DESKTOP TO LAPTOP (Re-target Files does Nothing ***all media is offline***) SOLVED

VST Live
1

THE PROBLEM
VST Live Pro 3.0.19.124 / Windows 11 (all pcs, all windows updates)

  1. I’m unable to successfully relink audio files from the desktop PC to my laptop. Session starts on laptop but all audio files show up as (Media Offline)

I went back to my desktop and moved all the songs (each song has its own folder to keep things organized) inside the VST Live Project > songs project thinking that this would help.

I tested save as archive and it looks like it takes all my organized folders and saves all the audio in one folder without maintaining existing folder structure. YIKES! Last thing I want is to keep all songs in one massive folder without subfolders!

Now on my desktop VST Live cannot see any of the wav files as well. I had to put all my file folder structure to the original way and VST live showed me online files.

What is the process to ACTUALLY relink .wav because Retarget doesn’t seem to do it for me?
Is there a Media Bay somewhere that helps?

Cubase has always been able to ask me to relink files once I move projects between drives and this has worked extremely well in the past !

Thanks in advance to anyone that can help !

UPDATE 1: I redid the project while keeping all my songs inside the song folder. Imported a few songs inside VST Live, tested locally then copied over to the laptop. I even found SETTINGS > STUDIO > Local folder (and made sure it matched by local drive)
No change - same issue files are offline - and re-target does absolutely nothing.

Perhaps because the drive name and master folder name is the same in my source desktop and target live laptop?

Dunno

UPDATE 2 :(Still broken)

Save archive as a solution: It takes all separate song folders and WAV files and copies them into ONE song folder. I get that’s what Cubase also does in its archive process and that’s fine for Cubase as you are only working on one song at a time.

But VST live? 100 songs into one-folder? Seriously?

That is the worst possible scenario for housekeeping and workflow because when I need to delete one song from my VST Live project (ie make updates in Cubase and reimporting song /folder to vstlive ) the original audio files do not get deleted from the previously mentioned one-folder and there is no way to easily remove them for housekeeping. So now I have to find each associated WAV file in a a stack of 1000 files and delete them, find the tempo maps and midi files and delete them! And suppose I get that right for WAV files, but tempo and midi files get auto renamed in VST Live so I don’t have anyway to identify then. Suppose I have to update 10 songs and delete them reimport.

What is the error potential with this workflow? Obviously not something I want to try. And even if I get it right, I have to go and manually verify every single WAV file in vst live and make sure it doesn’t say MEDIA OFFLINE.

I can’t even take the project from one drive and move it to a different drive in the same computer as a backup! If anything happens to my live laptop and I need to resurrect the project during a show it’s not a copy from a backup drive and start again. It’s hours of work.

So yes archive works, but there is no way that’s a viable work flow to managing 100 songs x 15 wave files per song. And add to that that I’m constantly working on the project and going back and forth between desktop and laptop.

Please re read my original post. Retarget does nothing for me. None of my files are found in my target laptop. I’ll assume I’m doing something very wrong in setting up my initial project because none of this make sense to me. Someone here who knows better, please be patient and set me straight!

UPDATE 3: THE SOLUTION
After 3 days of literally trying everything here is my quick solution. I’m sure there’s a better/faster way but this is what I got for now.

  1. Export all your project files from Cubase into individual folders with the song name and a clean and consistent naming structure. In my case I’ll have about 200 songs by the time I’m done round 1, so I want to be sure everything is discrete per song.

-any real time processing like pitch shift, audio warp or anything else I had was bounced out to a wav with all processing applied.

  • making adjustments as you go can be complex, I’m not sure I have the best solution for how to update Cubase session and re-export/re-import but this is pretty basic if you are willing to delete the song from VST live and reimport a clean folder with updated files/changes. This make sure there are no remnant files.
  1. Pick a drive and a folder name. This must be mirrored on your Live Laptop without any differences.

