Understanding VST Connect - And “Local Audio File not Found”

Current problem and error - When I choose “Get Local Files” it allows me to select the directory with the .xml file and recording subfolder – I get error “Local Audio File not Found”.

Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 at Mac OSx Performer end and Focusrite Pro-40 at Windows 7 Studio End – although I bet this has almost nothing to do with result.

Don’t try this without activating your trial – it failed to record HD audio at performer end until I activated my trial.

Don’t try a manual copy of audio without the parent folder that contains the .xml file on a Mac performer end. I have not done this with a PC performer, but I’m a Window PC Host with Cubase working with a MAC OSx performer from Seattle to London. This is awesome that Steinberg has done this for us. Thank You!

I’ve been working on this project before I buy VSTConnect. I’m only 2 weeks into my trial but having issues with HD transfer from London to Seattle. I turned off the video - still took hours of transfer time to even start to work - when performer has a 3mb+ upload in London and it works better with dropbox (but that resulting download is failing currently – I think I broke this myself). It’s a 3 minute song and we even cut down the lead takes to just in and out points(to reduce file size of each recording). I have mono tracks but the recordings are still stereo at London end(I think this is a future upgrade or device or driver based issue). The recordings must come with the parent folder if you want this to work with a manual transfer outside of Cubase and VST Connect for the transfer – the parent folder contains the XML file that allows VST connect “Get Local Files” to happen – don’t do this without the .xml file. Have the performer zip up the parent folder, not the wave files folder – I didn’t see what was on my performers end before we got started on this. He only sent me wave files at first – which probably made me over think the programming and understand this way better. I had remote access to the London Mac, but it was flakey at best to Seattle so I talked the performer through many things instead.

Recording worked – we had green lights for the Sync at performer end and Host end – But within 1-2 minutes Cubase would switch to just recording him at his end and not letting me hear him (good programming to deal with this). Cubase keeps recording at performer end – you can’t hear performer but don’t stop him/her. The HD file will be on the performer system to transfer. Sweet! If you get a red sync for performer end, I think he hears a glitch and it ruins the timing of the recording for that moment… If you allow performer to keep recording you can cut that piece out if you have other recordings to replace that – but it still ruins that one recording if the sync problem relates to what the performer is hearing and playing to – you will hear it on the track that the performer had timing issues and performer will tell you they heard glitches.

Transferring was too slow so we switched to dropbox. This worked much better on the download end (Seattle End) but I still get errors trying to get local files (I blame myself – don’t try to hack the Cubase wave files system without backing up your project folder with a complete copy of all your audio recordings). After a backup, appropriately name the backup folder and keep working on the main project folder. Don’t load the project from the copy folder by default. Project files are not exactly happy to be in a different folder when you load them, but Steinberg programmed this well too. It automatically will re-assign the audio folder if you allow it. Thanks again for not being stupid like some programming done over here in Seattle and Silicon Valley(hey, but not all programming – just corporate programming). 
I have a habbit of saving many versions of my cubase project. At the end of each project filename, within 1 single folder for each project but with many project files, I always put a version of 1.0 - 1.1 -, etc - I’m at 1.7 on this project. So – One folder, one Audio sub folder, and many .cpr projects in the main project folder. I was worried that this was the cause of my issues. But I’m pretty confident that in no way does a version number at the end of your project file effect your ability to get the audio back into your project using either the VST Connect plugin or manually with the .xml file/parent folder. I’m sure someone will comment if it creates at issue and - just like I thought, I’m sure others expect project file versions could be their issue. Steingberg says this is not a problem with VST Connect and I agree after my time on this product.

I also have a tendancy to copy the whole project folder to folders called the project name with (copy) at the end of the filename. That copies all audio files, all project files – to a whole new folder as a backup (I’ve been running Cubase since 1989 version 1.x on Atari ST with my Juno 106 and a four track so I cherish the backup).

