Saving multiple cubase projects in one folder

has anyone had any issues with multiple projects that were saved in the same folder? I think I prefer it this way rather than new folder for every project but i don’t know if i would run into issues in the future.

Judging by the history of problems seen in this forum that are caused by putting multiple Projects into the same folder, I’m pretty sure you will have issues too. The problem is all the stuff used by different Projects, especially Audio files, gets dumped in the same place. Different files with the same names get created and overwrite each other, performances end up gone…

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I often do this with variations of a project, but not completely different projects. As suggested by @raino it’s a recipe for disaster.

Reminds me of Apple’s iMovie file management. Disaster.
I agree with Raino and Googly_Smythe;
Generally speaking it’s better to keep projects separate unless there’s a really good reason not to:

The only reason I can think of to keep many projects in the same folder would be if you were working on an album or other body of work that have something in common. I even used to record an entire recording session of multiple songs on one Cubase project with an ensemble knowing all the mixing elements would be common. Those sessions were all free meter so I never observed the tempo/click in Cubase. It was a very efficient way to record, mix, export a body of work that does not require click.

On separate songs I will save new versions of a song (project) by duplicating the project file. The duplicate title is amended with a number. If I ever need to refer back to a previous point in time for what ever reason I can. It’s similar to the .bak files cubase generates but more hands on and flexible. Obviously don’t delete audio from the pool until you’re done with the final version.

That’s my 2c

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i tried load the same samples in two projects , it seems it renamed the later sample as sample-01, seems there’s are no conflicts, but will consider your advice

Are there reports of this happening? Overwriting files without user confirmation should be considered a deadly sin in modern computing.

I’m not advocating using a single folder for multiple projects from a pure organizational point of view.

Well, there’s also the issue that down the line you might think it’s a good idea to Minimize a project for backup, and you wipe all the other projects’ audio files, because they were in the common folder structure.

No, no. I’ve done this. Never again. 1 project = 1 folder. Unless it’s the same project with the same material, as @Googly_Smythe said.

Agreed. That falls under file organization in my book.

I do have one folder called “Sandbox” where I start projects with zero value. These projects are typically for testing equipment, setups or other non-critical things.

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One of the problems is that the way Cubase names your audio file’s isn’t particularly smart.

It basically just takes the name of your track and adds the appropriate .ext to the file (does anyone use anything other than .wavs now?) then saves it in the audio file.

If you record guitars a lot, do a search on your hard drive for files called “Guitar-1.wav”, and “Guitar-2.wav” you find very many of them. Trying to find the right one can be a PITA (I had this issue with a very old project).

If you use the one audio folder, there’s a chance files could get overwritten or confused. It used to happen a lot. When I went to Club Cubase in Toronto, the host mentioned it being something he helped clients with a few times.

It would be better if Cubase would add the name of the project to the audio files:

[project-name]-[track-name][take#].wav

I asked for that in the forums a while ago, but . . .

well, we all know how those things go :wink:

Again, I don’t advocate using a single project folder but I think that you should be able to if you want. If files get automatically overwritten without there being a user prompt first, it’s a critical bug in the program.

It seems that Cubase is designed with the expectations of one project one folder. All of it’s actions seem to be based on this premise.

This one is easy - Yes! (But not me, of course!)

Seems to me that Cubase is designed to allows the user to define the project folder themselves, be it a single one or multiple per project.

But from then on it treats each project as if it were the only one in the folder.
As mentioned by @noise in a previous post, Cubase has a lazy way of naming audio files, and so on.
As I’ve said, I put similar projects in a single folder (different mixes, long or short versions, etc), but keep different projects in their own folders.
If I’m doing an album (for my own use!) I put all the related projects in a top level folder, but each “song” will have it’s own project folder.
Simpler in the long run.

I was working on something the other day and thought "he, it would be really neat if we could have multiple songs in one project, that you could easily flip between. Maybe call them Arrangements or Arr files . . .

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Those were the days!

You mean that every project will share folders such as Audio, Edits and so on?
True, and it will result in a disorganized file system. This is why we all agree that best practice is to keep projects in project specific folders.
However, there might be users who never open up their file explorer (or finder) and don’t care that an audio file is named “Audio 01_403.wav”. Those potential users should be allowed to use a single project folder if they so choose without running the risk of having files overwritten willy nilly.
Since I have never encountered files being haphazardly overwritten, I’m going by anecdotes by fellow forum users in this very thread. If this in fact is a risk, there is a catastrophic bug lurking in the Cubase source code. It’s just something that should never be allowed to happen.

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This is actually spot on. While it looks basic nowadays that users have some type of knowledge of the file system, etc, this shouldn’t be expected at all. I know it may sound absurd, but still, it’s a fact. I have a very good friend, classically trained, always worked on paper, who uses Cubase the last years. He literally knows nothing about what’s happening at the file level, or even to the DAW at some points. What I’ve trained him ( :smiley: ) to do, was to ALWAYS have the “Default Location” checked, so I can be sure he’ll be using a different folder.

Give each project its own folder, and put them all in a parent folder.

Boom, one folder for all your projects.

The last I recall, Cubase tends to balk at the idea of putting a new project in a folder that already has a project. “The folder must be empty” or something like that. No?

Glad we agree!