USB Hardrive and Backups

That's a cool dual set for 16 channels on the Steinberg's... ADAT...whatever happened to Alesis ADAT's?

I've been continuing to implement the new "save" functions for better organizing.
I seem to have some of it working ...but...... a couple more questions-

1)what are these files ? and did I miss a save or something? because they aren't in the folder for the song, I was trying to keep all the songs stuff in one folder....

2)another question I want to move my Reaper to my portable harddrive so I can record from another location, a different pc, and just run the Reaper from the portable USB HD...is this possible?

Im re-reading this again and searching around in the meantime....thanks for all the help on this, its working!
 

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mjbphotos said:
If you go into the project again and add some tracks or plugins, save it to the same name but with a new date (first: Song123, next time Song123 6-10-13, etc) When I render a song, I will put the date in the render title.
When you finish a song, you can delete all/some of the previous versions (projects and renders) if you have space considerations.

Some folks may say 'you don't need to do that' as in Reaper you can always revert to previous versions, but I'm anal that way. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

The adding the date thing really helped a lot. Sounds simple in hindsight but its a big "time stamp" and easy to read as I search through folders.

Im not there yet, but eventually want to get everything to my USB HD so its portable and I can just make up a backup of it in entirety, (and not have the whole Windows and HP (in my case) being copied to the USB-HD),

I think this is starting to make sense, thanks.

Ive got to move my Reaper to my HD, I'll try a fresh download from the site to my USB-HD, I hope it wont conflict with the Reaper version on my desktop pc....
 
CoolCat said:
That's a cool dual set for 16 channels on the Steinberg's... ADAT...whatever happened to Alesis ADAT's?

I've been continuing to implement the new "save" functions for better organizing.
I seem to have some of it working ...but...... a couple more questions-

1)what are these files ? and did I miss a save or something? because they aren't in the folder for the song, I was trying to keep all the songs stuff in one folder....

2)another question I want to move my Reaper to my portable harddrive so I can record from another location, a different pc, and just run the Reaper from the portable USB HD...is this possible?

Im re-reading this again and searching around in the meantime....thanks for all the help on this, its working!
Click to expand...

Those are your individual track files (sound = wav, and peak file) reaper needs both for each track when loading up the project.

I think you may run into speed issues if you run Reaper from the portable drive, but I've also heard that some people do this.
 
gecko zzed said:
I've run Reaper from a USB stick, recording onto that stick, and also onto a separate removable drive. It worked fine.
Click to expand...

Would there not be a bottleneck, running audio files, as well as the program itself? Like running OS/DAW and recording tracks to the same drive? Oh wait...The OS is out of the equation...

Not that I would have a need to do such a thing, but now I am curious...

I use Cubase, so that is likely not even an option for me. Can't plug a dongle into a USB drive...
 
gecko zzed said:
I've run Reaper from a USB stick, recording onto that stick, and also onto a separate removable drive. It worked fine.
Click to expand...

thanks.
Ok, I'm going to give it a try then...

will download Reaper to my USB HD, and pretty much use a PC with no internet, and run everything through a interface to the USB HD...

it should be a simple tracking only, ...maybe 4 mics at once, max... then a guitar and bass, and vocals later....
portability. almost jonzing for my old 2488 portastudio, it was just pop in mics and press record...
but this USBHD might work out ok after the software stuff is done.
 
mjbphotos said:
Those are your individual track files (sound = wav, and peak file) reaper needs both for each track when loading up the project.
Click to expand...

When do I get the option to save these files?
Seems the other files went into the folder I created for that song...

I made a folder called REAPER SAVE FILES
inside that folder are folders with Song names...
then within that folder I try to save all the different mixes and mp3 renders etc....

but I found these individual track files in the main folder not the song folders...can I highlight them and move them to a folder or will that screw up the path or something?
 
CoolCat said:
When do I get the option to save these files?
Seems the other files went into the folder I created for that song...

I made a folder called REAPER SAVE FILES
inside that folder are folders with Song names...
then within that folder I try to save all the different mixes and mp3 renders etc....

but I found these individual track files in the main folder not the song folders...can I highlight them and move them to a folder or will that screw up the path or something?
Click to expand...


Easiest way:

Load up the Reaper project

The go File/Save Project As . . .

Give the project the same name, but make sure the "move all media into project directory" box is ticked.

Make sure that the you have the right song folder selected.

Hit "Save".

This will save the reaper project into the song folder, and move all its associated files there as well.
 
when you say "move all media into project directory"

do you mean it moves all the previous existing files there also ? in other words will it take the files on C drive and put them on G drive when I do a Save As with the box checked?

or does it just save the ones from this current session once the box is checked?

I ask because I found a bunch of peak wave files, on my Cdrive but now Im trying to put everything on the G-drive.

edit> ok I went ahead and just did what you said and all the peak and waves are now with the correct song folder. so after I update all the songs (luckily Reaper has a large memeory for recent-projects, I can get everything onto the G drive.


