Media Pool: How to Update/Refresh Loaded WAV files?

Cubase
1

Hi!

I’m working on a mix and have received new stems (WAV files).

I replaced the old WAVs in the corresponding audio folder (where the Media Pool picks up the WAVs) by copying the new WAVs. The folder and file names are identical. So I overwrite them.

However:
The WAVs in the Media Pool are not updated (they still play the old WAVs).
The audio tracks in Cubase also keep the old WAVs (because Media Pool is not up to date).

I do not want to delete all the WAVs in Media Pool one by one, re-import them and then drag them onto each audio track.

Is there a way to tell Media Pool to refresh its cache/contents?

Thank you very much!

Jeff

2

Have you tried renaming the old Wav’s to stop Cubase searching for the new ones ? are you sure there’s no ‘name’ v1.Wav in the folder ? Are the new ones the same sample rate and bit depth ?

3

Hello,

The old WAVs are overwritten 1:1, so same file name, same sample rate and bit depth.

I thought Media Pool would pick up these WAVs from the folder they were imported from (same folder path, same file name). But Media Pool does not care about the new files, even though it refers to them in the Media Pool (folder path).

4

If you right-click one of the clips in the Pool and select “Show in Explorer” do you get this message?
grafik

5

Okay… there seems to be a bug in another place:

When I replace the WAV outside of Cubase (folder that is referenced in Media Pool),
Media Pool will use the new WAV.

But it does not compensate for the new length the new WAV might have.
For example, if the new WAV is twice as long, Media Pool will keep the old WAV length.

In the audio track, you cannot adjust the new length of the audio bar. So the sound will be cut off in the middle and there is no way to update it.

Any ideas?

6

Please understand that the clips shown in the Pool are not identical to audio files on your hard drive. Clips can indeed refer to several audio files at the same time. The Pool does not really show that but if you do what I asked you to do above you can get an indication if the clip actually contains audio from files that are not shown in the Pool.

7

Why not the same? It refers to the location on the drive with a file path.
Where else are the audio files located?? Is there a hidden copy of the WAV cached somewhere??

8

Please…

9

No, I have never seen such a dialog and I had tried to explain that the new WAV files are used and played in the Media Pool,

but the new length of the WAV files is not adjusted. Therefore the audio bars in the track are at most as long as the old WAV.

My concern is that I can’t display and play the full WAV in the track. Thanks a lot.

You can try it:
Drag a WAV file to the track, which is then shown in the Media Pool. Check the path of the referenced WAV. Let’s say a WAV of 4 seconds.

Now replace this exact WAV with the Windows Explorer by another WAV, which is twice as long, i.e. 8 seconds.

You will see, that the new WAV is played back, but you cannot adjust it up to 8 seconds. It keeps at 4 seconds max.

10

A clip is a reference to one or several audio files. If the clip initially is 4 seconds long than it will still be 4 seconds long even if you exchange the audio file in the Explorer.
Since the clip is 4 seconds long, any audio event referencing to this clip cannot be more than 4 seconds long.

It seems it is not a good idea to change audio files of a Cubase project in the Windows Explorer. There is a way to substitute old files with new files in the Pool it self but I have forgotten how to achieve this.

11

No, there is no way to do this in the Media Pool. This is a missing feature.
And referenced clips on the drive are picked up by the Media Pool… but it is a bug with the unadjusted WAV length.

Now, I do not know how to replace the old WAVs with the new ones without deleting all my tracks and my previous mixing work.

12

I am not claiming that this is the most elegant way to exchange audio files for the clips but it works:

  1. Do NOT create files that have the same name and are in the same location as the previous files
    Cubase will prompt you on loading the project that audio files could not be found.
  2. Click “Close” (in case you are dealing with several files)
    Project gets loaded with audio events being empty
  3. Open Pool, right click any of the clips without a file and chose “Find Missing Files…”; then click “Locate” and chose the file that you want to use from now on.
  4. Repeat step 3 for any other clips

I hope that helps you.

13

Thanks, I will check this.