What to do with a Song File Once It's Finished | PreSonus

You've finished a song - now what?! If you're like most people, it's likely that your song has countless audio files, MIDI and virtual instruments. What's the best way to store these files for the future? Is there a way to reduce the amount of hard drive space the song requires?
In this tutorial, Joe Gilder shares his recommendations on how to clean up your Studio One sessions and make sure you're able to access everything in your song as intended long into the future.
___________
Learn more about Studio One:
bit.ly/3z69lLz
Get more creative tools with Studio One+:
bit.ly/StudioOnePlus
Watch more tutorials from Joe:
• Studio One with Joe Gi...
What to do with a Song File Once It's Finished | PreSonus
#presonus #studioone #recording #daw #digitalaudioworkstation #audioproduction #musicproduction

[@stephenmcnamara9928]

Presonus can easily mitigate accidentally deleting external files referenced in a song -- have a check box or similar at the top of "Remove Unused Files" which highlights that external files are in the list. Joe, pass this along to the developers. 🙂 Great video as always.

[@EzPeasZ]

Very clear & efficient on user end, and I assume a very simple task on the developers end as well. Great suggestion imho

[@timetravelvictim]

Excellent point. Check all and uncheck external files.

[@kwameryan]

Aww dude... I wish I had watched this a week ago! I was cleaning up my song folder and ended up deleting a TON of stuff that I should not have, thereby breaking song files representing 10 days of work 😢. Once I recovered from the shock, I developed a new backup system on an external home server to which your video has added helpful ideas I'm gonna use as well. Now in the process of laying the lost work down again with a better result, which is a small silver lining! Lessons well and truly learned! Cheers. 😊

[@PolymerJones]

I wish you would have gone into the details of stem export like, is it baking the sends, is it baking the master sum ? Because that is very important . Do you disable all fx for stem export

[@sixsgma1563]

Exporting stems is the most fool-proof archival method. FX channels and Busses get exported as their own tracks. If you were to drag all the stem files into any new DAW, zero out the faders, mute the tracks that were bussed. You will have your mix back. You cant edit any processing because its now baked in as audio, you can only add on further processing. This is good for say 20 years down the road, you want an instrumental version of the song or edit the vocals to make a clean mix, or do a 30 second edit for a TV commercial.

[@rickeguitar9086]

Thanks Joe so much for clarifying the difference between "Remove" and "Delete" When I am faced with using this task, I assume they mean the same. But, Removing takes the file off the list but does not delete the actual audio stored in the folder. I am now going to go back into my old songs and surgically delete the audio files I don't want in the song to regain my space. Thanks again for this tip! I hope Presonus is taking good care of you as you are a really BIG help to their customers. I enjoy and save many of your video tips and tricks as they always come up in some form or fashion in my sessions. Cheers!

[@HarleyBob957]

Thanks for the insight Joe.. Much appreciated.

[@corrindion]

Oh man…thank you! This is very useful info!

[@castawaymusic144]

Great tip on exporting stems for future proofing. Looks like I'm going to be busy for a few days. Great video!

[@Jay902017]

Thank You For Making This Video Totally Incomprehensible

[@tresero2862]

I meant to comment earlier when this came out, so if it is already in a comment somewhere, excuse me! I also always archive the raw midi files if using them. Even if they were just mockups (I mostly use live players, but orchestrate with midi).

[@michaeltablet8577]

Thank you Joe!

[@garethde-witt6433]

Argh now I’m paranoid about my earlier songs 😳

[@chasvox2]

I narrate audiobooks in addition to composing....This is certainly a handy tip considering the amount of takes and files that accumulate when narrating books...for instance, I am working on a 19 hour (finished hours) book and just finished a 12 hour book....so you can imagine!

[@rickeguitar9086]

Wow, I never thought about using Studio One as a voice project such as audio books. Really cool! That would explain why many of my audio books have really great and rich sounding speech! Cheers!

