Collaboration via email

Getting it off of your machine onto the thumbdrive and vice versa entails about the exact same procedure as if you wanted to upload, except for the specifics of uploading to the site you choose. That part is replaced by the logistics of actually getting the physical media back and forth.

There's the project file itself. ...
If you install the Dropbox client application on your computer, it is exactly the same. I.e., you will be simply copying the project file and related media to another location within Windows Explorer. And, if the collaborator also has the client app, you can create a shared folder and data copied on one computer will automatically be copied to the other. This saves the trouble of compressing/zipping the files.

I am not familiar with Reaper, but in Logic, all of the related folders/files are stored in subdirectories below the project folder (which appears as a project "file" in OS X's Finder), so you can be oblivious to the details while doing operations on a project, unless you explicitly show the project contents (i.e., expand the folder).

I would recommend *not* ever working on a project that is in a Dropbox folder - just copy to/from that folder to a local folder where you keep your projects.
 
No Ash, what I'm concerned about is opening the Reaper Media folder and seeing several hundred files. I thought, after watching the Kenny Gioia video, that I could change a few settings and when I opened the Reaper Media folder I would have a single visible folder for each project. Then I could simply drag that folder to the thumbdrive. But, there are already several dozen files even though there are only five short tracks. I don't even know if there is a single icon that I can drag to the thumb drive or if I must combine them into one or move them one by one, which doesn't seem likely.

Thanks again for taking the time to help a whiner who doesn't know squat about files and folders. My son is in his third year of comp. sci., and maybe I could get him over here to school my stupid ass.
 
No Ash, what I'm concerned about is opening the Reaper Media folder and seeing several hundred files. I thought, after watching the Kenny Gioia video, that I could change a few settings and when I opened the Reaper Media folder I would have a single visible folder for each project. Then I could simply drag that folder to the thumbdrive. But, there are already several dozen files even though there are only five short tracks. I don't even know if there is a single icon that I can drag to the thumb drive or if I must combine them into one or move them one by one, which doesn't seem likely.

Thanks again for taking the time to help a whiner who doesn't know squat about files and folders. My son is in his third year of comp. sci., and maybe I could get him over here to school my stupid ass.
I wouldn't be monkeying with files within a project folder, honestly. You could end up corrupting the project.

I would drag the entire project folder, with all of those files. (You could see if there's an project management option somewhere to clean up a project and delete unused files.)
 
Oh! Don't use the Reaper Media Folder. That really should be like step #3 in the manual. Like gecko zed said, save the project to its own folder, then record. I've been saying IF you didn't do that to begin with THEN do the Save As thing to a new folder. Reason being that if you don't specify a folder for it to put the .wavs before you start recording, it'll dump them in Reaper Media, and they'll be mixed in amongst all the other .wavs for all the other projects you ever started recording in before you saved them to their own folder. You could, probably, spend some time and finger out which .wav goes with which .rpp, but if you Save As the project to its very own folder with that "Copy Media" thing checked, it will make a new folder with your project and ONLY the .wavs that this project needs. There's another option to "Move Media" which will actually delete those .wavs from Reaper Media in the process, but I have not suggested you use it because it's just plain safer to leave copies. It's at least possible that you have more than one project looking for one of those media files in Reaper Media, and if you Move it to a different folder for one project, none of the other projects that need it will be able to find it anymore.
 
YES!! Exactly what ashcat says ^^^ First thing when starting a new project is 'save as' and create a new folder (song name). Once you do that the first time (in a new project) you're all set every time you save a new version. If you forget to do that first time you save, then the NEXT time, just do 'save as' and create the new folder and everything will get saved to it.
I did the 'save' (not 'save as') method when first starting out - what a mess of files to figure out (by date)!
 
What the others said, and one extra step.

When you start a project, do 'save as' and create the subdirectory for that project. This is what the others have already said.

Then all the files related to that project are in that folder. That makes it easy to shift around onto USB sticks or whatever.

However, this folder can also become clogged with unused files: mistakes, takes you no longer want, false starts and so on.

