Importing Track Properties ONLY

[johnegenes@gmail.com]

Hi, 

Have been searching for this, and don't know if it's possible in Cakewalk. I would like to import ONLY the track/buss setups from another Cakewalk project into a new one. To explain what I mean...   in Pro Tools you can use "Import -> Session Data". This opens a dialogue box that lets you choose a session to import from, and which tracks/busses you want to import. It will let you import the settings AND the audio, or just the settings OR the audio. It will then ask if you want to paste them onto existing tracks or create new ones. So, you can assign an existing guitar track's setting to your new guitar track, or a Master Buss settings to your new Master Buss. 

I don't want to import audio at all.... just the setups. I know I can "Insert--> Track Template", and I do use that a lot when creating new tracks. But when setting up to mix a session that's already been recorded, once you have all your pans and vols and buss sends set up in your first mix, it'd be nice to transfer those settings to the other songs in your album project. Thanks.

--john

[JnTuneTech]

As far as transferring project settings to an already existing project, I have not done that in Cakewalk.

The closest thing I have done towards that type of procedure is to create a copy of an existing project, with all the data removed from the tracks. Then I generally name it as a template. -Not nearly as easy as what you are looking for, - I know.   But since I do have some often used layouts I like to start from, it really helps.

Saving often used FX chain presets, and ProChannel presets (with FX chain presets in them) can also speed things up, like entire track templates, but on a more granular basis of course.

-On a side note, empty (but not blank) template creation also makes it easy to switch between project audio data rate settings, because as long as no audio data exists in the tracks, the project will open in the currently selected audio mode that Cakewalk is in. I have even used that to convert a project base from one audio rate combo to another, by copying the project to a different folder, without any of the related audio, then bypassing the locate audio dialogue. That even leaves the audio clip names & positions there for reference, and I have then replaced re-sampled versions of the audio clips in the previous locations, and thus already had the same mix tracks, busses, outputs, FX, envelopes, etc. already in place.  -Lots of good uses for templates, including entire project templates.

Edited April 20, 2023 by JnTuneTech

[Base 57]

Track Templates

[johnegenes@gmail.com]

Thanks for the replies. I do, in fact use Track Templates all the time. But here's a typical scenario I'm trying to simplify: 
 

1. I have 10 songs I've recorded for an album project. They're all recorded, with no FX, Sends, or anything else... just raw tracks. 
2. I mix the 1st song. Install plugins, create sends, pans, etc. 
3. I start to mix the 2nd song. It already has all the tracks, and the audio, but it has no settings/pans/sends, etc, so I have to do the same thing all over again.
4. I could import Track Templates [ONE at a time, because each is different].... so, anywhere from 10 to 25 or more tracks. 
5. If I Insert Track Templates, I need to drag EACH audio file from its original track, onto the new Template track, then delete the original track.

You can see where this is going. Lots of painstaking track creations, copying, deleting, etc. Plus, having to do it several times (once for each song). With ten songs, I'm looking at a couple of hundred tracks. The "Import Track Data" method allows you to simply change your existing tracks by pasting a track template onto them. Once you have your first song set up, it's easy to use THAT song as the template for the rest. 

So yes, I do use Track Templates and Project Templates all the time, especially when setting up to record. But for mixing, they involve copying EACH audio file onto them. Thanks for the input. 
 

best,   --john

Edited April 22, 2023 by jegenes

[Andres Medina]

Interesting!

I've had similar scenarios, and indeed it would be a great addition to CW to have this ability...!

Right now it's not implemented, and the only way I know is the rather tedious process you just described. 

There is a section on the forum for  requests: https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/forum/8-feedback-loop/

[JnTuneTech]

I definitely agree with @Andres Medina - that type of feature should be presented in the feedback loop as a feature request. @jegenes - In reading your scenario, I can see it really could be more helpful to the creative process you use - recording raw audio tracks first, and then to be able to copy the mix properties from other projects easily. I would like to do that too, rather than having to pick a mixing format first (before recording), or of course building it all up each time. -Nice!

[John Vere]

To bad that was a video I just deleted. But the answer is using mix recall you can definitely do this. Take to long to type it out but I’ll go look for my script later. 

[scook]

given all the projects start with the same topology try sharing mix recall files.

 

[John Vere]

Here's the script from the video. It's sort of confusing without the visual but the important steps are still here. Mostly what you want is near the end. The key thing as you'll read in scooks post above is the drag and drop of the mix recall file. 

Sharing a mix scene with other projects.

Mix recall stores the scenes in a special folder you will find inside your projects folder.  We can use the browser to find and open it.

