DAWProject - transferring projects between DAW’s

[conwayt]

Hi, just wondering if the new, upcoming Cakewalk Sonar will incorporate this new file format which facilitates the transfer of projects between different DAW’s?

 

https://www.bitwig.com/stories/bitwig-and-presonus-are-making-it-easy-to-share-projects-between-programs-271/

 

[BigT1]

That definitely looks interesting.

[John Vere]

I don’t think they will be changing the format that we have used for a long time now. It’s really not that hard to move projects if you follow the steps outlined in many videos. 
There can never be a universal project file format as every DAW is different. 

 

[Craig Anderton]

I don't think it's designed to be universal, but to enable taking advantage of a DAW's feature that may not be available in your main DAW.

For example, it wouldn't surprise me if people did tracking and proprietary forms of editing (e.g., audio chord tracks, algorithmic composition tools) in one DAW, then moved it over to Cakewalk to mix due to its fluid mixing environment. Or, created a project in Cakewalk, then moved it over to Bitwig to do the inter-track modulation tricks that make Bitwig seem more like a modular synth. Or, transferred a Cakewalk project temporarily to Digital Performer to do notation, then back to Cakewalk to do everything else.

You can pretty much do all those things now with import/export, but it would be faster to just open up the project in another DAW, do what you want to do, and then go back to where you started (or finish off in the other DAW, e.g., likein the example of moving to Cakewalk and mixing).  At least I think that's how it would work in theory

[Noel Borthwick]

We already have full cross platform project transfer to and from Sonar <==> Next using our own new transfer format. It goes beyond what this does and supports tracks, buses, auxes, plugins, instruments, routing, automation, arranger track, folders and more. Since it's our own interchange format we have full flexibility to rapidly grow as the need arises.

[Jimbo 88]

Yeah,  I do what Craig is describing a lot.  Once you start doing it regularly it is pretty easy.  Pretty much export a midi track, then export an OMF.  Do the reverse in the other app.  Open the midi file, then import the OMF.  Most of the time I'm going back an forth between notation programs, so I mostly just do it thru midi files.

I would think it would be quite easy to create a file format that just combines the two in the correct order. After all, we are working on computers.

 

Edited September 30, 2023 by Jimbo 88

[Jimbo 88]

3 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

We already have full cross platform project transfer to and from Sonar <==> Next using our own new transfer format. It goes beyond what this does and supports tracks, buses, auxes, plugins, automation, folders and more. Since it's our own interchange format we have full flexibility to rapidly grow as the need arises.

Very interesting...

[Ted Raven]

On 9/30/2023 at 5:20 AM, Noel Borthwick said:

We already have full cross platform project transfer to and from Sonar <==> Next using our own new transfer format. It goes beyond what this does and supports tracks, buses, auxes, plugins, instruments, routing, automation, arranger track, folders and more. Since it's our own interchange format we have full flexibility to rapidly grow as the need arises.

So I take it, that you are not going to implement DAWproject into Cakewalk to get in touch with the outer World?

Edited January 23 by Ted Raven

[Sock Monkey]

There’s 3 really good Daw’s that are using it so far. And two are Sonars closest competitors. 
Seems not getting involved is going to be yet another reason for some people to switch. 
 

And I’ll mention that I tried the Cakewalk interchange and the  Sonar project crashed Next.. No crash dump oh well 

[azslow3]

4 hours ago, Ted Raven said:

So I take it, that you are not going to implement DAWproject into Cakewalk to get in touch with the outer World?

DAWproject format is not  a way to get in touch with someone... Badly documented and with several general problems, it is more or less supported just by one DAW (Bitwig). The second DAW mentioned in the "official" support (Studio One) has rudimentary, almost unusable implementation. "Community" implementation in REAPER is in the same boat - that DAW ideology "doesn't fit" into  format which has to be called "Bitwig project LE".

I have implemented R&D quality converter from Cakewalk into DAWproject before coming to that conclusion.

4 minutes ago, Sock Monkey said:

There’s 3 really good Daw’s that are using it so far. And two are Sonars closest competitors. 
Seems not getting involved is going to be yet another reason for some people to switch.

Into 2 of them you can convert Cakewalk projects. Not absolutely everything, but way more then DAWproject supported features. There is no "way back". But that is up to Cakewalk 😏

[Sock Monkey]

Thanks @azslow3 for you valuable insight on this topic. I have no problems myself transferring CWP projects to my other 4 Daw’s. 

As midi is the heart of most of my projects 80% is as simple as saving my Sonar project as a midi file. This gives you the tempo map, the arrangements and most of the hard work that was done. 
Then I export the audio as stems.Both dry and wet. 

I take screenshots of all my instruments and effects. 
I spent all last year after I realized that Sonar might fade from my life backing up all my projects. 
I hope Sonar doesn’t fade but if it does Im in good shape now. I have invested wisely in my music future. Now if I had only bought some bit coins last year! 
 

[azslow3]

8 hours ago, Sock Monkey said:

Thanks @azslow3 for you valuable insight on this topic. I have no problems myself transferring CWP projects to my other 4 Daw’s. 

