Right now a bunch of folks have Cubase 3 installed for the sole purpose of converting older Projects into .cpr files. The move to the new licensing and the coming retirement of the eLicense are making this approach less and less viable.
Steinberg should make a simple utility that takes an .all or .arr file and spits out a .cpr file.
Another option would be for Steinberg to publish the format of .all, .arr and SX-era .cpr files so that the open source community could develop such a utility.
thatās a great idea.
Even if Steinberg donāt want to publish the current .cpr format (for whatever reason), perhaps they would publish the .all and .arr formats to enable the open source community to develop a converter to .dawproject?
That would at least enable the recovery of archived pre-SX material without the dependency on the hardware USB-eLicenser, and loaded directly into Cubase as of version 14, which adds .dawproject support.
There are also those of us with .ALL and .ARR files who canāt run SE3 on their computers, so we have no way at all of converting those files.
I think just the feature to convert .all and .arr files to midi would already be enough. In that case we can still import the midi file into newer Versions of Cubase and of course any other daw.
Great idea.
Iām in that position now - downloaded SX3 but it doesnāt actually work. When I import an .ALL file, SX3 crashes. Itās an Atari file, so if Steinberg were to make such a tool, it would be helpful if it worked with Atari files too.
same here. I believe the Atari ARR and ALL versions were only accepted by their immediate Windows versions and SX/SL/SE wonāt read them. Probably some Motorola/Intel byte order shenanigans going on.
Itās impossible to carry the works of decades over to every new software version. Creating file backups is also futile if the program that created the files in the first place refuses to load an older format. Microsoft wouldnāt even dare to refuse to load an old Word or Excel file. Steinberg however managed to destroy my early song collection by simply refusing to maintain a file converter/importer.
I understand they want to move forward, but as a creator Iād also like to maintain access to my own works using software I also paid a shitload of money for over the years. A converter couldāve been made available as an optional application plugin. I wouldāve pay for that.
AFAIK they also never published the ARR and ALL file formats so the community could create a converter to at least extract the MIDI information and track settings. I doubt Steinberg would publish the CPR format due to some legal IP bullshit excuse.
I often skipped a few Cubase versions and so I only realised that support for ARR and ALL was dropped when I wanted to revisit an old song but the import options were gone. I still have a Cubase 5 CD (pre VST) and serial number but canāt find its LPT dongle. I even have the Atari discs for Cubase but also no dongle.
I donāt remember if I had to return them in exchange for the Windows cross grade or an eLicenser based version - whichever that was 25+ years ago ā¦
I setup a virtual machine earlier this year to install the old versions and drivers. It seems very random whether an ARR file is imported correctly in Cubase 3/Win. Many were just empty and some made Cubase hang after it started the import.
None of the few ALL files from Cubase/Win did work.
I believe the empty ARR files were all the untouched originals from Atari.
Back then I only continued working on a few of them in Cubase 3 (pre VST), VST 5 then SX2. Kept saving them as ARR or ALL. Cubase 5 w/o VST could be older than SX2 or not. Cubase names and versions were very confusing back then and
seems like they (or YAMAHA) donāt give a crap about their long time users but this is one reasons why I donāt recommend them as a company. No follow up sales thanks to a disgruntled customer. 
I for one started with Pro24 on Atari and have been a Cubase user since version 1 incl. the short lived Cubeatā¦ Thanks to Steinberg I lost access to virtually all of my early works because I couldnāt afford or didnāt care to buy every single update, so I missed out when they dropped support for these formats.
Isnāt it the other way āround? You bought too many updates and therefore lost access to all your old stuff?
I mean if you had kept your Atari Cubase and your Atari, of course, you would still have all the old stuff at your fingertips.
Sold mine a few months after I bought my first PC. No room to set up both, and no crystal ball to see that in a few years time Cubaseās project format would change so drastically.
Iād have thought a file conversion tool, with the guts of the SX convertor, would be a comparatively easy task.
On the other hand, I still have some of those old mixes (and stuff from the 80s) on cassette tape, and now I blush when I listen to themā¦
Since this old thread has been revived Iād like to chime in on a few issues Iāve been having the last few weeks. I have been spending all of my cubase time lately trying to convert over old SX projects so they can at least function in 8.5 or something.
Even converting from SX3 to 8.5 (I have tried with 7 as well, I donāt own any versions in between) there are a few bugs.
External midi instruments will not map to the same external midi instrument in 8.5, even if they are named exactly the same. So it cant link up the tracks. For a midi instrument with a panel this is problematic, because the vst automation for the device panel is contained within a subtrack/folder thing of the āvst instrumentā so all automation is wiped out when importing to a new version of cubase. The volume fader automation or something similar in these cases does not get wiped out, and even with errors a project will play back just fine just without the vst automation lanes. anything in the audio lane is kept.
