Cubase file formats

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NYMorningstar

Recording Modus Operandi
I'm new at recording and I have Cubase. It was a little hard to figure out how to use. When I first started I wasn't too aware of the audio file folders and how to save the songs in the .all file formats. I've finally have that figured out but I ended up with a few folders with multiple song files in them. To keep it simple I created a folder for each song and moved their respective files to them. When I did this, the computer created files with a .gpk extension on them in the folders I took the files from. Does anyone know what these files do or control? Are they necessary or can I delete them? Also if you will, could you please tell me what the .ovw files are?

Thanking you in advance,

Bobby D
 
Hmmm....

I haven't done this kind of file maintainence with Cubase for a little while so I may be a bit rusty, but here is the safest way to move a song.

You have to do it IN CUBASE! Open the song you want to move, open the audio pool, and go to the file menu (I think.) It is either "Prepare Master" or "Prepare Archive" or some such.

What this does is copies all the files over to the new directory AND preserves all the references to the new files in your song. That way your song doesn't go looking for its audio files in the old directory. Then I erase the old directory and all the files in it.

BUT FIRST!!!!! Make sure that there are no files for OTHER songs in that directory! When I am doing disk cleaning, I'll move any new songs (since the last cleaning) into its own directory just to make sure. I'm sure there are easier ways, but this is the best I know.

Man, I'll play with all the other kinds of data on my computer with glee- but I DON'T mess with my audio files. :D

That was the long way of saying I have no idea what those file extensions mean, but I let Cubase do all the work with them. ;)

Take care,
Chris
 
...the .ovw file is the "waveform" of the accompanying song...if you accidentally lose it CuBase will generate another one the next time you open that song...I forget what the .gpk files are....
 
Thank You. I'm beginning to have a suspicion that the .gpk files are like .dll files providing links for the program to find elements in the .all song files e.g. linking the tracks to the channels. I've noticed when opening the songs I have moved from one folder to another where I have deleted the .gpk files that I need to re-import the .wav's to each channel.
 
What Media-style export formats can you master to in Cubase? (assuming you aren't using a third-party) I mean .mp3, .wav, etc.
 
an explanation from a puter engr.
whichever multitrack software one has there are common techniques programmers of the multitrack software use.
to create the waveforms you see on the screen the programmer logs the sample values at preset time intervals each second. the samples in a track are either a positive or negative number corresponding to the waveform.
because all digital audio is , is just numbers. for example at 44.1 16 bit.
2 byte integers falling in the range -32000 roughly to +32000.
these are logged in some sort of waveform file seperate from the actual track itself. the idea being to load and display the waveform very quickly.
in summary each time you record a track several things get created.
obviously the audio track itself plus the graphic waveform file already mentioned. next becomes the question where does the programmer store the settings the user has made for the track - like its volume ,
pan, eq settings , plug ins used etc etc. so the programmer could create another file for each track for these user settings.
so - so far we have 3 files for each recorded track. the wav, the waveform, and the settings file. (some programmers to save space could store the user settings possibly at the start of the waveform file so only 2 files are needed).
then there is the issue of where the programmer stores the global preferences of the song. things like song name and song global settings.
this is normally stored in ONE file for the song. deoending on the application,
instead of having a settings file for each track - the programmer might store all the track settings (like vol and pan etc) in the master settings global file.
so its very important when copying from one folder to another you copy as well this file AS WELL otherwise you will have to build the project from scratch by importing each wave file into a project.
its quite easy to see which approach the programmers used.
if you go into a song folder and look at the wave tracks (little spkr icons)
and you see only TWO files per track. then one is the audio itself and the other the waveform(probably with user settings as well). if you see THREE files per track then the added file has been used for user settings by the programmer. then if you notice you will normally see in the song folder
ONE INSTANCE of another file. (some programmers might use two).
this is where the global song settings are stored. and in some multitrack apps if you click on it ,it will launch and display the song project.

it is vitally important when working on a song not to inadvertently delete
files. and when copying whole projects for back up to copy everything in the song folder. otherwise problems can arise later if you want to relaunch a song.
this is but a brief introduction and hope it clarifies some info for folks.
 
