Import > Tracks from project ... on steroids! Link Tracks from Project(s)

Cubase
#1

I’ve been thinking about 3 minutes max about this but still … I think I like the idea, so far …

This is probably for projects that are more “ambitious” and less for any form of general typical modern popular short songs I guess. But as great as it is to be able to import Tracks from Project it would add another dimension if we could link a container like a folder track from another project and anything that’s inside that other project gets automatically displayed and audible in the present Project.

So what’s the point of it all?

You can link a section in one folder or more and have someone working on that while you keep working on what you do.

Or you can ask someone for a section and you agree on the length so it fits with the rest and then when it’s ready you just link the folder and it can get updated without having to reimport things over and over, then adjusting and realing things. This would solve the opposite problem that the new export features with stems and export queue solved. Importing and exporting is not the main attraction of making music with a DAW …

You can send a basic drum track for a whole project to a drummer who can send his percussion project back and you can just link to it so when you open the master project you have the latest version of percussion and the both of you can work independently on whatever needs to be done.

When all is done you can do like we do with the Arranger Track and flatten the project but with another term to avoid confusion. At one point you need to cut the links and mix so after you “flatten” the links if you think it’s needed you have to start over with new links or if you’re almost done you can just do it the old way.

Immediately there is an elephant in the room and poachers will murder it in a few seconds and that is there is no way it will work to have this folder editable while being linked without asking for a tsunami of problems. So link it until it’s ready and then chop the umbilical chord. But that’s probably OK.
“But how are you going to connect all the VSTi instruments, VST FX and other routing”
I dunno! After 3 minutes I still don’t know so shoot me haha!

Back in the good ol’ day the world wasn’t unlimited so we had to take reality into consideration. Like if you’re collaborating with someone you have to set up one mothership system and one or more satellite systems so the mothership has the full set of plugins you’re planning to use or else you have to print to Tracks and just link the Audio Files.

I just wanted to type it out. Maybe you can do something like that in Nuendo already? Maybe I’m overlooking what’s inside Cubase but right now this doesn’t seem to me as a horrible idea. And just about all the code is already written for the base functionality but … there needs to be some thorough testing for this so it’s probably more like something for Cubase 13 !!! But I can wait! :smiley:

#2

To a certain extent, it’s possible to achieve something similar with VST Join, although it looks like that hasn’t left beta yet. What I think this is, is a feature known as “nested projects” in Vegas Pro Edit. A nested project is one which can be added to the timeline of another project – it is seen as a single “part” but if you double-click it, it opens in it’s own project workspace.

Isn’t it wonderful to think it only took you 3 minutes to come up with a feature request that would take a large team of software developers several years to implement! :smiling_imp:

#3

Yep, feels great every time. I’m more better! But I’m kind of used to it now. :sunglasses: :rofl:

Or rather I thought if I write this request down after only three minutes of thinking the sky will come crushing down on me and all the obvious flaws would be exposed to the world to laugh at. Imposter syndrome sort of … :flushed:

#4

The reason nested projects make sense in a video editor is because there’s only one “channel” or output path – the “screen”. Within a DAW, each project typically has multiple tracks, each with their own treatment. If we were to render each sub-project and just drop the file into a new project’s arrangement, it would be a static version of a nested project, but on a single track with the output confined to that track’s output – perhaps not what you had in mind.

This might nevertheless be useful if, by double-clicking on the rendered part, the original project could be loaded, activated, and if changed and saved, automatically re-rendered into the master project.

#5

Yeah, your second paragraph was more what I had in mind. You have a “live import” that you maybe not edit so much in the master project but it’s alive and changing dynamically as the slave projects get updated and finalized.