Storing wav files on CD's

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Voodoo24

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My first post here - hi to you all :) I've looked around a bit for any topics relating to this but couldn't find any so I'm gonna post it here. Here's my problem - I have an almost COMPLETELY full hard drive which consists of mostly wav files(single tracks and mixdowns) recorded over the last 4 years. I'm down to my last few hundred MB so I see this as a real problem. What I want to do is store all these Wav files somewhere else to free up space on the hard drive. I've been told my best option is to purchase a new hard drive and store all my wav files there, but this isn't really an option at the moment as money is tight.

What I wanna know is, is there an easy way of storing all these files on CD-R's? The CD-R's I have store 700 MB but the majority of songs I want to store consist of more than this. All my wav files are currently stored in their own folder and I'm finding it a real headscratcher of how to get them onto CD's without having to use tonnes of CD's. I'm wondering if there's a way of compressing the files in such a way to make them smaller but I would be able to bring them back to their original format should I need to remix songs etc.

Ideally I'd like to store one song per CD, so that CD would consist of the main file that I would open up first.....and the individual tracks associated with that song. Sorry if I'm not making much sense but I'm not the most technical-minded of people LOL. BTW I record using Cubase VST 32 version 5. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

Liam
 
the messenger... don't shoot.

what you want to do can't really be done without a) a significant degredation in quality b) a ton of cds

The folks who are recommending a new HD are on the right track... and before you give up on this, check www.pricewatch.com and remember, since its storage only, it can be 54000 rpms... figure out how big your folder is... and do the math on whether that number is worth your avoidance of headache (you can also get an IDE kit for one of your 5.25 bays, so you could swap out drives just like tapes. You can get a 30 gig drive for 40.00, and a kit for 8.00

Now that I've answered the question you didn't ask :)

you can try using winzip or some other similar compression utitility, and see how much you will gain, but if each song has over 1G of track data, you're just simply not going to fit it on one CD.

Anyhow, your best bet, is just come up with an intuitive way of splitting up your tracks so you can regularly use say 2 or 3 cds per song.

I know this isn't the 'just press this key' answer you were hoping for, if I can be of any more help, let me know.

Regards,

Rich
 
WAV files won't compress very much unless you use something lossy, which of course you wouldn't want to do.

There's really little you can do except break them into parts. I use a file splitting utility to break large files into chunks that are smaller than 700 MB, then burn the chunks to however many CDs I need per project.

A better way that's now readily available is to get a DVD burner, standard DVD-Rs have a capacity of 4.7GB and the prices for burners are down around $200 for name brands. That's what I'm gonna do as soon as I can once I have an income again...
 
Thanks for your help guys :) - it's much appreciated. I just kinda hoped there was SOME way I could take a short cut without losing quality and such but at least I know exactly where I stand now. I'm gonna shop around for a hard drive, cos I think this really is the best way to go. Thanks again! :)

Liam
 
You can get away storing 1.5 Gig of audio on a single CD-RW using wav specific losless compression such as monkey audio's
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

It is lossless and It can reduce the size of a stereo wav file to a quarter of its original size (wheras winzip would give you only a half). The format is streamable so for instance winamp can read the *.ape files directly too (decompressing it on the fly without too much overhead) so It's rather cool. Would be cool that sequencers support this format too...
 
Winrar can compress files and split large ones into parts of your chosen size, say 700 mb. In theory after unpacking your wav files should not have lost any quality. In real life it is rather computer hungry and long process, especially at high compression setting. Therefore given that your hard drive is full it may take you days of compressing.
 
what you want to do can't really be done without a) a significant degredation in quality b) a ton of cds
Click to expand...

I'm interested in why you would lose quality ? Before I bought an external hard drive I used to use winrar and CD-RW's for storing old songs (I was using Cubase 5 also). I've never noticed any loss of quality and I managed to fit a couple of songs on each CD.

That being said - it is much easier to use an external hard drive and use the archive feature on Cubase.
 
He may have been thinking of a convert to MP3 to fit on the CD. That would make them fit, but at the expense of loss of quality.

Ed
 
Well, let me add that CD-R's and DVD-R's should NOT be used for long term storage. The dye in them (which mimics the pits and flats of a pressed CD) does indeed deteriorate over time. Granted, some brands are better than others, but all WILL eventually become unreadable. I have some that are five years old and still readable, and others that go south in just a few months. It only took me one time of losing something irreplaceable due to dye deterioration before I changed my long term storage strategy.

Of course, this is just my personal view, and allow me to issue the standard disclaimer... YMMV :)
 
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