Hi if anyone can help regarding the use of “backup project” function.
Normally when i start a new project i would lets say 1) write a drum track
2) record a bass track ect. When im finished for the day i will “save as” take 1. Next day Take 2 and so on.
By the time i am finished the project and all mixing done i sometimes have up to 30 takes within the project folder. Now when i want to backup the project to an external drive it only backsup" take 30" why not all the takes in the project folder? If i go back to the project later to make changes i might want to use the mix on take 29 which is not there anymore.
Hope this all makes sense.
The question is how do i backup all the takes in the project folder?
Any suggestions?
Hi and welcome to the forum,
My expectation is, that you are calling “Takes” what I would rather call “Project Versions”. So at the end, you have 30 versions of the projects.
If you back up a project, you back up just the open/active one. If you want to back up all of them, you have to trigger the function with every single of the project. Be aware, you will get 30-times the same Audio files.
In my opinion the Backup Project function is very poorly named. It implies that it is useful as part of some kind of backup methodology when it is really more like a variant of Save As… The difference is if you use Save As… to create a copy of the Project in a new location it will continue to use the Source Project’s Audio folder. Where Backup Project… creates a new Audio folder in the new location and copies the Audio used into the new folder - so the Project is self contained. Basically it is a way to make a complete copy of a Project.
Granted making a copy of a Project is better than nothing to prevent data loss, but it’s not a good method because it occurs on an ad hoc basis & is a manual process. If you are serious about protecting your Projects there is really no substitute to using a proper OS level Backup Utility. Once you set it up, it basically automatically runs on a schedule.
Hi, thank you so much for your feedback.
However i am still a little confused.
Maybe its best to explain what im trying to do.
I write songs and use cubase as tool to help construct the song , mix and bounce a demo.
I use a laptop in my home studio.
Over the years i have completed loads of projects which ive simply saved on my c drive in a folder named Audio. My c drive is pretty full and computer us slowing down.
So all im trying to do is move or backup years of work to an external drive in order to then free up space on my laptop as you can imagine im trified of loosing years of hard labour. So i tried to use “backup project” function but it doesn’t backup all my "takes or versions " with in that project…only the one thats open. So within that project there are a number of cpr files.
Is there a way to backup a project that when i open the backed up folder it contains all these cpr files.
Or do i have open each one individually and backup? I would like to open project from my external that has everything in it just like when i open it up in my laptop. Is the way to do this?
I would look at backing up whole folders/directories at a time using file management / synchronisation software.
I use FreeFileSync to back up my whole recording directory onto a shared network drive from both a laptop and a PC. it only looks for changes and syncs them up so doesn’t take long. It works really well, and means I can access any ‘take’ as you put it from either machine. I spent years trying to find the best way to do this from within Cubase but this makes life a lot easier.
From the perspective of your personal workflow those files may be used as different takes or versions. But from the perspective of Cubase those are all just different independent Projects - none related to each other. Your Project doesn’t have multiple .cpr files.
One cpr File = One Project.
The Cubase Backup Project… command only does one thing. It creates a fully contained copy of the current Project in a new location - that’s it, nothing more. Mostly it is used to relocate Projects. And you can use it to copy a Project to an external drive - that’s its purpose. But that copy is a new independent Project. Changes made to it won’t occur in the original Project and vice-versa.
This is what you need if you want to maintain synced copies of Projects. But again this isn’t a substitute for OS based backups that can be used for data recovery. If one of your synced Projects gets corrupted you could end up with 2 synced & corrupted files. Which you’d then likely want to restore from a System Backup.
Good point. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who is using MS Onedrive or similar, and has the ability to roll back versions if required - that could maybe cover all bases?
I’m not a fan of using sync services with “live” projects, simply because a lot of these services sync “both ways”. So if you aren’t careful you risk deleting files from both locations without knowing it.
I would say you should clearly separate the active or “live” projects and storage and on the other hand actual backing up of data. Keep those things separate, and don’t use OneDrive etc. for backing up. Use a dedicated solution for that, either separate software like Macrium Reflect or something included on an external drive, or a cloud service like Backblaze. If you do that and just set it up properly you should have predictable access to older files.
In your case, since you are considering moving everything - make sure you have all audio files inside the respective projects. By using “Prepare Archive” you can consolidate all audio files into the project folder which is necessary before you use the “Backup” function.
Good point.
Thank you for all the feedback guys.
Starting to make sense to me now.
I will go ahead and try prepare archives first and let you all know.
Just to clarify your feedback…
A question of prepare archives funtion would you have to do this for each project separately or is it a global command for all projects?
And raino, on the subject of one cpr file = one project i now understand whats happening here…maybe you can educate me on this. It seems ive been saving my projects incorrectly
The way I’ve been working is when i open a new project i start working away lay some tracks ect. Then at the end of a session i will do a “save as” and make note as to what i did.
When i come back to it i will do some more work, tweaks ect. And then do another “save as” and doing this untill the final mix. So as you can see by the end of it im left with loads of cpr files. What would be the correct approach to saving my projects? You see somtimes i might want to go back a few sessions because there was a better idea there and then “save as” again which brings the that cpr file to the latest in the queue and so on. My logic of working this way is to bring all aspects and workings of that song into one project folder so on later date down the line i can go back to that song with a fresh idea and all aspects of that song right there in one folder. It’ll interesting to learn how other guys go about saving projets and file managment.
