Disappearing tracks!

[monkey man]

Manual saves and manual backups.

I don't trust technology enough.

[musicman691]

Manual saves and manual backups.

I don't trust technology enough.

Yup. Even though I have autosave enabled on a 5 minute period I still make heavy use of cmd-S every couple of changes.

[monkey man]

Yup.

For those who think we're being hypocritical because we're "trusting" technology all the time whilst making music, we're not IMHO. It lets us down regularly during the process; if it didn't, none of us would have any need to visit this forum or any other save for socialising.

We've all learned to live with glitches, anomalies, work-arounds and so on, but I contend that none of us would be prepared to suffer entire project losses on a regular or even occasional basis. This is why I, and I suspect many others, draw the line at the point of project, and any critical data for that matter, backups.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I disagree: necessity is the mother of invention. That is what divides the professional from the others; and sometimes the project is better as a result, but in 40 years as a professional composer I have yet to not deliver a score for ANY reason, even with incredible tech glitches and other seemingly insurmountable problems. One simply does not give up until either the problem is solved or an alternate score is delivered.

Personally, I gain very little new info here but I know DP like I know my piano. I only show up during open season. The pickings have been pretty slim since the PDF manual came out.

Brad?

[Shooshie]

I never use auto save in any app.

I don't either, but I DO use auto-backup. That has saved my ass so many times I ran out of fingers and toes counting them.

Shooshie

I never use auto-backup. All backups are done manually and on a regular schedule.

I'm talking about DP's auto-backup. It writes one every 15 minutes or so. Even when I don't save the work I did in a file, I can still go into an auto-backup and retrieve it.

Computer backups are done by Time Machine these days, but massive file backups (photos, videos, etc.) are done by me. They haven't invented an auto-backup system that can handle the size of my iTunes folder!

Shooshie

[musicman691]

I'm talking about DP's auto-backup. It writes one every 15 minutes or so. Even when I don't save the work I did in a file, I can still go into an auto-backup and retrieve it.

Computer backups are done by Time Machine these days, but massive file backups (photos, videos, etc.) are done by me. They haven't invented an auto-backup system that can handle the size of my iTunes folder!

Shooshie

I'm confused - are you talking about DP's autosave function? If there's something called auto-backup in DP it's something I'm not familiar with.

As far as backups I don't use TM. I do manual backups such that I keep the previous one along with the one I'm currently making. Session backups are done on a daily basis and whole system backups on a weekly basis. Yeah my backups create a lot of data but on a 2 terabyte drive I've got a lot of space to work with. And I don't keep my backup drive powered up and online; I only power it up at backup time.

That must be one heck of an iTunes folder!

[Shooshie]

I'm confused - are you talking about DP's autosave function? If there's something called auto-backup in DP it's something I'm not familiar with.

You know, it's one of those things you set once and forget. I had to think about it a little bit, but I think it's called "Save a copy." It doesn't save the file you're working in, but saves a copy of it. To me, that's a backup.

Shoosh

PS: yeah, the iTunes folder is split across several multi-terabyte drives using TuneSpan. (I don't know what I'll do if that ever goes down.) It is mega-huge. I've been downloading movies and entire TV series since iTunes videos became available, and that was over 10 years ago. I don't have a TV, so this is our "cable."

[cleamon]

Manual saves and manual backups.

I don't trust technology enough.

Yup. Even though I have autosave enabled on a 5 minute period I still make heavy use of cmd-S every couple of changes.

I subscribe to the "save early/save often" philosophy. Having said that, I have on ocassion had to restore a project from DP's (or photoshop's) auto-save. Saved my a$$.

As for backups, I have over 50,000 high resolution photographs (most with extensive enhancements), and over 60,000 tracks of music (+/- 4500 albums) -- both collections are growing all the time.
And then there are my DP projects.
I use the command line utility rsync to "sync" my primary data drive (a RAID5 volume) to a second RAID5 volume. This second volume is subsequently "sync'd" to a third (non-raid) external drive. The third drive is periodically swapped with another drive that I keep in the safe deposit box at the bank. Never know when disaster will strike (mother nature or thief).

rsync is used to copy all NEW or CHANGED files from one volume to another. First time takes a while, after that it's relatively fast. This is set up in a small script that I can, if I desire, run on a schedule, but I usally just double click it on demand (daily).