VST instruments, even when the exact same 32-bit version is being read from the exact same folder on the hard drive, loose their ācontainer folderā when importing into 8.5 along with all VST automation. Again, anything on the mixer channel still works. Lets say Iām using Steinberg Halion and have drawn out some automation on a filter cutoff. Iāve also drawn automation on the volume fader for that channel. When importing into 8.5, cubase will load the halion plugin. But it breaks the midi connection, instead of āHALionā in the inspector the drop down lists ā01. HALion - MIDI Inā. Why on earth canāt the newer versions of Cubase figure out that what SX used to call āHALionā is ā01. HALionā and āHALion 2ā is ā02. HALionā etc.
Because the names donāt matchā¦ you lose all automation. You can reconnect MIDI easy, but losing all automation is killing me.
Iāve run into some other situations where SX names things differently than new cubase and it just breaks projects. Why cant the program ask when loading to swap out things it cant find with things it instantiated?
I know this thread is originally about getting old Atari files migrated, but for those options ā¦ its just migrating to SX. Which is now broken as well.
There is not a single version of Cubase using the new Steinberg licensing system that does not suffer from these issues. They have an option to import projects from Cubasis. I think they need to add an option to import all/arr/sx cpr files and let the user manually map things that are named differently internally. That appears to be the root cause here and should be easy to fix.
The other problem, again with naming, is with external midi devices where the user has created one, deleted it and created another one with the same name. These get named ānameā, ānameā-2, etc. works great if you have two of the same boxā¦ but what if I have an old project where I deleted and re-createdā¦ in the project file its box-2 but in my C14 its just box or box-1ā¦ all your stuff is gone.
I get the whole getting rid of dongle thing and all that, but it shouldnāt have been done before a comprehensive conversion path had been developed.
As a commenter above said, Microsoft Word will still open microsoft word files from 1983. And WordPerfect will do the same and open each otherās files from a long long time ago. I know I have personally spent far more money with Steinberg than I have with Microsoft, so a basic expectation we have for all software should not be thrown out the window because something like Cubase is a bit more niche.
With everything that Steinberg software does these days, its clear that they have some of the best programmers on the planet working for them. To run into stupid stuff like this when importing old projects (especially after they broke everybodyās old software) is like waking up to find that your oldest best friend dropped a deuce on your kitchen floor while you were sleeping just to intentionally tick you off.
I donāt need a new reverb plugin from Steinberg. I need proper project migration, proper handling of external summing mixers, plugin sandboxing so projects dont randomly crash (or just better performance, look at the threads on audio gridder users), etc, etc.
This is all just sad. Especially when we are talking about customers that have been involved in this ecosystem for decades now.
Hit the nail on the head.
This would seem to be a basic requirement as nearly every long-time user of Cubase, from the Atari days onwards, has amassed a library of projects spanning decades. They donāt suddenly become irrelevant and obsolete just because the software company changes the software. Judging by the comments on this thread, resolving the conversion issue would be a popular and useful thing to do by Steinberg. It canāt possibly be beyond the skills of their programmers, so letās see it happen, please.
Well, arenāt you funny and such a smart one?
Your mother must be so proud of you posting these useful responses +30 years after the fact.
Where have you been 3 decades ago? When my crystal ball broke, to warn me Iād eventually get screwed by Steinbergās changing overlords twice in the decades to come, should I not feed them constantly with plenty money and spent precious time monitoring boring marketing newsletters or forums where wonderful people like you give such brilliant advise?
So where have you been 3 decades ago to give that advise?
Itās just that the sentence that I quoted from your post did not make any sense to me. Why did you lose access to old songs when not buying every single update? It would have made sense if you had written that you lost access because you bought every single update.
I donāt understand why you reply aggressively to my post.
Question: Letās pretend you found your LPT dongle (I havenāt seen mine in ages, too) and you kept your old Atari AND all necessary external gear involved. Think about it: Do you really think you had all necessary (3rd party) plugins, too? There are a gazillion variables involved and I think it is a tat too easy and unfair to blame it all on Steinberg.
IF you REALLY want to make sure to preserve your projects then there is only one way to do it: Export each and every track dry & wet as AUDIO tracks. This has always been future-proof and it always will be. Everything else is a gamble. YMMV.
Donāt get me wrong: Itās not that I wouldnāt like to have a conversion tool, too. Thatās not the point here. I am just trying to put a more realistic spin on the probabilty to revive old projects in general even if there was a conversion tool.
I would add, also export as MIDI.
And hope theyāre compatible with MIDI 3.0 in 20 years time!
Yes, everything that might come in handy, absolutly.
I was trying to point out that audio files are the safest bet in the long run. Everything else that works is the icing on the cake but I wouldnāt put all eggs in one basket and hope that I still have all plugins, a compatible system, a DAW that can convert projects from the last century etc. I think itās a pretty risky move. Hence, putting all the blame on Steinberg seems a bit unfair.
Thinking about it: Not trying to resurrect old projects might also be seen as a survival strategy. This way I can keep my blurred memory of a talented former self alive. LOL - I think I would not only blush - I would probably sink into my studio chair and crawl underneath the deskā¦ 
Some truth in this. About 15 years ago during a pretty straightforward move (directly between 2 locations about 10 miles apart with access to both locations for a couple of months on either side of the move) I ended up with about a decadeās worth of tape missing. After an appropriate amount of cursing, the only thing to do was shrug and accept thatās that.
