Transporting metadata between DAWs

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mindhog
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Transporting metadata between DAWs

Post by mindhog »

Does anyone have any experience transporting song metadata between DAWs? As an example, I have per-track volume/pan levels over time ("automation"), song start and end times (as frame numbers) and effects configuration information that I'd like to be able to share back and forth with one of my band-mates who uses a commercial DAW. Is this a thing?
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Re: Transporting metadata between DAWs

Post by milo »

I think not. A few DAWs can import the native file formats of other DAWs, but that is likely to be problematic. Like opening a complicated Excel spreadsheet in LibreOffice Calc.

Usually the best you can do is a stem export and then share the wav files.
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mindhog
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Re: Transporting metadata between DAWs

Post by mindhog »

milo wrote:I think not. A few DAWs can import the native file formats of other DAWs, but that is likely to be problematic. Like opening a complicated Excel spreadsheet in LibreOffice Calc.

Usually the best you can do is a stem export and then share the wav files.
Thanks, milo -- that's more or less what I expected. Too bad. :(
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Re: Transporting metadata between DAWs

Post by MattKingUSA »

mindhog wrote:
milo wrote:I think not. A few DAWs can import the native file formats of other DAWs, but that is likely to be problematic. Like opening a complicated Excel spreadsheet in LibreOffice Calc.

Usually the best you can do is a stem export and then share the wav files.
Thanks, milo -- that's more or less what I expected. Too bad. :(

I would recommend muting all tracks but one on your project and exporting it and doing the same for all following tracks. That will give you all of your tracks with their effects and automation exported to the same length. Then they can be imported to another DAW as a new project and modified from there.

EDIT: I hope that made sense. I mean export each track one at a time basically. And then you will just have individual wav files to import to the new DAW. And they will all have exported with the same total project time so they will all match up and align properly in the new DAW.

-Matt :D

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mindhog
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Re: Transporting metadata between DAWs

Post by mindhog »

MattKingUSA wrote:
mindhog wrote:
milo wrote:I think not. A few DAWs can import the native file formats of other DAWs, but that is likely to be problematic. Like opening a complicated Excel spreadsheet in LibreOffice Calc.

Usually the best you can do is a stem export and then share the wav files.
Thanks, milo -- that's more or less what I expected. Too bad. :(

I would recommend muting all tracks but one on your project and exporting it and doing the same for all following tracks. That will give you all of your tracks with their effects and automation exported to the same length. Then they can be imported to another DAW as a new project and modified from there.

EDIT: I hope that made sense. I mean export each track one at a time basically. And then you will just have individual wav files to import to the new DAW. And they will all have exported with the same total project time so they will all match up and align properly in the new DAW.
Yes, I understand, thanks.

I'm pretty well covered for track exports -- my own software just uses raw wav files, one per track, and my band-mate (with whom I generally end up swapping wav files) seems to be able to do a full per-track export. I also mainly use a Tascam DP-24 for the actual recording, and that has an "export track" feature. Generally I don't even need to use that when recording a full track from t=0, as it also stores tracks as wav files and it's possible to just mount it on USB and pull those files over without an export. My band-mate now seems to understand that I need the tracks either aligned with the beginning of the original material or he needs to provide me with a start frame number.

I was mainly interested in moving non-audio data: track volume levels over time, start and stop times, effect parameters, etc. It was a stretch, but it seemed like there might be a chance that this information is portable (especially since most of it could easily be represented in a midi file). Perhaps there may be some interest among open source DAW developers to produce a standard :-)
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Re: Transporting metadata between DAWs

Post by Basslint »

Perhaps the next step in the libre DAW world would be an open standard for DAWs? I know a few exist but they have limitations and/or were designed by proprietary vendors.
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Re: Transporting metadata between DAWs

Post by milkii »

There is the vague concept of the "inverted DAW" when using JACK and LV2 already exists where audio and MIDI can be routed anywhere.

Further, Carla presents LV2 metadata on JACK ports, like minimum, maximum, and MIDNAM info.

There is also the OSCQuery discovery and sync protocol mentioned in the current ossia thread, which sounds closest to what was originally mentioned.

they/them ta / libreav.org / wiki.thingsandstuff.org/Audio and related pages / gh

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