[@MatthewSwasta]

I always backup to SanDisk G-Drive external hard disk drives. I need to clean up like you suggest though....thanks.

[@fliteschool7833]

Great information. In fact these utility videos has been super useful. What is the difference between bounce to new track and transfer render?

[@davidpetebluepowell]

Great video. Can I input different audio CDs, align each track, mix each track separately and then master the final project? Thanks so much. ✌️❤️

[@ebabultum8604]

Hallo? Can I ask one question? I have presonus live 32 but totally the mixer is out of function.the problem is the signal is not in and out. What shall I do please help me

[@okaforizuchukwujustin6350]

Good day Mr I have an issue with missing files in studio one 5 I would like to know if you can help to address

[@hugo54758]

I would really appreciate it if the Presonus folks would release a windows script that can do this for all the songfiles in a folder

[@gbarge4]

Thank you so much for this, Joe. I admit to some very negative frustration due to a lot of ignorance on my end as to Studio One as software, as well as the broader recording/mixing/mastering concepts and terminology. I can't be alone in setting out to realize a song and having to put it on hold while learning the next step as the next roadblock appears. I'm so grateful for you and Gregor, everyone''s go-to in this process. I'm embarrassed to ask but is there a book which is Studio One oriented, which takes us through such stages as this video does, and which can be a ready reference for review? As it is, I've just been doing vocals, for example, and pausing to hunt down videos on Comping, same for Mastering (which Studio One's Projects Page is brilliant for) Latency and settings to contend with that, etc. (I've seen your terrific video on latency and it cleared up most but not all of my latency questions.) You'd think a person would retain the information after putting it to use but that doesn't always happen. A printed reference tracking the process practically and chronologically, which can sit next to the desk for quick review, would be a Godsend. Thanks, Joe.

[@frankliebe]

question; why exporting stems by track and not by channel. can you explain the difference and the reason of its choice pls?

[@kirkevans906]

What's the difference between transforming a track to audio and exporting it as a stem in terms of the audio file you wind up with? (I don't mean the procedural difference). Great video! Thanks Joe.

[@DenisVolga]

Questions/Problems. * Opening a project i got message that 970 files are missing. With Search i found some missing files, it became 270, and these can't be found anywhere (i've searched all folders /sub..sub_subs/ in my big folder dedicated only for StudioOne, all back up /mirror/ folders on 2 external drives). It is an old and very extensive 'precious to me' project, and redicilous thing is, for example there is a guitar solo, i splitted it at some points to get rid of some noise when i was not playing, now the solo is there only in pieces; all channels are ripped off here and there. Plus other issues. * Yes, as a rule i have a 25 minutes save; "use cached plug-in data on save"; "ask to copy external files when saving document" all on/checked. * I didn't change nor names, nor locations of working folders and files (though i have this project saved under different names as versions). * What i did is: i replayed some important stuff and added two old stereo tracks of this project/song to blend left-overs on channels with old stereo mixes (with mistakes, unbalanced, but it is better something than nothing, there is no way i'd re-do everything due to circumstances and basically it is impossible to replicate the guitar/drums/real percussions with their previous settings, especially if i don't have some guitar or pedal or a keyboard anymore). I alligned everything nicely (time, buses, volume,..), corrected, blended everything nicely, and put vocals at the right level (up and with different settings, that's why mainly came back to this project), clicked "save". Logically, the DAW asked me "do i want to add these files", obviously, i clicked "yes" and...1475 files for each added stereo track started copying. In panic i pressed "cancel", but it was too late. Where these files are from, why?! Why stereo tracks came with so many files? * But this is not all: i had plenty enough of memory space (workable 450-500GB free), now i am in the end of red zone with 78GB left. I went to media folder to look for duplicates: no duplicates, but there are about 6000 files there (and some of them are not from this project). Agh.. * But this is not all again: i started clearing up the space on pc and the more i delete or move ...the lesser space i get on computer...now it is 50GB. * To free space and continue working i thought that i would mirror the path, create the same folders in external drive, link the project to media files there, But i am afraid to make things worse in this and other projects (especially considering that freeing the space now works for me the opposite way). * What is wrong? How can i fix all that mess?

