No "Locate All" for missing audio files?

[BobK]

I'm re-visiting old albums recorded in DP (mostly versions 5.11 and 5.13).

Each song is a separate DP Project in its own folder, and each contains many versions of the Project file (incremental saves), all referring to the same Audio Files folder.

The audio is in SD2 format.

I thought it would be a good idea to convert the files to WAV.

I tried doing this a couple of ways.

First, I tried setting the project format to WAV and then setting the "Automatic Conversions" preference to convert whenever the format doesn't match. Nothing happened. On re-opening the Project, DP presented a dialog asking if I wanted it do convert. I clicked on "convert," and nothing happened.

I sent this to MOTU support (along with other issues), but they didn't comment on it.

2. I also tried converting the SD2 to WAV using the free app Audaptor from Aurchitect Audio, which - if I understand correctly - retains metadata. I removed the SD2 files from the computer and put the WAV in the "Audio Files" folder.

As expected, when launching the project, DP asked for the missing files, and I selected "locate all" in the dialog. But here's the rub: it prompts for ONE FILE AT A TIME. These are large projects, so that's a no-go.

Apparently there's no way to tell DP "look in that same folder for all the other files."

Please tell me I'm missing something, and DP actually will do that.

Both Pro Tools and Kontakt have this feature, and it seems to me a staggering shortcoming of DP.

Another option for converting is to create a new Project file and load the chunk(s) from the old file. But doing that with dozens of versions of a project would be absurd both because of the sheer number of project files and because each one would convert the shared audio.

It seems that the best option is to just leave the audio as SD2.

[mikehalloran]

...It seems that the best option is to just leave the audio as SD2

No reason not to.

I just mastered a 4 CD box set retrospective for a client going back 20 years. The SD2 files import just fine. I bounced the new mixes to .wav, of course, but I saw no reason to convert the original raw audio first.

[BobK]

No reason not to.

I thought maybe it would be a smart proactive thing to do in case at some point sd2 files no longer work in Mac OS, or in case I switch to Windows. But in the latter case, I'd still keep my Mac Pro.

So yes, there's no need to switch to WAV currently.

That said, I still hope DP adds "Locate all".