How To Save Bundle Files...

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NLAlston

NLAlston

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When Cross-Platforming?

I have Sonar Producer, here, and there is a need for saving sequenced 'Wav.' files in a format which would allow the opening & usage of same in another system with the same program. I was told that saving as a "Bundle" file was the ticket, but was unsuccessful with that. Someone then informed me that the 'Bundle' file had to also be saved as a "Data" file, but I could find no save format for a combined "Bundle/Data" file. Lastly, it was just brought to my attention that the tracks might have to be individually conversted/saved in order to achieve what I desire. Could someone please list the proper steps for saving a complete song so that it could be called up in Sonar, on another CPU, and worked on? I would REALLY appreciate any info on this.

Thanks in advance.
 
Sounds like you got a lot of confusing information.

To save a bundle file you only need to run the Save As command from the file menu, give the file a name and choose bundle (.cwb) from the drop down list of file types. Voila. Finis. End of story.

Of course, the other system that you plan to open it on must have the same version of Sonar. IOW, you can't open a file created in Sonar 3 on someone's system who only has Sonar 2 installed.

Also, if you want to use any plugin effects you have on your project, those plugins must also be installed on the second system.

As for the "data" issue. I assume they meant is that when you try and burn the file to a CD you must burn the CD as a data CD, not an audio CD. (I'm not sure you could burn a bundle file as an audio CD, even if you wanted to.) The bundle (cwb) format is already a data file and therefore needs no conversion to make it one. Nor do you have to do any individual conversion of your tracks. All the tracks and the underlying audio will be contained in the bundle file once you save it.

The only remaining issue is size. If your project is large enough, you may run into a size problem. To my knowledge the bundle file cannot be larger than 2 GB. However, that should give you sufficient space for most reasonable projects.
 
dachay2tnr said:
Sounds like you got a lot of confusing information.

To save a bundle file you only need to run the Save As command from the file menu, give the file a name and choose bundle (.cwb) from the drop down list of file types. Voila. Finis. End of story.

Of course, the other system that you plan to open it on must have the same version of Sonar. IOW, you can't open a file created in Sonar 3 on someone's system who only has Sonar 2 installed.

Also, if you want to use any plugin effects you have on your project, those plugins must also be installed on the second system.

As for the "data" issue. I assume they meant is that when you try and burn the file to a CD you must burn the CD as a data CD, not an audio CD. (I'm not sure you could burn a bundle file as an audio CD, even if you wanted to.) The bundle (cwb) format is already a data file and therefore needs no conversion to make it one. Nor do you have to do any individual conversion of your tracks. All the tracks and the underlying audio will be contained in the bundle file once you save it.

The only remaining issue is size. If your project is large enough, you may run into a size problem. To my knowledge the bundle file cannot be larger than 2 GB. However, that should give you sufficient space for most reasonable projects.
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Dachay2tnr,

You have rendered a great deal of clarity to the matter, and I really thank you. The studio where these songs (just four of them) will ultimately end up is utilizing Sonar Producer also, as well as Logic. I initially figured that burning the files under the "Data" choice box of my burning program couldn't have been the choice because of the fact that we are dealing with 'AUDIO' files, as opposed to MIDI. But you learn something every day :) .

You've been a huge help.....and thanks again.
 
I'm not sure you could burn a bundle file as an audio CD, even if you wanted to.
Click to expand...

That's dachay's diplomatic way of saying, "of course you can't burn a bundle file as an audi CD."

If your project is large enough, you may run into a size problem. To my knowledge the bundle file cannot be larger than 2 GB.
Click to expand...
I believe the 2GB file limit was an operating systems limit with Windows 98 and earlier versions of Windows; it should not be an issue with XP or Windows 2000.

By the way, NLALston, cross-platform usually means taking a file from one computer environment, such as Windows, to another, such as MacIntosh or Linux. Since SONAR only exists as a Windows application, this is not what you meant. SONAR does have a cross-platform, cross-application interchange format, namely OMF, that will allow a SONAR project to be ported between SONAR and Pro Tools and DP and whatever other apps support the OMF format. Then you could cross platforms and applications too...
 
AlChuck, Thanks.

What's happening is that my brother met a very talented young lady, who wished to have a demo disk put together. The four songs that I mentioned earlier are hers. I am just learning this Sonar, which is why the songs will end up in a studio setting with a much more experienced engineer. But I am just trying to save her some money (I'm not charging her anything) by having her music tracked before she gets there. The other fellow uses Logic, primarily, but purchased Sonar Producer behind the fact that a lot of 'hopefuls' are coming to him with tracks done in that program. Now, I'm told that Logic is a Macintosh program, and maybe the young lady's mention of 'Cross-Platforming' had to with his application within this. But, again, I have leaned something - and I thank you for this information. I keep hanging around here and I will soon be somebody to REALLY reckon with :) .
 
AlChuck said:
I believe the 2GB file limit was an operating systems limit with Windows 98 and earlier versions of Windows; it should not be an issue with XP or Windows 2000.
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AlChuck, I am far from an expert in this area, so take it for what it's worth. However, I believe this is a limitation of the RIFF format which I believe is used both for Wave files and the Cakewalk Bundle format, and therefore is still an issue beyond Win98.
 