So here is the other step. There is a menu option to clean up the directory, and this will allow you to delete files not used in the project and free up some space.


More generally, if you have created a project and recorded assorted tracks without explicitly creating a sub-directory, all the files will be in the default Reaper media directory. That can get seriously messy very quickly, with a jumble of tracks from every project you've ever done.

But all is not lost.

You can load up the project of interest, do a 'save as', tick the option to create the sub directory, but also tick the 'move files' option. Doing this will take all the associated files out of the Reaper media directory and drop them into a project specific directory, and you have them nicely herded into the one space.
 
So here is the other step. There is a menu option to clean up the directory, and this will allow you to delete files not used in the project and free up some space.
IDK if you saw my reply in post #40, but I covered this in some detail. I personally do not suggest Clean ever. There's just too much potential to fuck a bunch of stuff up. This action only takes into account the files needed for the one project you're looking at when you call it. If there are other projects in that same folder, it won't know or care if they need something that this one doesn't. If you've actually got all of your projects dumping into Reaper Media, and you run Clean, you're gonna have a bad time. Save As with Move or Copy is much safer, and like I said in #44, I prefer Copy to Move because again it's safer. Once you're sure you don't need anything in the old folder anymore, you can just delete it via your OS.

Either way, you need to clean the project itself (delete unwanted tracks, crop to active takes and/or glue, as per my post above) first, or else it could reference things that aren't actually needed. That's better than not having stuff that you do need, but if we're worried about storage space or up/down times, it's kind of important.
 
IDK if you saw my reply in post #40, but I covered this in some detail. I personally do not suggest Clean ever. There's just too much potential to fuck a bunch of stuff up. This action only takes into account the files needed for the one project you're looking at when you call it. If there are other projects in that same folder, it won't know or care if they need something that this one doesn't. If you've actually got all of your projects dumping into Reaper Media, and you run Clean, you're gonna have a bad time. Save As with Move or Copy is much safer, and like I said in #44, I prefer Copy to Move because again it's safer. Once you're sure you don't need anything in the old folder anymore, you can just delete it via your OS.

Either way, you need to clean the project itself (delete unwanted tracks, crop to active takes and/or glue, as per my post above) first, or else it could reference things that aren't actually needed. That's better than not having stuff that you do need, but if we're worried about storage space or up/down times, it's kind of important.

Sure. My 'other step' of cleaning the directory is done once you've set it up in the first place. That's what I was saying, i.e. the directory of the project you've created, using the 'clean current project directory' menu item.
 
I might just be superstitious, but I just don't ever need or want to use the Clean action. I feel like there are better, safer ways to accomplish the same thing in cases where it's necessary, but also storage is cheap, so unless I'm trying to share like the OP is, a few extra files doesn't bother me enough to risk it.
 
If you've got a bunch of clutter from forgetting to create sub directories for your projects, and all of your different project's media files are living in a giant mess of files in the same folder, there is a great way to sort it all out:

- one by one, open each project in Reaper
- Click File->Save As...
- Check the boxes for "create folder for project" and "move media to project folder"
- Click OK

That should help clear a lot of the clutter and start to make sense of your project media organization.

*edit* Zed already mentioned this above

But since you're struggling with the concepts of file management, I'd say start simple. Get to know the Windows app called File Explorer, which will be your long-term friend from now on. Create a new project, be sure to save it before doing anything, check that "create folder" box in the Save... dialog, record a single track, and take a look at what all was created in that process. That'll help ease into this process rather than jumping in the deep end with a jumble of hundreds of project/media/peak files all at once.
 
Don't send Mp3 files back and forth. Use Wav files. If they are too large to send by email, then put them in a dropbox or google drive and send the link. Both those services are available free.
 
Don't send Mp3 files back and forth. Use Wav files. If they are too large to send by email, then put them in a dropbox or google drive and send the link. Both those services are available free.
Yeah, this has been suggested and I've given it a try but I'm still doing something wrong. My son is pretty sharp on that kind of thing and he agreed to steer me in the right direction after Christmas. Until then, we've been using a thumb drive and that worked, so far.
 
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