How to open*ancient* sessions?

[jjochems78]

So I'm slowly working on the momental task of trying to open sessions I have on my old hard drives and I would love some advice on how to do it. These songs were made on a Powermac G3 using DP 2.7 and a 2001 iMac using DP3.

I'm full of regret that I got rid of both of those Macs because it looks like I'm going to have to buy an ancient Mac and try to find out how I can get older versions of Digital Performer, Reason, and plug ins and software instruments to make it work.
As of right now, I can only get a small amount of these sessions to open, most of the older ones come up with an error message that reads. "Internal error: a connection between two modules was made more than once".

The sessions that do open tend to be very small track counts and only audio files play back. I'm yet to find any sessions with a trace of any software instruments which is unfortunate since I do everything in the computer.

I know this task is going to be a nightmare, so I would really love if anyone can recommend any ideas to make this easier. As in, how am I going to get my hands on this 20+ year old software? I'm okay paying if the price is reasonable. Are there other things I need to consider? I'm terrified that I'm going to put countless hours and dollars into recovering these songs and never get them to open properly to save as newer files.

[monkey man]

I'd forget about the old hardware for now.

Try loading them into a default template instead of loading them outright. Sounds like the problem is that you're being prevented from loading them discreetly 'cause the routing doesn't add up.

You should then be able to design / re-design the routing as-desired.

[stubbsonic]

I expect all the audio files will be in the Sound Designer II format (SD2). I think the current version of DP can still load SD2 files, and might do a good job of loading your old projects-- you just have to try and see. Might be good to work on a copy rather than working on the original folder.

If you are successful at loading them, you can do some processes so that ALL the audio tracks start at time-zero, so you could load them into any DAW (including DP)-- without having to worry about whether they are in the right time-stamp location.

You could zip a project to one of us and we could test to see if it loads in the current DP.

[HCMarkus]

IIRC, MOTU improved DP's ability to open older project files see time ago, maybe it was DP10. All I really know is, I have not recently had to jump thru the hoops I used to have to jump thru when opening ancient projects.

The oldest I've opened in the last several years were created with DP4.5 on a G5 Power Mac. Who knows? You might find it easier than you thought it would be!

For me the bigger challenge is trying to figure out what sounds were supposed to be made with all those MIDI parts. Don't have the Proteus anymore (I've got the DX7 in my Mac), but replacements don't really help; I was pretty bad at keeping notes back in the day.

And then all my hardware and presets burned up in a fire.

Anyway... good luck!

[jjochems78]

@HCMarkus.

My lack of notes is just the beginning of the obstacles I'm facing here. I have broken and inconsistent use of directories, inconsistent use of titles, a thousand different experiments mixed in with completed songs... If I had only taken care of this earlier when I still had the old Macs, it would have been 1000x easier.

edit: Also so sorry to hear about you losing your work in a fire. That's always been a fear of mine.

[jjochems78]

You could zip a project to one of us and we could test to see if it loads in the current DP.

I've downloaded a demo of DP11 and so far, it's not going well at all. I think this week I'll need to break out my old MacBook and try it on there instead with my copy of DP8. At least that computer has Intel and might allow me to use some of the old free plug ins that never got updated for M1

[jjochems78]

I'd forget about the old hardware for now.

Try loading them into a default template instead of loading them outright. Sounds like the problem is that you're being prevented from loading them discreetly 'cause the routing doesn't add up.

You should then be able to design / re-design the routing as-desired.

I can understand why routing is an issue because not all of the old instruments are there but when I open the songs. But I'm not even being given any sorts of options to fix the routing or to even see what instruments were being used in those sessions. Either the session doesn't open at all or if it does, there's no trace of any instruments.

[mikehalloran]

We need more information. What are the exact names of the files you are trying to open? This includes extensions if any are included.

In addition, run Get Info on one each from the old and really old files and post the screen shots. You can add up to three screen shots in a post — only need to see two.

Like a few others, I go back to DP 2.7 and did a ton of work in it and DP 3, later 4.5 and 4.6 on my G5. I do a bit of CD remastering for old clients and have no problem opening those old files.

[HCMarkus]

so sorry to hear about you losing your work in a fire. That's always been a fear of mine.

Now we have cloud backup. Since all the tapes were destroyed, everything now resides on the computer and is redundantly backed up... local end of session manual to SSD, local Time Machine on HD, and Cloud with BackBlaze.

BB is well worth the under $100 annual fee.

[monkey man]

Either the session doesn't open at all or if it does, there's no trace of any instruments.

My suggestion wasn't to try to open sessions but instead to LOAD into an existing project.

At the very least you should be able to open, say, the TO window in each and place them side-by-side, allowing you to select and drag track contents to "new" tracks in the new session / template.

[mikehalloran]

Either the session doesn't open at all or if it does, there's no trace of any instruments.

My suggestion wasn't to try to open sessions but instead to LOAD into an existing project.

At the very least you should be able to open, say, the TO window in each and place them side-by-side, allowing you to select and drag track contents to "new" tracks in the new session / template.

Posting the file info that I requested may allow that process to go more smoothly. You might even be able to open those old sessions — it depends on what we see — or don't.

re Backups:

Just today, I came across an entire shelf of data backup CDs going back 25 years or more. While I could use the shelf space and know that everything is also backed up on servers, drives and the like, I'm not touching those... yet.

I was burning practice CDs today for a choir I direct when my el-cheapo CD burner crapped out and I had to finish up on one of my 2012 MBPs. While looking for a replacement on Amazon, I found an OWC Blu-ray burner that supports M Disk.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IPH6170?th=1

Do I really believe the M Disk claim of "1000 Year Permanent Data Archival / Backup Blank Media Recordable Disc"? Uh... no but many of the CDs that I burned in the late 1990s can no longer be read including all that I archived to 3M "guaranteed 100 year data life" media. A 100 GBH Blu-ray disk is supposed to be able to store up to 140 data CDs so I should gain gain some shelf space. We'll see.

[HCMarkus]

Can M discs still be purchased?

[monkey man]

Yup.

I think they're growing in popularity and capacity.

Still waiting to see how it plays out with affordability's being a critical component of that for me at least...

[bayswater]

A 100 GBH Blu-ray disk is supposed to be able to store up to 140 data CDs so I should gain gain some shelf space. We'll see.

And you can lose 140 times as much data in one shot. Much more efficient.

[mikehalloran]

Can M discs still be purchased?

Absolutely.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=m+disc&crid= ... -doa-p_1_5

A 100 GBH Blu-ray disk is supposed to be able to store up to 140 data CDs so I should gain gain some shelf space. We'll see.

And you can lose 140 times as much data in one shot. Much more efficient.

Maybe. I'm putting my money on most of that shelf being unreadable—many are on those HP Light Scribe CDs where you flipped the CD over after writing and had the laser write the label—this took forever. What can I say? Most of my church worked at HP at the time. Besides, there's nothing on them not backed up elsewhere 3x.

In any case, I purchased 25GB inkjet writable M Discs. Because my dominant arm is crippled, I wield a pen only when absolutely necessary. I've an old HP c309a photo printer with a broken sheet feeder and no longer scans since Sonoma but the CD tray still works. When I run out of ink, it will be replaced by this Epson XP-7100.
https://www.amazon.com/Epson-XP-7100-Ex ... r_1_1?th=1