also i should mention something that can really cause problems.
to save space some multitrack software has an option for long term archival storage to store EVERYTHING (audio tracks, track settings,global unique song settings,song template.plug in settings etc) in ONE BIG FILE with a unique file extension. so if you have lets say 32 tracks of 24 bit audio as you can appreciate this file is LARGE. if you are a user of multitrack software and you wonder what this big file is that you have ,its probably you saved the song at some point to this archival file format.
now - what some musicians do is - when a song is complete save to this archival type of file, and wipe out all their song tracks to save space.
this can be problematic. because NOW you are reliant on the one big back up archival file. thus if it gets corrupted somehow you wont be able to retrieve your song at some later date. this HAS been known to happen.
so - to be safe its best to have a track sheet you can create on your pc
which you write down track settings on, and print out (just in case you loose your hard drive in a bad crash). and burn the individual tracks of the song to cd.(once again in case you have a bad hard drive crash so you cant retrieve your tracks). in fact two CD copies might be prudent in case one CD goes bad. in summary thinking about long term archival song storage for back up is an important issue to think about.
you might do a song for example, then in 3 years time a large label wants to sign you based on the demo they heard somewhere, and want the raw tracks to maybe remaster and do additional massaging on; but you cant provide it to them , because your song back up is corrupt and unreadable.
just some issues to ponderand plan for. hope this helps.
peace.
 
manning1 said:
also i should mention something that can really cause problems.
to save space some multitrack software has an option for long term archival storage to store EVERYTHING (audio tracks, track settings,global unique song settings,song template.plug in settings etc) in ONE BIG FILE with a unique file extension. so if you have lets say 32 tracks of 24 bit audio as you can appreciate this file is LARGE. if you are a user of multitrack software and you wonder what this big file is that you have ,its probably you saved the song at some point to this archival file format.
now - what some musicians do is - when a song is complete save to this archival type of file, and wipe out all their song tracks to save space.
this can be problematic. because NOW you are reliant on the one big back up archival file. thus if it gets corrupted somehow you wont be able to retrieve your song at some later date. this HAS been known to happen.
so - to be safe its best to have a track sheet you can create on your pc
which you write down track settings on, and print out (just in case you loose your hard drive in a bad crash). and burn the individual tracks of the song to cd.(once again in case you have a bad hard drive crash so you cant retrieve your tracks). in fact two CD copies might be prudent in case one CD goes bad. in summary thinking about long term archival song storage for back up is an important issue to think about.
you might do a song for example, then in 3 years time a large label wants to sign you based on the demo they heard somewhere, and want the raw tracks to maybe remaster and do additional massaging on; but you cant provide it to them , because your song back up is corrupt and unreadable.
just some issues to ponderand plan for. hope this helps.
peace.
Click to expand...

Backup is essential to everything. I have all of my files backed up on my keychain for school documents using those USB flash devices. They have a server where you can access your documents with your password and username on the internet, but it has been known to fail in dire times of need. A copy of everything is also on my harddrive at home. But that isn't promising. Also having a file right in my pocket helps too. And with 1GB cards they have now...a lot can be put on there.
Manning1, in regards to your post, would an external hard drive of a backup be the same thing with maybe more storage instead of using all kinds of CDs? (Meaning that a virus hasn't infected the HDD - or the CD for that matter)
 
shawn. at one point in my life i designed security systems for large financial orgs.so a lot of what i suggest is based on this security experience. in theory having another drive for back up purposes on pc sounds fine.
but there are still security issues to think about. for example maybe another
member of the household (unwittingly) overwrites something, on the back up
drive. what large orgs will do , and what i do with files i deem critical that i couldnt do without, in case my pc is destroyed somehow , is store copies of my critical personal stuff at another location. for example a lock box at a bank might be an alternative or at a relations house with backup CD's in
storage. but i can tell you no solution is perfect. with cd's there have been issues of age degradation possibly. its not an easy issue to deal with.

peace.
 
Could anyone tell me what Cubase can export to for mass-media publication (like .wav, .mp3, etc.) or what kind of programs can convert it at a very good quality?
 
Could anyone tell me what Cubase can export to for mass-media publication (like .wav, .mp3, etc.) or what kind of programs can convert it at a very good quality?
 
assuming your talking about having completed a mixdown to a stereo file.
this would be wave file format. then if you want to post songs on your own song site to listen to you would create an mp3 file and post it up on your site.
if you dont have a wave>>mp3 convertor there are various free ones around at hitsquad.com.
 
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