Any tricks for retrieving lost audio track

[robert donithan2]

I know this isn't the Cubase forums but I have Cubase12 pro and have lost the audio(audio waves and sound) in an audio track. What happened is I moved a whole folder thinking I was saving space from on drive to another. In doing so I noticed something wasn't right. Audio tracks were in projects that didn't belong there etc.etc.. I moved the folder back to where it was but nothing changed. what I need to know is can I retrieve the whole tracks' audio..keeping in mind that it's one small clip 4 bars, repeating over and over..same clip I duplicated say 15 times..any help?

 

[TomBrokaw]

Did you just move the folder using Windows Explorer? (or the Mac equivalent?)

 

[robert donithan2]

Did you just move the folder using Windows Explorer? (or the Mac equivalent?)

Windows10 pro using the file explorer. Yes just the multi projects folder on C: drive to another internal drive E: drive.

 

[TomBrokaw]

Hmm, that shouldn't have removed anything. I'm not sure what caused it so I'm hesitant to suggest anything that might make the loss permanent, even if I don't think it would or should.

One thing that should be fine is to install a copy of voidtools Everything and search for the files using that. It's a free indexing program and I find it generally useful, not a one trick pony for this. You'd need to know at least part of the actual filename, or you could search by file extension but of course you might get a ton of results to sift through.

 

[robert donithan2]

Thanks. I have resolved missing files before but this file won't show up in the Cubase12 pro "Resolve Missing" Files pane.

 

[TomBrokaw]

I think Reaper has a similar feature, and you need to point it to where the files are in that case, hence finding them. Otherwise, out of my wheelhouse since I'm not familiar with Cubase.

 

[suthol]

Your DAW is looking for the files where you saved them, you probably need to edit the path for the project files

 

[robert donithan2]

I found all the files. Some of them ended up where they were originally and some I had to move around manually. There's probably something I'm not clicking on that'll make the missing files go exactly where they were..thanks.

 

[T Prior]

GOOD ! Missing files are like "I can't find my car keys" they are somewhere, we didn't
lose them at the grocery store LOL ! We may have to dig deep , typically as stated above, the "path" has changed so the DAW can't find the file in its expected location.

While I run Pro Tools, a similar thing has happened now and then. A good DAW user exercise it to look back into the DAW system architecture every now and then to visually LOOK and see where the DAW is backing up and/or storing audio files for your session. They are in there somewhere ! Just like the car keys, they are usually exactly where we put them !

 

[Peegoo]

Whew...nothing worse that working many hours and losing the data.

Get yourself a 1TB outboard USB HD and back up your work to it after every session. That way if you lose data to a bone-head move or a glitch in the time/space continuum (both have happened to me more than once), you'll have an identical image of your project on the backup.

IIRC it was Ray Kurzweil who back in the 1980s said, "if you don't have your data backed up in three separate places, it doesn't exist."

In 2008 Jack Schofield said, "data doesn't really exist unless you have at least two copies of it." He was borrowing from Kurzweil.

 

[ClashCityTele]

I've had the same problem with Reaper for years. Lost various tacks from multi track demos.
If I ever fix it, I shall praise the Lord and then let you know!

 

[suthol]

The fun starts when using an external drive and the low speed idiot (PC) decides on the next start it has a different drive letter and suddenly the path is broken.

Not a big deal if you have the project file and all associated tracks in the one folder dedicated to that project.

A mistake that one only makes once

 

[Switchmaster]

Ooops I replied but see you've managed to located the files, Hurrah!.... post deleted...

 

[MPCNYC]

I know this isn't the Cubase forums but I have Cubase12 pro and have lost the audio(audio waves and sound) in an audio track. What happened is I moved a whole folder thinking I was saving space from on drive to another. In doing so I noticed something wasn't right. Audio tracks were in projects that didn't belong there etc.etc.. I moved the folder back to where it was but nothing changed. what I need to know is can I retrieve the whole tracks' audio..keeping in mind that it's one small clip 4 bars, repeating over and over..same clip I duplicated say 15 times..any help?

You can go to the pool (cmd+P, on a Mac). The files that are missing will probably marked with an "X" highlight it and locate the file(s)

When you've located the file, the next step is to right click while you are in the pool and execute a "prepare archive" which will move all the files associated with the project to the sessions audio folder. Hope that helps.

 

[Solaris moon]

With the risk of repeating what others have already said; I always back up my files when it's something like my pictures or my music. I have a 1 terabite hard drive and a flash drive. This way I don't have to worry so much if either my computer crashes or if I delete something accidentally. I've already done this moving files from one location to another. The other problem is knowing the correct file path. So unless you know where you put all of them it'll be impossible to retrieve otherwise. I lost all my music that me and some friends recorded on my computer which had a three layer disc drive. It failed to initiate and now without a mechanically and digitally sound drive they're lost forever! We had some really good stuff and it's sadly gone the way of the Dodo Bird. I still have that drive but when I took it over to a friend's house we couldn't get it to respond no matter what we did. He even has a tower that you can plug your drive directly into.

So I now put all my personal music in with everything else and save it to an external hard drive so that it's not lost forever. I'm glad that the disc we made at a recording studio about 25 minutes drive from my house was cut directly onto CD so that I have a permanent hard copy of it to play.