In my case both desktop and laptop computers have the project in E:\()_Ballads_VST_LIVE_()

  1. In VST Open Hub (or it might auto open when you start the program). Select Use Default Location and point it to your location. In my case E:\()_Ballads_VST_LIVE_()

  2. preferences > STUDIO > LOCAL ASSETS FOLDER > E:\()_Ballads_VST_LIVE_()

Everything will work.

  1. Here’s something AWESOME if you need to tweak file locations for any reason
    SONG > SONG MEDIA FILES

If you have FILES OFFLINE, you can click on the file name here and choose your new location. BAM then use Retarget Files (although I have not tested this it seems like the “right thing to do”)

  1. Save Archive will take all your properly sorted folder structure and dump EVERYTHING into Audio/Midi/TEMPO and yes in a pinch it will work to transfer the files and play off a laptop, but you will never be able to recreate your previous file structure and if something goes sideways before your gig, good luck manually going through 1000 wav files.

I hope this helps someone !

1 Like
3

All audio files go to audio folder of the project. When you copy your project from computer to computer, you copy everything as is and there never could be problems at all.

For example, I have my stage project on the laptop at F:\Live3\Stage, but on desktop I copy it to D:\Studio\Live. Then I open project on desktop and Song Media Files window shows that all necessary files are under D:\Studio\Live from where I opened the project.

Problems arrive when you didn’t have all audio files under your project folder on the source (your desktop computer). This may be the reason you have “Offline Media”. Those audio files may be in your song projects folder or elsewhere. Just copy them to VST Live audio folder of your project and hide originals (rename folders temporarily by adding “_” at the end of folder name - I do that), then save archive to collect all files under project folder and only then you can copy this archived project to another computer.

As always I say “that simple”! :wink:

4

Thanks for the reply!

I redid the project while keeping all my songs inside the song folder.
No change - same issue files are offline - and re-target does absolutely nothing.

”that simple” ! it ain’t my brutha :rofl:

5

Totally agree, its not that simple!!
Wait until you find out that you also need midi files, tempo, signature….. and the rest… to be separate and in its own folder! They can not be identified, when if/found.
I´m like most users, learnt the hard way to put song in their own folders, through Cubase. This VST live is like starting from fresh…… but at least they are working on the video director!

6

@musicullum do you think you can put a modal/popup notify for this ”File/Retarget…”
like “This will make a copy to etcetc…. Ok/Cancel”

Because the current popup just suggests a save, but not really making sense (see above, and Yes, laugh, to me either when clicked that first time in my life)

7

Don’t quite understand, what popup?

Anyhoo, once again: a clip remembers the path to the original file (when you imported it). When a project is loaded, it will look at the media folder (“audio”, “midi” etc) next to the project (.vlprj) file. If it cannot find it there, it will try the original file location.

To re-target, all you have to do is “Save Archive”.

2 Likes
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I mean some confirmation dialog for clicking that.
Screenshot 2026-04-03 at 10.50.27
Something in one-line-short like:
//
“Retarget will do this and that”
OK / CANCEL"
//

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@musicullum

Thanks for chiming in!

Save archive takes all separate song folders and WAV files and copies them into ONE song folder. I get that’s what Cubase also does in its archive process and that’s fine for Cubase as you are only working on one song at a time.

But VST live? 100 songs into one-folder? Seriously?

That is the worst possible scenario for housekeeping and workflow because when I need to delete one song from my VST Live project (ie make updates in Cubase and reimporting song /folder to vstlive ) the original audio files do not get deleted from the previously mentioned one-folder and there is no way to easily remove them for housekeeping. So now I have to find each associated WAV file in a a stack of 1000 files and delete them, find the tempo maps and midi files and delete them, and they don’t have a unique name.Suppose I have to update 10 songs and delete them reimport.

What is the error potential with this workflow? Obviously not something I want to try. And even if I get it right, I have to go and manually verify every single WAV file in vst live and make sure it doesn’t say MEDIA OFFLINE.

