionality. It really needs some attention IMHO.

[William W. Saunders, Jr.]

The answer is YES and its a great little tool.  It will copy all effects and other settings but NOT any audio or MIDI recorded in the tracks.  (But you can always copy and paste those in.)  Here's how: 

Select the folder and everything in it by clicking on the space to the left of the folder icon.  Then go to the top menu bar and click FILE>EXPORT>TRACK TEMPLATE.  The folder where your track templates are stored will open and you can name the exported template and save it.

To bring the folder and tracks into a new project, go to the top menu bar and click INSERT>TRACK TEMPLATE  Then the folder will open and you can select the template you just exported.  When imported it  will also recreate any buses that the tracks were assigned too , along with any effects that were loaded in them.

 

Enjoy,

Bill

Edited February 28, 2019 by BRainbow

[msmcleod]

1 minute ago, BRainbow said:

The answer is YES and its a great little tool.  It will copy all effects and other settings but NOT any audio or MIDI recorded in the tracks.  Here's how: 

Select the folder and everything in it by clicking on the space to the left of the folder icon.  Then go to the top menu bar and click FILE>EXPORT>TRACK TEMPLATE.  The folder where your track templates are stored will open and you can name the exported template and save it.

To bring the folder and tracks into a new project, go to the top menu bar and click INSERT>TRACK TEMPLATE  Then the folder will open and you can select the template you just exported.  When imported it  will also recreate any buses that the tracks were assigned too , along with any effects that were loaded in them.

 

Enjoy,

Bill

This is an excellent solution - nice one Bill.

[Misha]

Man, I saw that "template" thing today, but I thought, it has something to do with template without content.

Bill, if it works, huge thank you!

I am in the middle of the project, but will try it in the morning.

 

[msmcleod]

Unfortunately this goes horribly wrong with instrument tracks.

So I do these steps:

• Select all my folder, export as a template
• Open my new project, and insert the template.  All good so far.
• Copy Special from the first project
• Paste Special into the second... 

For instrument tracks, it skips a track each time, and creates a bunch of extra tracks at the end. 

In other words:

• Source Track 1 -> Dest Track 1
• Source Track 2 -> Dest Track 3
• Source Track 3 -> Dest Track 5  etc..

 

[msmcleod]

Ok, found a workaround for this.

So when using instrument tracks:

• Select all your tracks in source project
• Export as a track template
• In new project, insert the track template
• In source project, freeze all of your tracks
• Select all of your source tracks again, Copy Special
• Paste Special into new project, starting at the appropriate track, with "Replace Old with New" selected on the dialog
• Delete the extra audio tracks it's created at the end

Note: It's really important you create your track template with the UNFROZEN tracks, otherwise after pasting into your project, the tracks get into some half frozen state: the MIDI data is in the track, but it thinks the track is frozen & has not linked up the audio, so you can't unfreeze it.

Edited February 28, 2019 by msmcleod

[Craig Anderton]

Would OMF work for the audio, if you converted the takes to WAV files?

[Misha]

Insert track template does not work, as  it does not retain take lanes (places) and mutes. 

It  imports a single take lane into new project. Freezing will not be good choice too, because it copies only "unmuted" lanes.

Strange, I thought there would be a way... 

[msmcleod]

The only reason I tried freezing the tracks, was to fix the issue with instrument tracks.

With instrument tracks, if you don't freeze, all the tracks get pasted in the wrong places and the tracks are left in an unusable state - i.e. MIDI clips can end up on audio tracks, instrument tracks think they're frozen but unfrozen clip data is in there, but no way to unfreeze them etc.

Although freezing before copy/pasting seems to get around the issue, I'm not totally confident that the tracks are not in some way compromised. And as you say, things are missing.

I was hoping that the track template workaround would do half the job, and cut special/paste special would do the rest. But it seems there's gaps.

@Noel Borthwick - any advice on how to copy a track in its entirety from one project to another? 

[57Gregy]

Delete all the tracks from your project except the track folder. Save As and name it something else. Close project without saving the deletions.