Three rules that I’ve given to myself, through the years…
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When starting a new project, usually from a template, I select the Prompt for project location option and define a new and empty folder for it. ALWAYS…
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If I absolutely want/need to keep an ‘intermediary’ state of a given project, I use the File > Save as… command : it will create a new .cpr file in the same project folder, keeping the old one at the state that I want to keep.
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If I need a rather ‘clean’ project version (which means, without all the audio files no longer used), I use the File > Backup Project… command and keep ticked all the options displayed, especially the Minimize audio files and the Remove unused files ones.
Until now, I haven’t lost anything, doing things like this…
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Once per project, but see below:
I do it pretty much the same way but for TV/streaming.
The only thing you have to keep in mind is that once you trigger a “backup project” command it will only transfer what is in the project folder to the target (backup) location. Also, like I mentioned above, using “Prepare Archive” will only collect files outside of the project folder if they belong to the project (“.cpr”) that is open.
What this means is that if you are working on a song and you have 10 versions all using “save as” then if you choose to use the prepare archive and backup commands for your “final” version then only it will be guaranteed to have all files in the project folder. Why? Well suppose your final is #8, the question is if you in version #9 used a new file that was outside of the project folder, a file that was on a different drive. Because you “went back” to a previous version that file had not yet been referenced. So when preparing archive on #8 that file will not be included because it is not in the project pool, and it will be excluded when you use backup project.
My workflow is that I keep all data on my work drive for at least six months after the project has ended and has been delivered to my client, and that main drive is backed up to a large internal hard drive as well as to the cloud. I have never had a reason to go back to an earlier version than the last one. So I open the last one, I then prepare archive and then do the backup to an external archival drive that I never use for active work, and in that new project folder I just keep another folder called “previous project files”. I dump all other older versions I made along the way into that folder (manually).
Because of how I work - I never end up with a final version that is not the latest version and number - it is very unlikely that I would have missing files, but it could be different for you. So you would have to think about how you work and see what is right for you.
First I think some confusion can occur because we are using the word “project” in two different ways. One is in a generic sense of something you are working on - my weekend project is to clean the garage (it’s not). But in Cubase a Project is a specific thing, it’s similar to a Word Doc or an Excel Workbook, it’s what gets saved into a .cpr file. So it’s basically a big data structure. Many of us here will capitalize nouns to indicate we are treating them as Cubase jargon names.
That’s a totally legit way to go. So much of this is dependent on just what feels comfortable & works for each of us - and that’s going to vary a bunch. Personally I’d find what you are doing a bit overwhelming with so many files. But on the flip side that gives you a lot of granularity to navigate your past work.
Here’s what I do. But first a bit of personal jargon - I’ll refer to the main Project and also Project variants. The main Project is always the most up to date version. If a song is named Cool Song the main Project will always be named Cool Song.cpr Most of the time this is the same file that was originally created for the Project, a gillion Saves later.
But along the way I’ll also use Save As… to create Project variants which basically act like bookmarks that I can go back to later if needed. These generally occur when a key element is completed, for example when voicing the strings is done. Or prior to some destructive action like flattening an Arranger Chain. Project variants always have a descriptive suffix like Cool Song - pre arrange flat.cpr
There is also another flavor of Project variant I use. Say a Project has reached a point where I want to track & comp a vocal. I don’t use the main Project for this, instead creating a variant just for tracking & comping. Then when the comp is finished I’ll use Import Tracks From Project… to pull the finished results back into the main Project. This way the main Project isn’t cluttered up with all the mess from tracking. While in the variant you can leave the Lanes open and the mess fully exposed - ready for further work if needed.
Cool Song - Lab is another common one I use just to build any weird sounds or processing in an isolated environment with the results getting imported back into the main Project.
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Okay…(once again thanks for all the feedback guys)
So it seems there is no absolute way of going about saving and managing project files ect. Its more of an individual approach of what works for you and what you are doing but obviously following some rules of thumb.
If i was only more educated when i started i would have approached this differently.
Maybe right from the get go when i opened a new blank project i should have saved it directly on to an external drive in a folder and from there on “save as” each session like i have been doing and every time i go back to it open it up from the external drive then save session 2 on the external and so on in this way i keep my computer drive relatively empty. That would work wouldn’t it?
I’ll have to figure out how i should proceed from here on.
So back to my current predicament, i have to workout a way to go about backing up / moving or saving all my work so far ( and its a lot ) to an external dive in order to free up space on my computer without losing any of it…outch.
If there are any safe suggestions out there before i go ahead it would be appreciated. The feedback so far has been very helpful in getting my head around this subject…thanks again.
Yep. But a problem arises : if your external drive fails, what happens ?
This brings me to another question : To which points do your internal C: drive is full (more specs about it would help) ?
And wouldn’t it be more efficient to work on it with Cubase, at least with the remaining projects that could still be subject of editing, and make a complete project folder save (at the OS level) from C: to G: (the external one, I mean) in a regular or even scheduled way ? This, if you want to keep all the .cpr files generated by the File > Save as command, of course.
Apologies for the delay of responding I’ve just taken time to experiment on how to go about this task. I have now done 2 albums so far. What i have done is do a backup of all songs final mix and kept them all on an ALBUMS folder in my c drive for now and have removed all unused files. Then copied the complete ptoject folders of the same songs to an external drive for storage and then removed all the same files from my c drive to the recycle bin (windows) Every thing opens up in cubase both from my c drive and external drive with no missing files which is a relief. So I’ll go ahead in this manner for the rest of my albums. The final question is once i am finished is it safe to say i can then empty my windows recycle bin in order to regain space on my c drive ? Which will mean i will no longer be able to retore anything.
I’m just gonna drop this link from another thread regarding backups