Project file corruption in a project testing Softube plugins

Cubase
22

Oh right! That would be way easier haha. I’ll have to try it.

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23

I’m just hoping that it will still work, because I don’t envy the mess you’re trying to untangle. Good luck! I’ll keep monitoring this thread and hope to hear about your big success soon!

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24

Well, I finally did it. I exported all of the instrument tracks (78 of them) using the multi-track export feature, imported the audio tracks, moved all of the track processing (plugins/EQ settings/Sends/Pan/Volume/etc), copied all of the automation, and everything else.

I also deleted all of the silence to cut the total audio file size dramatically. And then I finished re-doing all of the mixing that was lost due to the file corruption. And wow that was a lot of work (I’d say at least 4 hours, on top of all of the other testing and trial and error mentioned above).

Thanks Nico5 for reminding me of the “export multiple tracks” method, I think that kept the audio extraction part of it very efficient.

For reference, the new final project file is 7mb haha. But all of the new audio files came out to about 500 mb (although that’s still smaller than the 600 mb of freeze audio).

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25

Thanks for the update. And I’m glad that he multi-track export still worked with the dodgy project file.

What a crazy experience!

p.s. I think one way of saving on audio files sizes with significant silence might be to use the FLAC format. – But I haven’t done it much myself, so I don’t know if that might hide other snakes in the grass.

May the rest of your project be a lot less stressful!

26

Oh hmm, I didn’t know that FLAC compresses silence. I’ll have to experiment with this some time.

Thanks! This was an unfortunate setback, but I’m glad it happened where I didn’t lose significant work that couldn’t be easily replicated. I lost a lot of time, but I think it’s taught me a valuable lesson to be more careful with saving project files as I progress through projects. I’m going to start saving new project files with every mix/master export version, and I’m likely going to start by converting large frozen instrument projects like this to audio from the get go. An added bonus is that it will future proof any new issues with VST instruments.

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