[Misha]

And how exactly it will help? I will have a project with a single track folder with tracks and track "take lanes" in that folder, most of which are muted.... But how do I import that folder to another project?

 

[msmcleod]

9 minutes ago, 57Gregy said:

Delete all the tracks from your project except the track folder. Save As and name it something else. Close project without saving the deletions.

The issue for me isn't isolating a folder of tracks into one project.

What I want to do is insert tracks into an already populated project from an existing project.

For example, I'm writing a song, I've got the intro, verse and bridge. I suddenly remember a project with a 16 bar section that might work well as a chorus.

I want to be able to open that old project and copy those tracks into my new project.

Intuitively, I'd expect to be able to drag the tracks from one project to another - or at least be able to select the tracks, press CTRL +C, go to my new project and press CTRL+V to paste them in. 

Not only can I do not do that, but so far I've yet to find a workaround that will reliably allow me to do it.

[Misha]

msmcleod, 

yep, that is the goal

Here another scenario.  One person does music/mixing another vocals. When I work on the song, I might have 200+ vocal takes of various elements etc.  Intuitively, I would just share the folder to the person who does the rest, so they can "pick" what works better. And many, many other uses for the sharing track folder between projects.

Before jumping to "request" section, I want to hear from veteran(s), maybe it is possible with some obscure workaround? 

Thanks.

 

[Craig Anderton]

1 hour ago, msmcleod said:

Intuitively, I'd expect to be able to drag the tracks from one project to another - or at least be able to select the tracks, press CTRL +C, go to my new project and press CTRL+V to paste them in.  

Not only can I do not do that, but so far I've yet to find a workaround that will reliably allow me to do it.

You can do it easily if you open up the two projects in a single instance of CbB.  Make sure that under Preferences > File > Advanced, "Allow only one project at a time" is unchecked.

There are some really cool aspects to this. First of all, with audio you don't have to render clips so they start at the beginning! Select the entire track, or drag over the entire track to the beginning (even if there isn't data there), and copy into the second instance - all the clips will end up where you want them. You can also copy/paste multiple tracks. Or if you want the copy to start at an arbitrary place, select the track, drag across the timeline, note where the now time is, place the now time in the same place in the second instance, and paste. (However with MIDI, you do have to slip-edit the beginning of the first clip in a track so it starts at the beginning.)

You can also drag effects from one instance to the other. And if you use the "old school" method of inserting instruments into the FX rack, you can drag instruments over from one instance to another as well.

You can't drag over or copy a track folder, however, you can select all the tracks within the folder and drag or copy them over. Then you can create a folder and put them inside. 

I wrote about this as a "Friday's Tip of the Week," and included it In the original "Big Book of SONAR Tips," as a response to those who complained that SONAR didn't have something like Studio One's scratchpad functionality. I thought it was a reasonably good workaround, but the reaction was so negative about "oh, everything has to be a workaround in SONAR, you suck " that it was one of the few tips I left out of the CbB book. However, the main points are in one of my archived Sound on Sound columns. Although the technique is awkward when you're trying to run multiple projects simultaneously, for  copying clips and effects from one project to another, it's extremely effective. Maybe it's time to write a column specifically about transfer techniques from one CbB project to another, and include an updated version of the original "sandbox" article.

[abacab]

Thia is where adding a "scratchpad" feature to Cakewalk would make a lot of sense.  Especially If you could open up other projects up in the scratchpad area, and then easily move/copy parts of them into your "active" project.

[Craig Anderton]

Just now, abacab said:

Thia is where adding a "scratchpad" feature to Cakewalk would make a lot of sense.  Especially If you could open up other projects up in the scratchpad area, and then easily move/copy parts of them into your "active" project.

See the post above yours

 

[abacab]

1 minute ago, Craig Anderton said:

See the post above yours

 

Craig, no offense to your idea, I was typing before you submitted your reply. It's a brilliant suggestion!

But it would still be nice to have a real "scratchpad" so that the "just another workaround" gang would shut up.