Hey DAW guys

[tomteriffic]

Hey you digital audio guys. I've got a project going that I need some help on.

We recorded some material for a DVD this past weekend. All told, we took 12 audio tracks. The tracks are in sync, but each one is about 3 1/2 HOURS long. The files are enormous.

What I'd like to do is pull each song out and save it to it's own file, but I want to do it NON-destructively. In other words, I'd like to select a section across all 12 tracks, copy it and paste it into another iteration of whatever DAW program I'm using, leaving the original tracks untouched, just for disaster recovery purposes.

I've got a freebie Cubase but probably will wind up working in Sonar. My current version of Sonar will need to be upgraded as it doesn't know about my firewire interface.

So, is there any way to do this quickly and easily? I accomplished it with just two tracks in Cubase, but it was tedious and time consuming, to say the least.

Any suggestions would be welcome. Oh, and budget is a consideration.

[Mitch]

Well, there's a good chance this'll be tedious(!), but it'll be the number of songs driving that instead of the number of tracks.

Assuming you have copies tucked away for safe-keeping...

In Cubase:

1. import the 12 monster tracks

2. put the left and right locators around the desired song

3. in the Edit menu, choose Split Loop, which will give you events for the selected song.

4. delete the other events, the ones outside the locators.

5. move the remaining events to the start of the time line and shorten the Project Length in the Project Setup.

6. do a Save As.. to save this song.

7. hit Undo until you get the other events back

8. go back to step 2.

While not much of a shortcut, it'll be a little easier if the first song you put the locators around is the second song. Then, when you do the Split Loop, you'll get events for the first song, the second song, and songs 3 thru N.

Hope this helps.

[Hackubus]

Very savvy Mitch!

I'll have to borrow that idea from you.

[tomteriffic]

Aaah! I see! (I think)

It's printed out and I'm headed down to Buzzard Gulch with my Three Magic Cussowrds in my tool belt. And yes, I have safety copies.

Thanks, Mitch!