Collaboration via email

rose62

New member
A buddy sent me the basics of a track. I was able to open it and add some stuff and send it back to him. When he opened it, each track was there but, "offline." What did I do wrong?
 
Sometimes I get that when opening a project, but clicking on any track activates them all. However - if you have plug-ins inserted on tracks and he doesn't have those plug-ins, then that could happen.
 
I just spoke with the other party. The file arrived in his email as a WAVE file in stead of MP3. Looks like my Reaper defaulted to WAVE. Must I save the file as an MP3 each time I mod it?
 
If you sent back a project file without the media files it referenced, that would be a problem.

Not a Reaper user, but it's not clear whether you're intending to send entire projects or just the bounced mixes.
 
Buddy sent me a Reaper MP3 with a single track. I added some tracks and sent it back but he can't access it. When he opens it the track is in WAVE, not MP3 and so is not useable.
 
Buddy sent me a Reaper MP3 with a single track. I added some tracks and sent it back but he can't access it. When he opens it the track is in WAVE, not MP3 and so is not useable.
If it's really a WAV [stereo] mix, there's no reason it couldn't be opened in any current DAW. There must be something else going on.

Can you post a link to the file on a Dropbox, Google Drive or similar?
 
The wave files are too large.
To email, perhaps, but how big could possibly be too big to import into a DAW? Your statements are confusing, if not misleading.

I'd suggest using Dropbox and emailing a link to transfer WAV files, which is how you should be transferring audio recordings for mixing, IMO. If you have created a WAV file that is too large to import, please share the details with us.
 
Trust me, sir; If I'm misleading it's strictly out of ignorance!!! I convinced my friend to buy Reaper and an interface. He sent me a file (MP3) with a single track featuring vocals with guitar. I added some tracks and sent it back but when he opened it, though the tracks were there, each one had "offline" in the space where the audio should have been. So, I went back and changed the file type to MP3 (which I thought it was already, but it wasn't) and resent it. Same result. Neither he nor I have done this before so we're kind of in the dark.
 
One last time, you need to put what you are sending some place folks here can look at it, because what you are saying is not making sense to me.

Do you have a Dropbox account or a Gmail address (giving you Google Drive), or Hotmail (OneDrive), i.e., some place you can put what you are sending to your friend, so someone here can look at it? Maybe put each of those things you are trying to send that are not working?

I'm sure someone can help you, but we lack data!
 
Mr. KR; You're impatient but very kind!! Thanks for even attempting to assist one as uninformed as I!!! No, I don't have a Gmail or Dropbox. Perhaps I should just search out those names, create an account, and export the files to there? Must I send each track (either WAVE or MP3) separately?
 
Yes, I'd suggest creating a Dropbox account. Once you have that set up, you can optionally install a "client" application on your computer that will create a folder on your computer where you can simply copy files to, and they will automatically get transferred to the cloud (and vice versa). Or, you can drag/drop files into the Dropbox folder on your browser. I use both methods, as I have the client application on my notebook, but not on my desktop (where I work on music).

Once you create a Dropbox account, you can go to the Files location on the browser, or into the local file system if you've set it up that way, and create a subfolder, e.g., I have a "homerec" folder where I put things I might share here. Simply place the file(s) you want to share there, and then create a link to use to share the file. Copy/paste that link into your posting here, and we can download the file to our own system.

And, yes, I'm an impatient person. Don't know about kind, but thanks for your patience :).
 
Google drive is awesome and it's free and you should get it.

More importantly. Open your Reaper project file. Go File|Save As. Find the folder you want to put it in and give it a name. Check the box that says "Create a folder..." and the one that says "Copy media...". There's also an option to convert the .wav files to .mp3 (you can't just change the extension, they're completely different things!) but I'd only do that if I was really worried about upload/download times. Click the button to make it do it. Might take a couple seconds while it copies your audio files, but then you'll have everything (except plugins) that the project needs in its own new folder. Zip that folder and upload the resulting compressed file to your new google drive account, and share the link to that file with whoever you want.
 
Trust me, sir; If I'm misleading it's strictly out of ignorance!!! I convinced my friend to buy Reaper and an interface. He sent me a file (MP3) with a single track featuring vocals with guitar. I added some tracks and sent it back but when he opened it, though the tracks were there, each one had "offline" in the space where the audio should have been. So, I went back and changed the file type to MP3 (which I thought it was already, but it wasn't) and resent it. Same result. Neither he nor I have done this before so we're kind of in the dark.


What are you sending back to him? An actual audio file or a Reaper project file? If you send the audio file, he should get it ok. If you send the Reaper project file, he will get that, but not the audio files within the project unless you explicitly send those as well.

Someone suggested using Dropbox, which is a very sensible thing to do. You can save your additions plus the project into a separate folder, then dump that folder into Dropbox. Your collaborator can then just drag it down onto his computer.

Edit: I've just seen that others have already suggested all the above.
 
It's nothing you did wrong. It's on his end.

Offline appears when you've navigated away from Reaper's page - to open a browser, or a folder, or whatever. Sometimes closing everything else in the background (browser tabs, apps, folders..) brings it back online.. sometimes it doesn't and you have to close everything and reboot Reaper 'only'.

One way to avoid going 'offline' when you move away from Reaper's page is to first minimize the Reaper page before navigating away from it - this will put Reaper in the background and allow you to open browser tabs, apps and files with no effect. Then it's a good idea to close all those extras down before maximizing Reaper again.

Not sure if this will help as what I describe may be peculiar to my system, but that's how I deal with it on my PC. I've got tons of free storage and memory and virtually zero tasks running, so that's not the problem here.
 
That shouldnt matter. A wave or mp3 should open and play no matter the medium. Sounds more like op is not rendering the file output to wave before sending. And btw plugins have no relevancy to this.
 
There's an explanation of this in the manual Page 410, sect;21.3
you can view the manual in the 'Help' tab in the top line. :)
 
As already hinted at above - if you are both using Reaper, then you should be sharing complete projects each time, not mixed down MP3s or WAV stereo tracks (or individual tracks that have been rendered). Create a new project folder where your project files and tracks are all kept. Then share that folder via Dropbox. Your collaborator does the same - you download the whole folder, open Reaper and tell it to load the project from that folder. Each time you share a folder, you will have a new folder in your Reaper media, you won't be going back to the old folder..
 
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what do you mean by offline?if you're saying that the tracks don't line up then the files /tracks weren't transferred correctly.,what daw are you using?
 
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