In this demo project I’ve not saved any mix scenes yet so the folder is empty.

  I’ll mute a corresponding track number so you can see the different mixes. .

If I click the Snapshot icon I get this dialogue and it say’s Mix 1. You see it now shows in the Mix Recall folder and it has the name of the project as part of the file name. Notice the CWM file extension.

  Now pay attention.  I’ll Mute track 2 and save as a new scene. This time we will re name it “ July Mix.”

 Notice the name in the folder is still the project name Mix 2. Did I loose you yet?

 I’ll save this project.

And now I’ll also use SAVE AS and re name it with NEW in the name and I will stay inside the original project folder. This would be how you might manage different versions of your projects. They will share the audio folder and as you’ll see, the Mix recall folder.   

I’ll now mute track 3 and save the scene which is now Mix 3 and now notice the NEW in the file name.

 I’ll mute track 4 now and it saves as mix 4.

Lets save and close this project and return to the original.

Well browse back to the Mix recall folder

It still contains all 4 mixes.

But if you look in the Mix scenes list  here,     only mix 1 and July Mix are showing.

So let’s share a scene and see what happens. Mix 3 and 4 are from the second version of this same project but they don’t show on the list in the Mix recall module.

So we have to copy them from the Mix Recall Folder.

 If I drag and drop Mix 4 into the track pane notice track 4 is now muted so I’ve successfully applied Mix 4 to this project.

 If I save it right now it will overwrite July Mix. But I’ll save as a new scene which you see is scene 3 but gets the correct project name. This is why I took the time to go into this in detail for you as the naming system will trip you up if you don’t understand it fully.   

The sharing scenes is a great way to work with multiple projects from a live band session. It’s also handy if you have already saved a few version of the same song under different names but didn’t change the tracks and buses around.  

 In conclusion Mix Recall is an easy way to quickly compare different mixes of the same project but can also be applied to many other scenarios.   Thanks for watching.  

Edited April 22, 2023 by John Vere

[Andres Medina]

Uh, this is BIG NEWS!

So, CW is capable of doing what the OP needed to do. Fantastic! Never occured to me it was possible.

I will give it a try.

--- 

Edit: I already tried it and works like a charm. It even adds the plugins from the source project, with all parameters updated, plus all the corresponding  bus/track parameters.

I wish I knew this before. This is why this forum is so great.

Thanks to all -

Edited April 23, 2023 by Andres Medina

[John Vere]

The thing is the projects need to be from the same template and no additional tracks added. So it works best for live recordings where the project was kept identical through out the session. 
You dial in the first song and go to town on effects. Then the other songs from the session will fall in place easily with very little if any changes needed. 

[JnTuneTech]

2 hours ago, John Vere said:

The thing is the projects need to be from the same template and no additional tracks added.

Yes - it is a helpful method. -Not quite the feature that is being described by the OP though.   Great info - option to be sure, I will add this info to my toolbox! So far, I only recall (no pun intended) using that feature once some time ago, but since my live input status needed to change on a track, it didn't seem to do what I needed back then.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

So, you essentially want the "Import Session Data" feature ProTools has. Would be quite useful.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Bruno de Souza Lino

[johnegenes@gmail.com]

Thanks for all the responses. I appreciate it. And to John Vere, a big thank you. I had not considered using Mix Scenes (recall...). This might work well. In an album project, it's often the case that most of the songs have the same tracks, although there might be one or two tracks missing, added, or altered during mixdown. But if I can create a master template beforehand, then import a Mix Scene from it,  that would work for the most part. Might still have to do some track setups from scratch, but no big deal. Thanks for the tip, John Vere, and I'll save your description and try to go through it.  And thanks to everyone for the link to the Feature Requests. I'll drop this request there. 

On a related topic: I usually end up with anywhere from 6 to 10 busses. Some are just groups (Drums, Bass, Vocal, BG Vocals, Instruments, etc), and I generally have 3 reverb busses as well. I generally use the same plugins and settings, so I just create a Track Template to set them up in a new project. Here's how I do that: 

Once you have all your busses correctly installed, with plugins, etc: 

1. Create a new audio track
2. On that track, create a send TO EACH OF THE BUSSES (so, if you have 6 busses, that track should have 6 sends)
3. Leave the sends set at 0dB (unity gain)
4. Leave track volume and pan alone
5. Type in a track name ("BUSS SETUP", etc..)
6. Right click track and "SAVE AS--> TRACK TEMPLATE
7. Name the template (BUSS SETUP, etc) 

To create your buss setup in a new or existing project, do this: 

1. Delete all existing busses
2. "Insert Track from Track Template"
3. Once it inserts all the busses, delete the new track. 