As midi is the heart of most of my projects 80% is as simple as saving my Sonar project as a midi file. This gives you the tempo map, the arrangements and most of the hard work that was done. 
Then I export the audio as stems.Both dry and wet. 

I take screenshots of all my instruments and effects.

As you know, many details are lost during that procedure. Just to mention some:

• clips boundaries / names / looping / fades (for audio)
• take lanes
• automations
• routing (buses and everything related)
• instruments and effects settings

Yes, you can save separate clips manually and make screenshots of VSTs. But restoring settings from screenshots can be long and error prone. And you still have to record on which track/bus it was, in terms which track/bus was sending there and with which level. And all that can be affected by automations.

Sure, since your DAW project is created "manually" it is possible write down all settings and then manually restore them. But lets face it, for any serious project that is ridiculously ineffective process.

PS CWP2Song can be useful even in case you use manual conversion to unrelated DAW: it has an option to save tempo map and separate MIDI clips (structured as in the original project)  as well as effects and instruments presets. If preset loading is working fine (some VSTs or VST+DAW combinations are  a kind of "buggy" and can't restored such presets correctly), that is way faster then restoring settings from screenshot.

[Sock Monkey]

3 hours ago, azslow3 said:

Sure, since your DAW project is created "manually" it is possible write down all settings and then manually restore them. But lets face it, for any serious project that is ridiculously ineffective process.

I always forget how complicated some peoples projects can be. I'm just a traditional musician so my biggest project might be 16 tracks.  The majority are only 5.  Addictive drums is the only VST I have to re set up. Most instruments are using a factory preset with minor tweaks to some settinging. I don't use very many effects. 

Which is a question you or someone else might be able to help me with. 

Is there a way to transfer VST  user presets between Daw's? I dug around and cannot find any info about this topic.  

Or is the answer PS CWP2song? Is that on your web site? 

[pwalpwal]

7 minutes ago, Sock Monkey said:

Is there a way to transfer VST  user presets between Daw's?

depends on the plugin, many have export/import functionality, some even just save them in a folder so all you need to do is copy that folder (u-he for example)

7 minutes ago, Sock Monkey said:

I dug around and cannot find any info about this topic.  

i googled the first quote above and found lots of discussions/info?

eta: if the daws are on the same machine they should just be available across the board

/goodluck

Edited January 24 by pwalpwal
Reason for edit

[azslow3]

2 hours ago, Sock Monkey said:

Is there a way to transfer VST  user presets between Daw's? I dug around and cannot find any info about this topic.  

Or is the answer PS CWP2song? Is that on your web site? 

I will try to extend the answer from @pwalpwal

The problem is that "user preset" content is not something standard. It is up to particular plug-in to define what it is and how to use that.

The problem is even more complicated since there can be several ways to save "preset", even for the same plug-in.

• most "compatible" way is to use plug-ins own export/import, when it has it. But there is no warranty everything will be included, some parts (f.e. samples) can be somewhere in the system and so not included into such preset. Plug-in on the same computer will (should...) be able to use the preset in another DAW. Note some plug-ins can't load preset saved in VST2 into VST3 (and some DAWs no longer allow both formats working in parallel). Still, when that method doesn't work, other will most probably fail as well.
• DAWs have own functionality exposed to users  to "save/load preset". In standard formats (.fxp/.fxb for VST2, .vstpreset for VST3). Sometimes the first options doesn't exist, than this one can be tried.
• obviously DAWs save "preset" into projects. But here the fun begin. It seems like the way particular DAW does that can be sufficiently  different between DAWs and even from exposed to the user "save/load preset" in the same DAW. I mean resulting "preset" can be different, even when format is the same. When the result of Cakewalk way is "compatible" with format expected by another DAW, CWP2Song will give you usable presets (yet, it is on my site).

As usual, the evil is in details. F.e. some DAWs just have bugs in preset saving, so what they produce can't be used in other DAWs (I have reported one such bug with .vstpreset in REAPER, and it can happened it is still there). Also when DAW can load preset "from project", that doesn't mean it will be able to load it with "save/load preset" (I remember there was at least one plug-in which was happy loading saved by Cakewalk preset from .song, but was unable to use it when loading explicitly).

When the number of VSTs you use is limited, just check what is working for each of them. BTW you can estimate what is included by the size of preset file. F.e. if you know you use custom samples in your preset and preset file is just several bytes, these samples are obviously not included.

 

[Sock Monkey]

Thanks @azslow3 for the details I really appreciate learning how this works especially at this time due to experimentation with using alternative Daw’s. 
I discovered something interesting yesterday and Addictive Drums seems to be sharing the Pre sets with the new version VST3. 
As you mentioned presets are not shared between the VST 2 and 3 versions. Because of this I never switched to the VST 3 version. 
Therefore it had no presets saved. 
So when I set up Mixcraft I decided to switch to the VST3 version and I customized my kit and saved it. This shows in Next, Waveform and today I found it in Cubase. 
This solves a problem for me. Most other VST instruments I have not customized. 
I will later see if this works with AirXpand.