[@keithericksen5756]

I suppose you could always lock resources that are outside of the S1 song folder by setting their attributes to read only…?

[@kjc4414]

@ 7:14... How did you open "Finder"?? I am not good with computers - and have a REAL HARD time with file organization, finding files, downloads, etc... This is my biggest overall weakness and frustration... What is Finder? It looked like a windows/PC thing - which I have (Win 11)... I need so much help with this stuff - I start a session - and it seems to be added to "songs" and "recent files" on my Studio1 home page - even if there is nothing recorded - shows as a date... There are tons of them - and I spend hours going thru and "removing from recent files list"... but they don't seem to ever go away - then they end up in my songs list... WTF??? I would personally love a video series on file management... Please help!

[@robertklein6693]

Thank Joe for doing a video on this. This is an important topic that ties in with overall studio recording file organization that's rarely discussed. Would it be possible for you to produce a marketing piece on studio recording file organization that includes the information in this video as well as other videos that you've done?

[@kjc4414]

Amen!... My biggest frustration by far is file organization and management - and I find very little info on it... Studio 1 aside - Where are my songs?... Where are my plug ins?... How do I extract them?... How do I get them into Studio1?... How and where SHOULD I save them?... Tons of questions on this... Just got "upgraded" to Win 11 - and not being real computer savvy - I am lost most of the time with this stuff!...

[@nedim_guitar]

I bounce tracks or export stems named the way I want them to be named, and then I delete all tracks called "Track 1" etc. It also helps to use only Track 1 for recoeding, or name it Recording Track. But that only works for recording guitars, bass and vocals in mono. It could work to have two recording tracks too for amped bass and DI bass. Drum recording is something else. I'm not receoding real drums in my home studio, so I have no problems with that.

[@jwarren462]

Great video and info here, Joe. Side note, I'd like to speak to someone at PreSonus about Eris monitors as I'm looking to possibly purchase a pair in the foreseeable future. I've been on the site, but I'm not 100% sure how to actually go about setting up a scheduled call with someone. Could you point me in the right direction?

[@presonus]

We recommend either reaching out to our support via my.presonus.com or contacting an authorized dealer in your area!

[@codymyersofficial]

I have that mic...what is the effect chain you've got going on for it? Sounds perfect no matter where you speak from!

[@EyeMusicStudio]

It's all about COMPRESSION

[@Mikey__R]

If a track or event gets deleted so it's gone forever from the project, it would be nice if the associated media was deleted from the HDD. Or at least if there was an option to do this.

[@brennyC]

SAFE MODE : Never delete ""Remove Unused Files" while you are working with a session. instead, SAVE the Song. Close it. Then re-open Delete ""Remove Unused Files"

[@kjc4414]

Can you elaborate on this please?... I am constantly "removing unused files" from the Studio 1 home page... Every single thing I do (or don't do - even blank sessions with nothing recorded) show up as a date in my "Recent Files" list ... I spend hours removing a ton of these... I know I am doing something wrong!

[@KKMcK1]

Or they have S1 v222.2! Also, when you render down to audio, does the midi still exists?

[@jesusislord1634]

Man! I hope the Lord comes and gets me before 20 years! This world IS Crazy!

[@KKMcK1]

How does the saying go??? If it is not saved to three separate places, it is not saved safely. Also, what's wrong with saving these file folders to Blu-ray disc, which won't suffer "bitrot" like any physical drive can/will. Your great-grandchildren may very well not only want, but need these files when your music is finally discovered two generations from now. Post-mortem fame is a thing!!! Set your grandkids up for that potentiality.

[@ebabultum8604]

Hallo? Can I ask one question? I have presonus live 32 but totally the mixer is out of function.the problem is the signal is not in and out. What shall I do please help me