Way to delete both the sng and wavs?
Ok now the album is finished and released. 
All the songs have been archived into my storage hard-disk. (For remix album out sometime in 2027 
)
Now what I would like to do is to delete the song files from my working hard disk (for next project) and all the wav’s that are part of the song files in most convenient way. And yes, there’s lot’s of bad file management involved - the name’s of the wav’s are in most cases just the names N-track gives them, located here, there and everywhere.
How to proceed? If I’ve understand it correctly, deleting of the song files leave wav files right where they are not deleting them too. Is there any other way than open a song, remove every track one by one, and then delete the sng file at the end?
Any ideas how to not make the same mistakes again.
That is a tall order considering the files are “here, there and everywhere”. Yikes…
IMO the easiest way would be to use windows explorer and search for all of the wavs. Search using *.wav as the name of the file you are looking for and be sure to search your current “working” drive…not your storage drive! This will list where your wav files are located and, I would think, n-track put most of them in the same directory. You can navigate to that directory and highlight all of the wav files you are SURE you want to delete. Right click and delete. They will probably be too big for your trash bin and you may be prompted to permanantly delete them which is why you want to be absolutely sure they are the correct files.
This is a dangerous task since the files only have generic names. Probably the safest way would be to listen to each file, rename it and save it in a safe folder or delete it if you hear it is nothing you need.
Next time try to “save as” in a particular directory and specific song folder.
I usually create a new folder (the song name) and “save as” ‘gtr 1’ or ‘voc1’ , etc. in that folder. That way all the tracks for that particular song are in the same folder.
I am nervous about posting this reply because I don’t want you to delete a lot of files you may never be able to duplicate. So please be cautious 
Keep in mind that once you rename them ntrack will not “see” them as part of the song anymore…however you will still have them in case you need them again.
You should organize your projects/songs into directories and subdirectories, and managing them will become much easier.
Yes, follow Mr Soul’s advice! Makes things so much easier.
For your current problem, I’d suggest this:
1. Go through all your song files. At least, the ones you wish to preserve to posterity.
2. Open the .sng file.
3. Choose “Save as a packed file” option. Save with no compression, preferably to a different hard disk (or at least, a directory).
4. After all your songs exist in (separate) packed files, you can freely go through your .wavs and .sngs “here, there and everywhere” and delete everything that has a generic n-Track-given name.
5. Unpack everyone of your packed song files to a separate directory.
6. After all this, disk defragmentation might be a wise idea.
Hope this helps,
Mwah
There is also a Move Song function that should do about the same thing as the packed song except you don’t end up with a single file that that whole song (I use packed song myself instead of Move because I want that single file – I do NOT archive packed songs). Move the songs one at a time to a new folder for each one. When all songs have been moved you can delete all the old folders.
| Quote (Mwah @ Sep. 15 2005,12:25) |
| Yes, follow Mr Soul's advice! Makes things so much easier. For your current problem, I'd suggest this: 1. Go through all your song files. At least, the ones you wish to preserve to posterity. 2. Open the .sng file. 3. Choose "Save as a packed file" option. Save with no compression, preferably to a different hard disk (or at least, a directory). 4. After all your songs exist in (separate) packed files, you can freely go through your .wavs and .sngs "here, there and everywhere" and delete everything that has a generic n-Track-given name. 5. Unpack everyone of your packed song files to a separate directory. 6. After all this, disk defragmentation might be a wise idea. Hope this helps, Mwah |
Yep, thanks. I've done steps 1 - 3 already and the storage disk is actual, separate external hd.
But the point 5, what if I just leave the packed files in the storage packed and not unpack them ? They're there, nicely organized in a folder "name of the album" in 14 nice packed song files with every file having "their own name of the song".
That will be fine as long as you keep a copy of the same version of n-Tracks that was use to pack them and you aren’t worried about file corruption. If something happens and you can’t unpack them then the whole song is gone. If they are stored as uncompressed waves there is a chance that most of the files will still be OK and song reconstruction may be possible even if one is missing. It’s like archiving files in zip files. If they get corrupted and can’t be unzipped all is lost.
| Quote (phoo @ Sep. 15 2005,18:30) |
| That will be fine as long as you keep a copy of the same version of n-Tracks that was use to pack them and you aren't worried about file corruption. If something happens and you can't unpack them then the whole song is gone. |
Good points there. There's a risk of total corruption, I see.
The another point, however, puzzles me. One would think that forthcoming versions of N-track will be able to open the packed versions made with earlier versions of N-track. But there's no gueartees?
New versions of n-Tracks SHOULD open older file formats, but we’ve see that not to be the case all the time, even if it was unintended.
The best thing to is to always include the install exe and registration codes for the version of n-Tracks that the song was using when last mixed – and the plug-ins used in the song. Keep eveything in one place so the whole setup and be reinstalled if necessary.
I’ve hit problems when going back to archived n-Tracks V2.0 songs. And have had problems when old plug-ins aren’t on the machine any more.
You can’t archive enough stuff when it’s something that means something, like our music. 
We won’t talk about the time I formated (not totally my error, but I had a hand in it) the hard drive that was my wave storage drive. We’ll talk a bit. I hae backed it up as of December, but had started two songs and had full drum parts to them. All waves were backed up except the drums… ;(.
| Quote (Mr Soul @ Sep. 15 2005,11:03) |
| You should organize your projects/songs into directories and subdirectories, and managing them will become much easier. |
One more thing (whadda nuisance I'm coming into).
Do the wav files automatically go into same directory that where the song file is? Meaning, if I make a folder "Rock'n'roll" and save a song called "Louder" there, all the wavs of the song go to the same place in "Rock'n'roll" directory?
Yep. That’s how I start all my projects. Luckilly, move song will fix it if I mess that up.
| Quote (Willy @ Sep. 19 2005,06:44) |
| Luckilly, move song will fix it if I mess that up. |
So the move function moves both the sng and the wav files?
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| So the move function moves both the sng and the wav files? |
Spose to.
IIRC, you just specify a directory to move it to, and it’ll move everything associated with, and including, that .sng