How do I bring tracks (with plugins/EQ/channel settings still in place) from one project to another?
I created an instrumental years ago, and within a couple of weeks, found an artist to lay vocals on top of it. It became a pretty complex production, with multiple background tracks, separate choruses, tracks just for vocal fills, etc.
We completed the project and the vocalist and I parted ways, but I continued to develop the instrumental. I upgraded my monitors, treated and EQ’d my room, developed better mixing skills, and have basically remixed the entire instrumental.
I ran into the vocalist the other day, and we chatted and reminisced. For nostalgia’s sake I loaded up what we put together and thought “I wanna put THOSE vocals on this NEW REMIXED instrumental”. I opened up the original CPR file with the vocals, and realized how FAR OFF the old instrumental was. It would take me hours/days to make that older instrumental sound like the new. I thought the best way to do this, is to literally drag those vocals into the newest version of the instrumental I have.
So what is the best way to do this? I know I can just export the audio files into another project, but then all of the edits will be destructive, correct? How do I move them with the plugins/EQ/channel settings in place and editable?
if you literally want to drag those tracks to the new project, you can do just that. open up both projects at the same time (only one can be active). if you now drag the respective tracks to the new project into an empty space in the arrange, the tracks will be copied including their inserts and automation etc. routing to other busses / fx sends will be lost on the new tracks as you probably have different busses set up in the new project (not sure if the busses will connect in case the new project used busses named the exact same way…). i always find using the ‘range’ tool very good for dragging chunks of cut up audio to another project because if you range-select a region from the very beginning inside the old project, it will be lined up perfectly after draggining into the new one. if you however just drag with the ‘select’ tool and your events do not start at 00:00:00, you may have a harder time aligning them to the correct beat/bar position in the new project.
this is a fun way of recycling part from one project to another, though (especially in older versions) the DAW could become a little volatile when switching between projects with lots of plugins.
i wish cubase implemented some ‘track archive’ type of object into the mediabay, so that you could not only drag midi loops, but also whole audio tracks with samples, inserts, and associated busses on them.
