organising cubase projects

Oh, Im sorry. My bad.

Yes, in Logic the Folder name gets automatically assigned to the session file unless you choose otherwise. There is an option to Create sub folders or sessions in different location, but that is only prompted if you need it.

Ok, that was neat. For me, not really a big deal (the moving thing would be a much bigger thing for me personally) but it is definitely a more natural work flow.
Seeing this I can think of a lot of possible UX updates for Cubase, but I also think that it might be more problematic than it first looks to change Cubase behaviour from what it is to the way logic works. Not a programmer, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about here, but I imagine there might be issues.

are you trolling right now? Like I don’t get it.

You want to compare time stamps between .cpr and .bak, next to each other - how else would you be able to easily and quickly compare if the files are separated in a tree… I don’t know how else to explain it to you. I want to be able to see, whether a .bak or a .cpr is the latest save, the only way to do that is if they are organized together in the same list, by date/time. Not separated by folder tree.

Have to remember, not everyone saves projects in the same way as well…

Like, yeah, you could make it so project name is same as folder name - but maybe everyone doesn’t name their project the same as folder… so you go change this feature, and now a bunch of people have to manually change the project name. Usually, my project name is not exactly the same as the folder, so I would be one of those people.

Absolutely! And that’s why you have a little New Folder button on the bottom corner if you need to create a different folder with different name. I do that all the time. (I refer to the video again)

I hear what you are saying. It just makes absolutely no sense. Sacrificing a proper folder hierarchy to assist in clarity, focus and concentration for the sake of the once or twice in a blue moon you wonder if the .bak was created before or after the .cpr and compare time stamps?

Sorry, makes no sense at all.

If a .bak file was used daily, or even weekly, I’d maybe have a different opinion.

IF you are trying to narrow down a time as to when something was done or existed in a project, in order to recover it, you want to be able to compare .bak to .cpr.

I’m leaving the conversation now. They won’t change this, and it doesn’t need to change. focus on something else.

Still doesn’t make sense, but Im not one to judge your methods. Be as you will.

How about this then - a check box…

my main concern was if I create subfolders inside “cubase projects” and drag my project folders inside that, will it still work?
for example;
subfolder 1 → dcuments/cubase projects/IDEAS/untitled 77
subfolder 2 → documents/cubase projects/FINISHED PROJECTS/untitled 80
subfolder 3 → documents/cubase projects/SUPERSEEDED/untitled 81

will untitled 77, untitled 80 & untitled 81 still work?

is the whole package of cubase projects inside the project folder?

It will still work, but you might have to link up the audio files again. Should be easy to do if you feel you want to tidy up your project files but I don’t recommend it.

Instead, I would take the projects I want to move and either move the entire root folder, or open the session and “Save As” in the new location.

but thats what im saying, I cut & paste the whole root folder (that has Audio/Images/Track Pictures etc… inside it) into a new subfolder.
it works so far

Oh, right, sorry, yeah, thats not a prob.

For recording and production sessions my folder structure looks like
CubaseProjects\Clients\Client Name\Song Name\

For beat-making, ideas and my own songs it looks more like this
CubaseProjects\MidiVSTprojects\MMDDYY (as in month, day, year) followed by - Song Name
Eg
CubaseProjects\MidiVSTprojects\072719 - New Drake Style Beat\

This way, songs for artists can be found easily
Ideas can be browsed by date

Since computers default to sorting by alphabetically order, this will sort all your music productions and recordings (Cubase Sessions) by month and day. You should put the month first Americian style otherwise it will order by day of the month which makes no sense. You need it to go, month, day, year.

I also have other folders like this
CubaseProjects\VocalSessions\Client Name\Song Name\

And

CubaseProjects\SongParts\Client Name\Song Name\

These I use if I don’t track vocals or instruments in the actual project folder. Sometimes it’s better to bounce down the session to an audio file and track all the vocals over the bounce then copy the takes back into the project later for mixing. Times when this is useful is if the cpu usage is too high in the session that it’s not playing back smoothly or if you want low latency monitoring through the DAW.

I also have separate folders for mastering that look like
CubaseProjects\MasteringCliens\Client Name\Song Name or Album Name\

That’s not a bad idea, thx!

Regarding what to do with those pesky bak files, I use an applescript (triggered using a Keyboard Maestro key command) to hide them. If you need to see them there’s another applescript to show them again. Nothing lost, but everything tidy.



Hide and Show Cubase Files.zip (178 KB)

The project organization in Cubase is the worst. Why oh why do we have to name a folder before starting a project, then manually name the project the same thing when saving. And god forbid you want to change the name of your project–you will have to change the project file name, then the folder, then open the project and set the folder all over again…

Extremely annoying and something you don’t even have to think about with other DAWs.

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