As if by magic, you have a complete set of busses! Don't forget to reset your outputs and sends to those busses on your tracks! 

best,   --je 

Edited April 24, 2023 by jegenes

[Michael Vogel]

On 4/23/2023 at 10:33 AM, Andres Medina said:

Uh, this is BIG NEWS!

So, CW is capable of doing what the OP needed to do. Fantastic! Never occured to me it was possible.

I will give it a try.

--- 

Edit: I already tried it and works like a charm. It even adds the plugins from the source project, with all parameters updated, plus all the corresponding  bus/track parameters.

I wish I knew this before. This is why this forum is so great.

Thanks to all -

It’s really well explained in the manual. It’s such a fabulous resource, I wish more people would study it as they’d get a far deeper appreciation of all that CbB can do. 
Despite all the great features that have been added over the years I never tire of highlighting how big a feature Mix Recall is. 
The Reference guide  is like a feature and there’s a reason it’s so large. 

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

But that

On 4/22/2023 at 9:41 PM, John Vere said:

The thing is the projects need to be from the same template and no additional tracks added. So it works best for live recordings where the project was kept identical through out the session. 
You dial in the first song and go to town on effects. Then the other songs from the session will fall in place easily with very little if any changes needed. 

So it's not the same as PT's Import Session Data. At least the way I see it, you don't even need to replicate the track setup if you don't want to and can set different routings whilst still retaining aspects of the session you want to import data from like the tempo and such. You can also do that in Studio One, although I'm not sure how versatile it is in comparison to PT's.

Mix Recalls and Track Templates are useful tools, but they're not the same thing.

[John Vere]

This is why a person should use the DAW that works for you .  Each will have certain features unique to only that DAW. 
Cakewalk can’t always do what Pro Tools can do and in probably more ways Pro Tools can’t always do what Cakewalk can do.  
Actually for me Pro Tools is a DAW I like second best and I found it user friendly unlike the rest of them. So why not just use it?  It’s very good at Audio projects but Cakewalk has it beat for using midi tracks ( for me anyway) 

[Lord Tim]

Import Session Data is really high on my (very extensive) wish list.  You can get around it by doing track template saves and copying data over - I tile projects side by side when I do this so it's easy to see what's going on - but that would save a few extra steps for sure.

[johnegenes@gmail.com]

Lord Tim: Not sure how you do Track Template saves, then copy the data over. I do use Track Templates all the time (see posts above). I've tried to find a Copy/Paste method where I can simply copy track settings, then paste into an existing, recorded track, but I don't see that option anywhere. Can you explain? Thanks. 

John Vere: You're right, every DAW has its strengths/weaknesses for each of us. I've been using Cakewalk since 1987 (Ver 1.0), back when Greg Hendershott first programmed it as a MIDI sequencer and it ran on a floppy disk. I have upgraded through the years and have always liked the company, as it has always had a good online presence, with a forum full of helpful members. I was sad to see it go, but am very happy to see that Bandlab is continuing in its original spirit, and it now has forums full of helpful folks again. 

Also, I didn't intend this to be a "Pro Tools vs Cakewalk" thread. I use both (primarily Cakewalk), and several other DAWs, including Cubase, Reaper, Harrison MixBus, WaveLab, and even Audacity. Each has special tools that I use in it. But I have always found the Cakewalk environment to be the most robust for tracking and mixing. Still, I would LOVE to see the "Import Track Data" that Pro Tools has, as a feature in CW. Thanks for the comments and help.   

best,   --je

[Lord Tim]

4 hours ago, jegenes said:

Lord Tim: Not sure how you do Track Template saves, then copy the data over. I do use Track Templates all the time (see posts above). I've tried to find a Copy/Paste method where I can simply copy track settings, then paste into an existing, recorded track, but I don't see that option anywhere. Can you explain? Thanks. 

No, this is my point - you can't currently do that, which is why I have that feature request.

Currently, you save all tracks in your source project that you'd like the mix to sound like as a Track Template.

Then you'd either make a new project, import in that Track Template and then copy in the tracks from your destination project, or you'd find the project you want to apply these sounds to, pair it down to just tracks, import in the Track Template from your source project, and then drag the tracks into the new ones the Track Template created.

It works, but it's convoluted and full of potential error points.

EDIT: or you'd do what @scook  and @John Vere mentioned earlier in the thread, re: Mix Recall, if the project topology is identical. Mine rarely is, so I tend to do the Track Template / drag tracks into place method.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Lord Tim