Cakewalk Won't Recognize Audio File Locations

[Ricebug]

Here's the deal... I create a song, mix, master, etc, and send the completed audio file to a place on my computer. Done.

Once a song is done, I drag the whole nine yards to a backup drive and delete the source files.  (My Song.cwp, audio folder, sheet music, etc) So now, I have a complete backup of the project on the backup drive. 

Let's say, a year goes by, and I'm listening to the mixed-down song, and need to do some tweaking. So I open the project folder on the backup drive and double-click on My Song.cwp to open it up. Cakewalk all of a sudden can't find any of the files. The Find Missing Audio dialog keeps popping up, with each of the files it needs. The Move File To Project Audio Folder (PAF) is checked. I have to go through this tedious routine of pointing the program to every single file so that everything loads up.

But if I look at my files via File Explorer, Cakewalk has copied all of the audio files to a "default" location on my C drive instead of just referencing them from the PAF, where I had to point it. I've had this problem for as long as I can remember. Fiddling with the Folder Locations dialog within Cakewalk doesn't seem to help.

[DeeringAmps]

What happens if you “save as” to the backup drive?

t

[Wookiee]

@Ricebug I  believe Cakewalk keeps metadata about the location of its subfolders in the project. Consequently when you drag the project to another drive and then open it from the new location it doesn't know where the Audio folder is. 

E.G.

You original save would have been E:\Cakewalk projects\opus 1 with a sub directory of E\Cakewalk  Projects \Opus 1\Audio.

Your drag location is now H:\Cakewalk backup\Opus1 but the project still thinks the audio is on your E:\  drive.

Cakewalk does give you the option to locate the files it can't find, you know where you put the top level folder, just navigate to it and all will be sorted. Remember to "Save as" to the new location the first time you save this edited file.

[SirWillyDS12]

Use Save As -> Copy all audio with project... This will create an Audio folder inside of your project folder and all your audio tracks will be stored there and the project will reference to that folder and not the Global Audio Folder... Always use the one project per folder approach, every project in it own folder... You can copy the entire Project Folder anywhere you want and the Audio folder goes with it... Audio data will never get "Lost" it will always be with the project... You can open the project from your backup drive and the project will load with the audio from the project Audio folder on the backup drive... The Cakewalk Documentation Save As dialog page is wrong, the Audio folder is just Audio and not Audio Data...

Try not to use Reference from and always copy any import files to the Audio folder...

I have close to 1500 projects going back over 25 years and my Global Audio Folder is completely empty... All my Audio tracks are stored in the project folder Audio folder... Many of the older projects have been on 7 or 8 different hard drives and I can open them up on my latest PC and the Audio tracks are all there, no need to play "find and seek"......

[Ricebug]

I believe I'm already doing what y'all are suggesting. When starting a new project, I do so within a dedicated folder where several work folders exist. Let's say I want to do a Tom Petty song.

1. Navigate to Rock folder.
2. Navigate to Tom Petty folder.
3. Create a folder called American Girl.
4. Within that folder, create two sub folders:
   1. audio
   2. Sheet Music
5. Enter Cakewalk and set up the basic project, saving it as American Girl inside the American Girl directory.
6. Record the song, save the data, etc, mix it all down, save the .wav file to another drive. DONE
7. Copy the entire project to the backup drive.

A year later, return to the backup drive and double-click  American Girl.cwp to open up the song. CAKEWALK CAN'T FIND THE AUDIO FILES.

[Max Arwood]

#7 (wrong)

save as - do not copy

 

 

[Xoo]

On 8/24/2024 at 7:06 PM, Ricebug said:

I believe I'm already doing what y'all are suggesting. When starting a new project, I do so within a dedicated folder where several work folders exist. Let's say I want to do a Tom Petty song.

1. Navigate to Rock folder.
2. Navigate to Tom Petty folder.
3. Create a folder called American Girl.
4. Within that folder, create two sub folders:
   1. audio
   2. Sheet Music
5. Enter Cakewalk and set up the basic project, saving it as American Girl inside the American Girl directory.
6. Record the song, save the data, etc, mix it all down, save the .wav file to another drive. DONE
7. Copy the entire project to the backup drive.

A year later, return to the backup drive and double-click  American Girl.cwp to open up the song. CAKEWALK CAN'T FIND THE AUDIO FILES.

Expected behaviour since file paths are absolute, not relative, to the project location.