I can’t even take the project from one drive and move it to a different drive in the desktop computer as a backup! If anything happens to my live laptop pre show, and I need to resurrect the vst live project it’s not a copy from a backup drive and start again (because the original only works on my desktop machine) . It’s hours of work and the concert is game over

So yes archive works, but there is no way that’s a viable work flow to managing 100 songs x 15 wave files per song. And add to that that I’m constantly working on the project and going back and forth between desktop and laptop.

Please re read my original post. Retarget does nothing for me. None of my files are found in my target laptop. I’ll assume I’m doing something very wrong in setting up my initial project because none of this make sense to me. Someone here who knows better, please be patient and set me straight!

Thank you

1 Like
10

Have you tried to tick/not tick “Import: Copy Files To Project” and what works best for you? In case it is not ticked, it only keeps the path to the file. If ticked, it copies the file to the specific folder within VSTL.

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I don’t know how VSTL handle this with the Save Archive function.

11

Yes, seriously! It’s not a DAW to create individual songs. It’s a DAW to create live performance. One .vlprj file is one project. All audio files for this project goes to the single folder. The same for all other types of media files. It is one project and the workflow is perfect.

To work on individual songs you have Cubase.

But the goal of VST Live is the playlist - the setlist - many setlists in one project. And it is brilliant at that.

Of course you can use VST Live to create individual songs. This way you need to create one project per song and specify its folder at the beginning. After you finished song this way, you can save it as song in users folder (not project folder) and then import as song in your main project to compose setlist.

Now you know!
That simple! :wink:

1 Like
12

I have 200 songs to prepare for a live set and need to prepare them into a live-setlist of 40-60 songs per night. Obviously I need individual songs as the setlist will change from venue to venue. And I need to be able to make adjustments in Cubase and re-export.

I typically create one song (Exported from Cubase) into its own folder self contained. Then I need to have 60 such songs, in a master VST Live project all properly routed into a mixer. ”That simple” ! it ain’t my mang :rofl:

Since my master VST Session seems to work with each song imported and in an individual folder, I need this folder structure to be portable to the Laptop.

What do you suggest?

UPDATE: I have solved this -see original post where I added the solution

13

Song menu:Save/Load Song.

You can also save/load/copy/paste/duplicate Parts, Layers, Stacks etc.

1 Like
14

The problems you’d have only if you name audio files like this - Audio0001 - Audio1000. Otherwise, you name them in a way that you understand from the name of a single audio file for which song it was created. I mean you don’t have 1000 drawers without labels.

For example, if the song is named “Will Always Love You”, you can name all audio files this way - WALY_backing.wav, WALY_backvox1.wav, WALY_backvox2.wav, WALY_bass.wav, WALY_gtr.wav and so on. Then if you need to change something in the only one song, you will filter the files to access only WALY_*.wav in any file browser you use. I name files this way and never had problems to change updated files - just copy Cubase-exported files over (export them with the same name). I did that hundred times since I use VST Live from very beginning. And never had any problem. (Before overwriting them, remove .peak files, because they are for old wav files).

I wouldn’t want the developers to change anything here. Single folder and seek procedure for lost files are good.

The only reason to organize songs in dedicated folders would be if you have identical name for backing tracks in all songs. But I’m sure you understand that it wouldn’t be far-sighted.

1 Like
15

I, too, have been down this route. It still has tempo/signature/lyric/chord files muddled as they can not be identified or named individually.
Its pants at the minute

1 Like
16

Where can you use those files without VST Live?

17

Cant use them on VST Live, if it is not working…..thats my point

18

Did you have a situation when some of those files are unlinked from project and then you need to load them back? I really don’t understand why you need to access them manually from VST Live. I never had that need.

1 Like
19

Even if that happens, those files are usually pretty small. Just copy from any state where it was as it should, skip those already present, and you should be good to go. Apart from that, agreed to Arthur. Using either “Save Archive”, or just copy the entire project folder back and forth (renaming old for backup if present) was always safe for me.

3 Likes
20

Yup I had a situation like that - see my original post

21

Did my second expl make sense, that I’m exclusively talking about that Dropdown-menu-line “File/Retarget Media Files…”