Thanks again! I think this will do and I can erase the C drive stuff.
 
mjbphotos said:
I'm not lazy, really, but yesterday I finally got around to doing a full backup. Hadn't done one since July 28 last year! :facepalm: I had backed up a lot of my music files to DVD-R, but not to my external drive. For some reason I was thinking it was full, but in fact half of it was the stupid 'image file' I got when I tried to used the backup software.
Yeah, now I know I should pick up a 2nd external drive and be redundant about backing up, but one thing at a time!
Click to expand...

So we are clear, there is a system backup and there are stored files in another location. When you use a backup software, it is used to restore and it is one large file (usually, there are different schemes, but this is the general rule) so if I have a hard drive crash, I can load up the software, hit restore and the system comes back up as it was on that backup date. Use to be you would then update incrementally, base back up, backup +1st day, backup +2nd day, etc. Then the software for consumers became more intelligent and made the changes only for the updates. So, a system back up is to restore your system in case of hard drive fail. Saving files off for archive, later use, whatever is a different strategy. Usually (I am not an expert at this any longer) backup software doesn't allow you to view the files, just allows you to restore them. It is more efficient to save as an image as it can be compressed.

I hope I added to the conversation and not stated the obvious.
 
nothing is obvious to me , when it comes to software.,..lol

probably need to do a windows backup for a windows crash too...aarrgg....

but my experience agrees with you, the Windows Backup, didn't work for Reaper copying tunes.

The old .."drag and drop" worked though, for Reaper stuff.
I appreciated your explanation of the Windows utility, it makes sense. ..kind of... as long as I don't think too much :facepalm:

I don't know what C++ is and all this background magic going on, all the extensions and terminology and nomenclature of Reaper...
Im just wanting to have everything associated to a recording, in one folder, so I can make a copy of this in a few places is all.
 
edit that last question-

went ahead and downloaded a new install of Reaper to the USB HD.
Reaper works fine, time will tell if theres speed issues. The other copy on my main C drive isn't effected(nor used).
everything is on the USB HD! and it seems to work!
now I can go "portable"....cool !!
Will plug the usbhd into another pc and record on another system, then bring the USB HD back into my other room and mix as needed!

Also this seems it might be easier to mirror copy the USB HD, and wont have to deal with copying the C-drive with Windows and all that other stuff on it.

Appreciate the help from everyone...
 
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hey that's really good 101 stuff. thanks..
I'll try the desktop folders and the explanation of those peak files makes more sense. great!

it seems weird to delete the peak files...but I guess they re-create themselves?....
to keep the garbage down/extra stuff down to a clean level...
im doing the clean current projector now too to prevent too. I'll try deleting these peak files a few times.

just spent a couple hours going over all that info on there...wow..

edit: well I did the desktop folders and created one called Audio Files on the hardrive, and now the Reaper lost all the JS and VST again....and the tune wont load up at all.
no waveforms are seen either? (I created the wave form desktop folder and did as the video said)?

when I checked my version of reaper on the Cdrive all the effects are there, but on the Gdrive their all missing again.

luckily I did a search and at least got a wave version of the two track, but the multi track version is gone. the wave wont load into reaper either?
 
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I copied the folder PLUGINS from my C drive and pasted to my Reaper Media folder and all the effects are online again...


edit> add

Ok, those past two posts are hard to understand (and I wrote them)..lol

When I created this new AUDIO FILE (per the video) it caused the issues with that song, I think.

But I don't think all the VST and Plugins disappearing again had anything to do with the new preference changes. Time will tell....

If the Reaper loses all the PLUGINS again, Ill be back asking questions.
This has only happened on the G-drive Reaper (USB HD) , not the C-drive Reaper (main HD).

strange?
 
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I run my tracking reaper of a lappy on a usb stick, & when I moved it I used this method;copy to usb.PNG
it copied the exact reaper I had on my desktop to the usb stick, simples!
(just saying that's what I did! :D.)
 
I think its a really cool way to go, because of the portability and if you buy a new pc or go somewhere its going to work well.

Ive had a few odd things happen recently, today during recording the reaper froze and when it came back the two new tracks were gone! no big loss...but I had to re-do them.

think I have the backup thing working now, set to every 6 minutes to a desktop folder (not on my USB portable HD)..so a auto-copy is supposedly going on in auto mode. haven't had to retrieve anything yet.


Organization still blows though...Ive got crap everywhere still. Once that's figured out to something I understand better it will help.
then a backup/ mirror image copy of the USB HD, which was the goal.

geeez I guess Ill re-double-triple read this thread again...arrrgg... I think I don't like the long list of track files and peak files cluttering up the song folder. something isn't fitting my perception of organized of all these files of so many things?
 
thanks...Ill read some more.

I just did my first USB portable HD/ w/ Reaper and it was cool man, some other laptop, downloaded drivers for another interface and pulled up the Reaper and it was recording after some basic stuff adjusted in the preference. I did add a "folder for backups" on the laptop so every 6 minutes it drops ?something? into that folder...

great... however I still haven't made a full mirror backup copy,

but is this backup I set to every 6 minutes, is this the entire song, with all the tracks and fx's?
 
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