Converting DP 5.1 files to WAV files

[rdo]

I need somebody to convert one track of my album from Digital Performer 5.1 (Windows) files to WAV files. I've been looking on the internet and can't figure out how to do it.

[James Steele]

I need somebody to convert one track of my album from Digital Performer 5.1 (Windows) files to WAV files. I've been looking on the internet and can't figure out how to do it.

When you say one "track" of your album, I imagine you mean song, yes?

Do you have access still to DP? Do you mean you need to bounce it down and mix it? I think you're wanting to take all the tracks and make each track a WAV file? I guess it would also matter if you want to print them in such away that any plug-ins on the track are affected as well?

If you want to have the plug-ins affect the audio of the track, I think you'd need to Freeze the tracks... perhaps one at a time. Haven't done this in a while. You'd want to always start the bounce/freeze at the same place for each track in the project so they'll all line up if you're importing them into another DAW. Make sure DP is set to record WAV files, then name the tracks something descriptive since the audio files I think are named after the track name and do the freeze/bounce. The resulting files should appear in the Soundbites window. ⇧B

If you don't want to have any plug-ins on the track affect the audio, it should be easier. You should first record a tiny bit of silence for example at measure 1 or wherever you want all the tracks to start at so they line up when imported. Then select the range from that first audio to end of last soundbite in the track and use Merge Soundbites. ⌥⇧M That will combine all those soundbites into one contiguous audio file and you will see it in the Soundbites window.

Again... I'm rusty on this and not sure I understood the context of your question entirely. Hopefully other people will chime in, but hopefully I've gotten the ball rolling....

[rdo]

Thanks for that info. I do NOT have Digital Performer. Yes, I want to bounce it down, convert to WAV files. (The end goal is I want to substitute violin for saxophone that was in the original). I contacted one recording engineer who said he had DP 9 and couldn't open the files. Not sure why. Thanks.

[mikehalloran]

Anyone with DP and enough patience can probably do this if the plug-ins are the same (or unnecessary). You can download DP from the following link for a 30-day evaluation:
https://motu.com/en-us/download/
It does not have to be DP 9, BTW, but I recommend downloading that first so to see if it will install on your version of Windows. The 10 and 11 versions are more complete but they want to access resources that aren't available in the Demo — and were never included in DP 9, anyway.

Here's the potential problem: if you do not have the original Project Folder, you may not have the resources or required permissions to do this. For best results, you want a .zip of the original project folder from the machine where the work was done it possible. Unzip it on your computer.

Any 3rd party VIs will not be included but the DP demo should be able to use the ones you own. The only way to know for sure is to try. Fortunately, the User Guide and Plug-ins Guide (separate manuals) are searchable pdf files accessible from the Help menu as are tutorials and other resources.

[James Steele]

I contacted one recording engineer who said he had DP 9 and couldn't open the files. Not sure why. Thanks.

There's a chance that at some point you had the DP project files on media that was not formatted for Macintosh. That's know to cause problems as way back when Mac files had a data fork and a resource fork and IIRC, putting Mac files on DOS/Windows formatted media stripped the resource fork from the file making them unrecognizable by the Mac application. There was something called File Type and Creator as well that I think got stripped. I'm not exactly sure and afraid to speak with any authority on the matter as I may get yanked up short for dispensing incorrect info.

Did you use Sound Designer II format files for audio? That can present a problem as I recall as well, as there was certain header information for those files that also got lost if they were put on media formatted for Windows. There were tools once upon a time to rebuild the headers, but that was very long ago and you'd have to have access to an older Mac to use them

I think someone else on the forum went though this not too long ago. You might do a search here. I recommend accessing the site from a web browser (instead of using Tapatalk if you're using that on a mobile device) and using the "Google Search..." box at the upper right. That generally yields better and more complete results.