Today we’re about to talk about an issue that many of us often skip or we don’t give too much notice on it! It has to do with how do we start a new project to our DAW and what are the specific moves we have to do so we can save our project properly. All DAWs are very similar and they have the same basic menu options and commands. You must practice on it ,so you can work easier and faster. That’s why all my tips and tutorials will be shown on Cubase 5 (a little bit older version of Cubase ,I know). I use it for years now, I know it very well , I record, edit , mix my songs, my music in it and I never thought of upgrading to a newer version (although I have bought Cubase 8 and Pro Tools). I never believed that a new craft in my studio would help me improve my recordings in my home studio. You can do exactly the same like I do with your DAW.
So, the first thing you have to do is to save carefully and properly the song you’re about to record. If you skip this process or you aren’t focus when you do it ,then my friend it’s more likely searching all your folders in your computer the next time you want to open this project. I have two suggestions on how you can save your song correctly and no worries for the future!
Before doing anything, before even start your DAW and record some tracks ,I recommend to create a folder in your local disk C: ( If you have more than one hard disks or you have a partition of your disk,I suggest to create a folder there , so you can avoid unpleasant surprises!).You can rename that folder to “MY SONGS” or “MY PROJECTS” or however you like to call it.
In this folder you create a subfolder and you rename it to the title of the song you’re about to start recording. You haven’t saved anything yet, but you have done a procedure that saves you time.
The next step is to start your DAW ,Cubase in this case, and anew window appears. This is my Project Assistant.It gives me many options to choose from recent projects to creating a new one in tabs.
We pick the tab More and we select Empty.At the same window a command “Prompt for project location” helps us to set the directory for saving your project. Clicking on Continue a new window is appeared “Set Project Folder” and all you have to do here is to set the folder, you previously created, as your project folder and that way you configure where all your recordings can be stored.
What do I mean by that? You select your local disk C: or D: and clicking on the folder “MY SONGS” your subfolder appears.You click on that folder,you press OK and you are ready to go! Be careful! You haven’t saved your project yet. After recording a few takes on some instruments on your menu bar you select the File menu and Save command.
A new window is appeared and you have to set where do you want your project to be saved.
After selecting the right folder as I said before , you write down to File name field the title of your song. You press Save and this is it! You must save your song regularly so you won’t have any unpleasant surprises .Believe me it’s very disappointing like you’ve been working on a song for 2 hours and your computer crushes or the electricity going .If you haven’t saved your project , then my friend, a 2hours work is gone and you have to start over again! I suggest once more Save your songs as many times you can through the process of recording.
The second way doesn’t differ too much than the first one. We follow the same procedure but without the preparation of creating folders in our hard drive. You start with your Project assistant selecting More-Empty , you continue with Set project folder window and you save your song after starting recording something in your DAW. You must practice on that part because in my opinion, file management is a very important chapter in home recording.We’ll dive in it to upcoming posts and videos.