Trying to understand Cubase Project File

I am trying to understand more about the “inner workings” of Cubase, at least at a relatively high level. This is what I think is going on.

  1. The Audio folder contains all audio files (in WAV format) that are recorded or imported.
  2. The Images folder contains the images of the audio wave forms that are displayed in the tracks. They are in propriety “PEAK” format. I haven’t seen any other files in that folder, but I don’t do anything very sophisticated.
  3. A Mixdown folder is used to store files exported from Cubase (though you can send them anywhere you want to).
  4. I have seen references to an Edit folder but have never seen one.
  5. The .cpr is the “glue” that holds everything together. I contains all the metadata for a project, including, but not limited to:
  • Settings for a project set in the Setup menu.
  • How an existing project looks when you open it up, for example what windows are open.
  • Information about each individual tracks such as color, inserts, EQ settings, bus routing, etc., location (time-based) of individual WAV files comprising each track.
  • Midi data for individual tracks.
  • Chord tracks, marker tracks etc.
  • File references to audio, image and other files.
  • Audio fade ins and outs, automation, …
  • Edits to WAV files. This is somewhat where I am guessing. If you edit a track no new WAV file is created, so apparently the edits are managed in the cpr file and not physical changes are made to the original file.

Does this sound approximately correct and can anyone point me to documentation that describes the cpr file in more detail. I am not looking for any proprietary information, but just like to understand how things work. Thanks in advance.

Hi,

If you use any offline process, the newly created (processed) file is stored here.

It depends on the edit. Non-destructive edits are stored in the project. Destructive edits create the new file in the Edit sub-folder.

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