[musicman691]

I'm confused - are you talking about DP's autosave function? If there's something called auto-backup in DP it's something I'm not familiar with.

You know, it's one of those things you set once and forget. I had to think about it a little bit, but I think it's called "Save a copy." It doesn't save the file you're working in, but saves a copy of it. To me, that's a backup.

Shoosh

Where does one set this function? Don't recall seeing it as a set once and forget type of item. I know there's save a copy that's an on demand thing but other than that - I don't know.

[cleamon]

I'm confused - are you talking about DP's autosave function? If there's something called auto-backup in DP it's something I'm not familiar with.

You know, it's one of those things you set once and forget. I had to think about it a little bit, but I think it's called "Save a copy." It doesn't save the file you're working in, but saves a copy of it. To me, that's a backup.

Shoosh

PS: yeah, the iTunes folder is split across several multi-terabyte drives using TuneSpan. (I don't know what I'll do if that ever goes down.) It is mega-huge. I've been downloading movies and entire TV series since iTunes videos became available, and that was over 10 years ago. I don't have a TV, so this is our "cable."

"Save a copy as" is an ON DEMAND thing, not a set once and forget. And as far as a backup, any backup (auto or otherwise) is NO KIND of backup UNLESS it saves to a different physical drive. Auto save is of limited use since it saves to the same place as the original. Drive crashes -- good bye...

[Shooshie]

DP Preferences / File / Auto-Save / Save a copy of the project file every [X] minutes.

• Keep the [xx] most recent autosaves
  (or) Keep all autosaves

To me, that's a temporary backup. It doesn't matter that it's on the same drive. These are working backups. They are there to prevent loss of something important due to my own error, especially when I'm working or managing files. I've always started a session with a Save As, then appended the date to the title. Same thing, really, except that DP now does it for me, every 5 minutes it turns out. (I said 15 earlier, but I have it set to 5 minutes.)

Shooshie

[FMiguelez]

DP Preferences / File / Auto-Save / Save a copy of the project file every [X] minutes.

• Keep the [xx] most recent autosaves
  (or) Keep all autosaves

To me, that's a temporary backup. It doesn't matter that it's on the same drive. These are working backups. They are there to prevent loss of something important due to my own error, especially when I'm working or managing files. I've always started a session with a Save As, then appended the date to the title. Same thing, really, except that DP now does it for me, every 5 minutes it turns out. (I said 15 earlier, but I have it set to 5 minutes.)

Shooshie

Exactly... Autosave every 7 minutes here, and Time Machine to an external drive every hour for real backups.
The former is mostly to recover from crashes, corrupt files or stupidity.

[labman]

MLC what was the causing the disappearing tracks?

[FMiguelez]

MLC what was the causing the disappearing tracks?

If we don't hear from Mike, it means DP made him disappear too, along with his MIDI tracks. At least he's been de-MIDIed

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Frankly, I've been playing out a lot an not working on the computer much in terms of composing.

Some interesting career developments and odd gigs (like playing for 7 hours as part of an exhibit at LACMA). I've played a lot there, most recently Metropolis and this Saturday The Last Laugh. The marathon isn't quite public info yet, with maybe one more "i" to dot. Of course, all completely improvisational.

Some overseas gigs are starting to materialize, which would be very cool, but the biggest development is the realization that I was the last composer to collaborate directly with Martha Graham. I had two company members confirm this just this morning. I guess that also means I'm getting older, but who ain't? LOL There's a clip of the finished work at 3:12 in this video, which I picked up from The Arts Channel a few years ago.

As far as the disappearing tracks, I've only seen them twice and I am not ruling out user error as a possible cause.