I was going through some backup cds and found a number of older works I did many years ago. Nostalgia kicked in and I longed to hear some of these songs, but unfortunately most the files were in Cakewalk format and I haven’t used that in ages.

Do you ever think: “I should’ve documented things better!” ?

Cakewalk screen
When I load up a .wrk file it complains about missing audio files (Cakewalk Pro Audio would create wav files in some kind of “pool” type folder to store audio used in projects. I should still have those files somewhere, but of course I couldn’t find them right away…) and most track sources point to missing hardware I’ve sold over the years.

So I’m pretty much just looking at the piano roll and trying to figure out what everything is, because I didn’t name tracks or anything like that.

I think the next step will be exporting songs to MIDI files so that I can load them in FL Studio and start rebuilding tracks. I just wish I had documented things better!

It’s a lesson and a reminder because I find myself making the same mistakes in FL Studio. I don’t always make sure I save project files with included audio sources (and bounce tracks, because I might not have my current VST(i)s in a few years) and I certainly don’t take enough time to document, so let me pick that up again!

In a few days I’ll post some loops from these “songs in the key of nostalgia” and perhaps I’ll be able to redo some songs completely.

If you have found yourself in the same boat, how did you handle it? Were you able to save some of your work?