Hi,
I’ve finally started properly using n-Track Studio v5.0, build 1239.
This afternoon, I recorded some new tracks to an existing song file. It was all fine on playback, so I mixed it down to have a more concerted listen. I saved the song file and shut down n-Track.
When I went back, after listening to the mixed-down version, I could no longer open the song file in n-Track. I get an error saying “wrong or old file format”.
It’s only happening with this file. Other files I worked on today are fine.
Is this a build-specific bug, or have I done something wrong?
Any help would be great.
Cheers.
if you mixdown an old track with new tracks added, then on mixdown you have to give it a new name, if you try to save it back to itself N will corrupt the original track which will make it useless -
Dr J
Thanks for the reply, Jackrabbit. I saved the mixed-down file to the desktop though, so I definitely didn’t save over the top of any original files…
Not sure I follow what Dr J is saying but suffice it to say there should never be any “normal” circumstance that results in a corrupt sng file. If DR J is describing a way to achieve a corruption, then that is a bug.
I’ve had one or two corrupt files over the years - usually as a result of a crash - but I’m diligent about keeping backups of my song files and usually have “automatic saves” turned on when mixing therefore in the event of a corruption I only lose the last edit session.
what happens is i load in an original track, then add new tracks to it and save it back under the original tracks name. N only mixesdown for a second (all of track selected) then stops -
when i insert original track back to see what happened, there is only about 1 second of mixdown the rest of that rack is empty - this does not harm the added tracks (if they have already been mixedown to wave files) but totally destroys the original track - so i always save to a different name usually by adding incremental numbers to tracks xxx1 xxx2 xxx3 ect -
Dr J
| Quote (DR Jackrabbit @ Feb. 04 2007,17:44) |
| what happens is i load in an original track, then add new tracks to it and save it back under the original tracks name. N only mixesdown for a second (all of track selected) then stops - when i insert original track back to see what happened, there is only about 1 second of mixdown the rest of that rack is empty - this does not harm the added tracks (if they have already been mixedown to wave files) but totally destroys the original track - so i always save to a different name usually by adding incremental numbers to tracks xxx1 xxx2 xxx3 ect - Dr J |
OK, I must be being dense here. When you say “track” do you mean n-track song?
sorry X you are not that -
most of my work is based around building songs from synthetic sounds, and to enable my PCs to play back the song, each track in the song may be built up from 16 seperate tracks - for example a song i have just completed contains 78 tracks and each track is a mixdown from up from up to 16 other tracks, at an average of ten tracks to 1 track that would mean that using individual tracks instead of built up tracks the song would contain 780 tracks - although some tracks may only be a few seconds long thats to many tracks for my PCs -
before the point when i have enough built up tracks completed to build into a song they are just tracks, only when i have enough tracks to build the basis of a song will they be imported and saved as a song -
the corruption happens when building up a track - i import a track to an empty timeline, lets say that is a drum track - then i may want to add another track say a synth to the timeline - so two tracks in timeline - if drum track is called “drumxxx.wav”, and i do a mixdown so that “drumxxx.wav” would now combine the drum and synth tracks - it corrupts - if i change “drumxxx.wav” to “drumxxx1.wav” it mixesdown OK and the two tracks become one as desired -
by the time i get to drumxxx16.wav then it should be ready to become part of a song -
this may not be your way of doing things but by building up tracks in this way, if something goes wrong or does not fit as i thought it would then i can revert to any of the prior numbered track and make adjustments -
so let me try to explain why i have adopted this method of working in the concept of my studio where the final product will be assembled - there comes a time when either in the process of building up a track, or due to the amount of tracks in a song the use of plugins to generate effects, due to their high use of precious CPU power are totally out of the question - i have an optical ADAT soundcard that has 24 outputs and these outputs go to an outboard digital mixer which has 32 tchannel capability, eack channel can have a gate, compressor, 4 channel EQ and upto 4 effects in use as required -
wherever possible effects are built into a track as it is created, normally this is by multisampling the track to a outboard sampler and adding effects stored within the sampler in realtime and recording the samples + effects back in to N -
but in the song i may want to have one track played back in two different styles, here i would clone the track reposition the cloned track to where i want it to sound different and direct that to an input on my outboard mixer to which say the ‘plate’ effect is in operation. the other version of the track would go to an input that has a ‘cathedral’ effect in operation or to add punch to a drum track but only at certain times i would input one drum track to the mixer and add a gate and compressor to it, the clone can go through unaltered by being directed to a channel with no effects on it -
i only use volume and pan automation in N, i would rather not have N do that but the automation memory on my mixer was designed for 4 minute songs not a 77 minute song and as N either does not output MIDI sync at the moment i have no way to sync the timeline to the mixers automation even if it had enough memory -
when i am happy with the sound i take the stereo out from the mixer to a mastering rack (limiter, extra compressors, exciters) etc then to a pro CD recorder -
the corruption may not actually be a fault, it may be that i am doing something in a way that N does not understand - but as it is such an easy thing to do and can result in the loss of work that it is not possible to re-record that i brought it to BJGs attention -
Dr J
BJG…are you , in one case, listening to the wave file? And, in the other case, trying to open a .sng file? I think if you try to open your project with the .sng file it is pointing to the ‘old’ original track and your new tracks. It thinks the track you “added to” is ‘old’. This has happened to me when I upgraded from 2.xx to 3.3. I forget how I fixed it.
I think I a) started a new project and b) imported the so-called corrupt wave file, c) added new tracks and d) saved it all as a totally new project. I think… then the .sng opened the project properly…i think…worth a try.
Or you can set n-track to record what you hear and play back and rerecord the old wave file.rename it and see what happens…
cliff