My CWP2Song experience & recommendations

[stickman393]

First off, this is an awesome tool. Thank you!

I've been converting several projects from Cakewalk Sonar by Bandlab to Studio One (or Pro as it is now referred to). As you've documented in your posts, AZ, some things don't work. Essentially, the fewer "special" features we used, the more successful we'll be.

Here's my process and recommendations, determined through experimentation:

BEFORE CONVERSION:

• Reset any Custom clip colors to default (clips may not show up in arrangement if you don't do this!)
• Unlink Linked Clips
• Clip Envelopes need to be handled because they won't be transferred
• Save any Project Notes or Track Notes in companion text file
• Rename ARCHIVED tracks with "(Arch)" prefix and MUTE; they will be converted as enabled
• FROZEN tracks may get converted as two tracks, e.g. Audio + MIDI(disabled). The Audio track will have "(f)" name suffix.
• Consider moving tracks out of FOLDERS; Folders are converted but the name doesn't transfer; maybe group by track colors if helpful. (I don't use nested folders and so I haven't tested those.)
• Take Lanes need some thought, see below.

Take Lanes get transferred as Track Layers. This almost looks perfect, but then we notice that there will be an extra layer (selected by default) containing a kind of merged/mix combination of all lanes.
Also, any muted clips in lanes appear to be unmuted in the conversion.
If your Take layers are simple or were used simply to comp a track, then you might be fine. If, however, your Take layers are operating more like they used to in earlier Sonar version - i.e. like real "lanes" or audible overdubs, then consider expanding these into separate tracks prior to conversion, for safety. (In Studio One, you can not "hear" multiple Track layers simultaneously I think. Only one layer is selected and audible at a time).

AFTER CONVERSION:

DISABLE any "(Arch)" tracks.
Restore folders if you wish.

[azslow3]

Thanks for the report!

Folders problem was spotted recently (related to current Sonar way of saving them). Unfortunately there is no version with fix yet.

The rest is probably going to stay as it is, till the documentation mention otherwise.
In particular:
* Take Lanes in S1 are too different to be transferred exactly, I am happy I have managed to construct that "extra layer" to make the conversion somehow reasonable.
* Clip FX/envelopes are parsed in CWP and, at least partially, converted in ReaCWP. But porting that into CWP2Song is not simple.
* Linked Clips and Archived/Frozen tracks i have to check, may be there are bugs or something can be improved easily.

[stickman393]

Thanks for the report!

.. Take Lanes in S1 are too different to be transferred exactly, I am happy I have managed to construct that "extra layer" to make the conversion somehow reasonable.

No problem! This was not meant to be a criticism or bug report or list of enhancements. I am grateful to have something that works as well as it does. I just wanted to document my process in case it helps others.

After I noticed what cwp2song does with Take Layers, and the extra layer, I tipped my hat to your thoughtfulness.

[stickman393]

Note to self: AZ has written a very detailed set of notes going feature-by-feature on how they were treated by the converter. It is worth reading several times until you understand the limitations.

Regarding audio clips:

CW has the ability to grab the left edge of an audio clip and drag it to the left, extending the clip earlier than the actual audio data. I've done this occasionally to line up clips for aesthetic reasons - it's silly but I did it.

1. I've found out the hard way that cwp2song will place the converted audio event on the timeline at the start of the clip, but the audio data will start from that point, effectively placing the audio earlier in the timeline than what we would expect.

This would be one of the conversion side effects that "bouncing clips" prior to conversion would avoid. That may be why AZ recommended it.

2. I don't think Drum Maps are supported in any shape or form - so if you've used a drum map on a track, there's every chance the .Song's MIDI and Instrument tracks won't align - either not "wired up" or just not the right notes.

I'm not sure what the best solution is. Bounce to audio first? Or if the drum map isn't too fancy (ie. mapping to multiple instruments) translate it to the VST's native mapping feature (e.g. Addictive Drums has built-in MIDI mapping now).