That could be true, dachay... I'll look into it...

A quick look shows me this:

Bundle files have another limitation, they are subject to a limit of 2-gigabyte in file size due to a Windows OS limitation.
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from the Cakewalk website: http://www.cakewalk.com/Tips/TechTipMay02_2.asp

Eleswhere I read

Wav (RIFF) is limited to the length of an unsigned 32-bit integer (2GB). It's part of the IFF spec, which includes AIFF and TIFF.
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but that would apply to individual WAV files wrapped in the bundle file. That said, I seem to remember that within bun files the audio data was all concatenated into a single WAV file. But still, if it were saved that way it could also be unpackaged in an intelligent way when opened in SONAR so that that multiple WAV files exist, say one for each track... but I don't know if SONAR does that...

This is more complicated than I expected...
 
AlChuck said:
That said, I seem to remember that within bun files the audio data was all concatenated into a single WAV file.
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I tested this in an earlier version of Sonar (don't recall if it was 1.0 or 2.0, but it was awhile ago). I took an existing project, created a bundle file, then deleted the project and all associated .wav's. When I unpacked the bundle file and look in the audio file directory, there was just a single (LARGE) wave file.

I can't confirm if this is still how it is done today - but I would suspect it is.

That all said, somehow I was under the impression that the bundle file itself, also conformed to the RIFF format. Not just the contained wave(s).

Either way, it would appear there is still a 2 GB limit, no?
 
Just to put a spanner in the works.. or at least throw a side comment in..

One thing that has happened a few times on the board is that the bun file has been corrupted.. To fix it you need to rename it to wav, cut it up again and put it on to different tracks.

What I'm trying to say is, it is safer to keep you projects in 'folder per project'.. that way if there is any corruption in moving files it won't effect the whole project.. just the audio file.

As I said.. just a thought.

Porter
 
An unsigned 32-bit integer has a maximum value of 4 GB. A signed integer is 2GB.
 
An unsigned 32-bit integer has a maximum value of 4 GB. A signed integer is 2GB.
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That's nonsense. 4 GB means 4 billion bytes. An unsigned 32-bit integer is 4 bytes -- 32 bits -- period. I think you must mean the range of values that can be represented by a 32-bit integer is 4,294,967,296 -- 2 e32.

At any rate, what would the range of values of a 32-bit integer have to do with a limit on file size? A bigger file would just have more in it; the maximum range of individual data within the file is totally unrelated to any constraints on the file size itself...
 
AlChuck said:
That's nonsense. 4 GB means 4 billion bytes. An unsigned 32-bit integer is 4 bytes -- 32 bits -- period. I think you must mean the range of values that can be represented by a 32-bit integer is 4,294,967,296 -- 2 e32.

At any rate, what would the range of values of a 32-bit integer have to do with a limit on file size? A bigger file would just have more in it; the maximum range of individual data within the file is totally unrelated to any constraints on the file size itself...
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What about my statement is nonsense? The maximum value of an unsigned integer is hex ffffffff, which is 4 GB.

What it may have to do with file size is: One of the attributes of a file is its size. If the file system being used employs a 4-byte word to record the file size, it stands to reason that file size would be limited to 4GB.
 
[OT MODE: ON]Don't you guys have something worth to record?[OT MODE: OFF]

:D :) :D
 
What about my statement is nonsense? The maximum value of an unsigned integer is hex ffffffff, which is 4 GB.
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No, it's not 4 GB -- 4 GB is 4 billion bytes. A number is a number, without units. What you said is like me saying a 4-bit number has 16 oz possible values. Maybe nonsense was a bit strong, but it's still a bit lacking in sense.

The point about the file size being an attribute of the file system, I guess that makes sense...
 
I see what you mean. Since we were talking about file size, I used bytes as a unit of measure.
 
No problemo... sorry if I ruffled you by the sharp way I pointed it out... I get a bit curmudgeonly at times...
 
alternate option

I'm not sure if this has been offered, but an alternative is to create your sonar project using the "per project" folder option (found in GLOBAL settings), in which you give the project its name and sonar creates a seperate folder to store all the project's midi and wav data in seperate subfoldersundefined. this way, you can burn a data cd including the sonar file and all it's associated audio folders. the paths should match up if you transfer to another machine running sonar.
 
chemikiller said:
I'm not sure if this has been offered, but an alternative is to create your sonar project using the "per project" folder option (found in GLOBAL settings), in which you give the project its name and sonar creates a seperate folder to store all the project's midi and wav data in seperate subfoldersundefined. this way, you can burn a data cd including the sonar file and all it's associated audio folders. the paths should match up if you transfer to another machine running sonar.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much what I was saying ;-)

Porter
 
file size limits

No file size can exceed 2GB on any FAT 32 Partition. that is a limit of the FAT32 file system. NTFS, (Windows NT, 2000, and XP) HPFS, (Mac OSX) and EXT2 (Linux) can handle individual files larger than 2 GB.

Until recently AVI files' built in structure prohibited them from exceding 2GB. Most hard disk imaging programs will split image files at 2GB because the ISO 9660 file system doesn't allow for files larger than 2GB, (ISO 9660 is the CD/DVD filesystem.) I don't know anything about other file types that are limited to 2GB
 
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