Any chance of loading an old Cakewalk WRK file format with embedded audio (WAVE file)?

[Herbert Chong]

The current Cakewalk by Bandlab opens the attached file no problem but when I look at the WAVE data it's totally flat - as in zero sound volume. I'm pretty sure the actual WAVE data is still in the WRK file but since I created the file about 30 years ago, it would take a great deal of work to find and load Cakewalk Pro Audio 5 or 6 that I used to create the file and double check to be sure the WAVE data is there and intact. Given the song I am pretty sure you can guess what the WAVE file contains. This happens to be an example file from that long ago that has audio data embedded. I have a couple of other files with larger and more embedded audio clips that all look the same when opened in Cakewalk. These other ones are more important to me because they contain a couple of original and unreleased songs I was working on for a friend including the vocal track. It would be great to figure out how to open the WRK file and hear the embedded audio as when I saved them. There is a possibility I saved the Cakewalk Pro Audio retail box from that long ago that I could install into a Win 95 or Win 3.11 virtual machine (I have these available to run inside Oracle VirtualBox) but that means doing a deep dive into my storage locker's software boxes to see if I can find that version of Cakewalk. I'm hoping to avoid that.

Herb....

WIPEOUT.WRK

[Promidi]

I am pretty sure WRK files do not have WAV file embedded, but are linked to by the WRK file.  (Someone please correct me if this is not the case)

I believe you would have to find the original wave files.

I would expect that if the wav file was embedded in “WIPEOUT.WRK” then the file size would be much larger than 274KB

If you are able to open the file in Cakewalk Pro Audio 5 or 6 you may be able to save as a Bundle file (if that version supports BUN files).  Then open the BUN file in later versions of Cakewalk or Sonar.

[mettelus]

9 minutes ago, Promidi said:

I am pretty sure WRK files do not have WAV file embedded, but are linked to by the WRK file.  (Someone please correct me if this is not the case)

In addition to this, the audio files were saved in a global audio folder... Cakewalk Projects/Audio Data (or just Audio) was the default IIRC. If far enough back they were also in 8.3 file-name formats, so some were gobbledygook. I forget now if right clicking the clip and selecting "Associated Audio Files..." will allow you to force a search for them, but it will give you the exact name of the audio file so you can manually search for it with Windows Explorer. Do you still have the Global Audio folder from when you created those .wrk files?

[John Vere]

Yep, that’s exactly what happened. The audio is sitting happily in the 10 GB C drive of that computer. Now if you were me you would still have that hard drive sitting in a shoebox in the woodshed. Whether it will still spin up is another question! And if I could sill find the power adapter for my IDE enclosure as well is a good question! 
 

It’s a common problem with all software that saves your work. The default is often hidden deep in the bowels of C drives Roaming app data. 
Old age teaches you to always go into the options and choose a location you can easily find. And best to use a Data drive for this. 

[pwalpwal]

tbf i can't think of an other

[Herbert Chong]

17 hours ago, mettelus said:

In addition to this, the audio files were saved in a global audio folder... Cakewalk Projects/Audio Data (or just Audio) was the default IIRC. If far enough back they were also in 8.3 file-name formats, so some were gobbledygook. I forget now if right clicking the clip and selecting "Associated Audio Files..." will allow you to force a search for them, but it will give you the exact name of the audio file so you can manually search for it with Windows Explorer. Do you still have the Global Audio folder from when you created those .wrk files?

drives are long gone though i did clone drives and folders from computer to computer for a long time, probably through to early Windows XP days. somewhere along the way i stopped installing Cakewalk when i built new computers because i had to put my MIDI gear into the storage locker. that would have been when those files were lost. i have a WAVE file of the final mix for the most important set of MIDI files. i know i can pull the vocals from them using a stem extractor and i have done that but there are a couple of guitar riffs that seem like they would take a lot of work to isolate given the tools i have come across so far. also working with the original vocal WAVE files would have been nice though the extracted dry vocals are decent.

Herb...

[mettelus]

4 hours ago, Herbert Chong said:

but there are a couple of guitar riffs that seem like they would take a lot of work to isolate given the tools i have come across so far. also working with the original vocal WAVE files would have been nice though the extracted dry vocals are decent.

Sorry about the loss of the original files Unless you are focused specifically on re-mixing only, having the final mix would be something you could take to the Songs sub-forum and ask about. There are a lot of folks that do collaborations there, so it is quite possible to find someone to recreate the guitar riffs for you if you ask. Stem extractors can be frustrating, even with hi-end wav editors to supplement that work; so if you hit a wall with that, consider poking around in the Songs sub forum.