So I decided to manually copy the wave files to my audio folder and overwrite the audio files that were in the folder. The file names at the performer end are identical to the host/studio end until they are transferred with the get files function which adds (HD) in the file name so you know you go the right file at that point… I mean your filenames change in the folder and in the project – it’s kind of obvious you are now running with the HD files in many ways – down to the audio pool and audio folder most people don’t look at. Great feature and very clear.

I don’t think I made a copy of my project folder right before I did this manual hack operation – I thought I did, but when I reverted back to my (copy) folder I have not been able to import the audio – now that my Performer got me the right folders and .xml files - my project audio files are screwed I guess (reminder that you need to get the parent folder of the recordings on performer machine or this won’t work and don’t try to hack your audio files into the project yet – I’m new to this, it might be easy with a latency number from the .xml file that could be applied to the track – who knows).

So I manually overwrote the mp3 quality wave files with the london 44Khz 24Bit wave files (how to I get the 48Khz with 24bit that this device is capable of without getting an error in cubase telling me to go to 44Khz? - this is a different issue not related). The Project loaded back up and I had to move the audio files into time (the audio files didn’t get some information probably contained in the .xml file for timing location/latency). So the audio files were not aligned to the music. They seemed to work after manual adjustment to known wave forms zoomed - but obviously wasn’t going to cut it – I’m not going to manually place many takes by zooming in and matching wave forms to the original song recording I had (that happened to be exactly the way we were going to do this project so it was possible to do this in this case).

I’m probably going to re-record this from an earlier version of the project and make sure I don’t do any replacing of audio files in the project without the .xml file and VST connect doing the work of importing the audio – trying to manually replace wav files in the project can be a problem.

Improvements - I think that a copy of the xml file should be kept at the Host / Studio end and if the audio files come over without the .xml file, the import function should be able to get a list from the .cpr file and with a copy of the .xml file local it can place .wav files with appropriate timing on the project – even without transferring anything but just the one wave file you needed and not the rest… with a copy of the .xml file from performer always updated and kept at the Host end we could see improvement to this feature that may not be expected of end users – but would just work.

When I choose “Get Local Files” it allows me to select the directory with the .xml file and recording subfolder – I get error “Local Audio File not Found”. I think right now if the import function would ignore the fact that it can’t find an original .wave file for the first transferred file it wants to place in my audio folder – that this function would work – if it would skip and go to the next audio file and ignore the fact that the first one is missing. I copied the project again and took the audio from the other earlier project copies into my primary project audio folder to try and get VST Connect to see the files it wanted to see. It didn’t work.

I blame this on myself and I think that had I made a proper backup of the project folder and named it appropriately before I screwed with this feature manually copying files over the audio folder recordings, I would be fine. If you guys want to look at my .xml files I uploaded they should be attached to this message. Thanks in advance for your help and an awesome product!

You can checkout my youtube video Cubase London Seattle should get my video or videos I’m posting.
XML files.zip (13 KB)

This is a very long post.
If you don’t mess with the files it should work right out of the box. You may want to make sure to copy the folder to a location that can be read by the application. AFAIK it will skip over files that just could not be found.
Your xml files show 2 projects, one has no HD recordings at all, for the others it should find the files provided they are in the “audio” folder, can be read, you didn’t change them, and they can be assigned to the related Cubase project.

Hi,

I found a version of my project (v1.6) that allows me to connect back to performer and copy files through the vst connect instead of Dropbox. It won’t let me get local files (it will next time I bet) - So I’m just waiting 10+ hours in vst connect for these takes to be copied - to replace the wave files that I screwed up with a manual hack copy. I think that if I’m careful not to screw with my files I’ll be fine in the future.

I made the long post to allow other people to find answers to questions about this feature all in one posting. Sorry about that, I really didn’t want a Steinberg employee to read my whole post… It was mostly for others (I wish more people would post questions that also answer other questions). It can also make for a more complete question when they show you in the post that they understand the feature.

So everyone - you can make a short post at the top for steinberg, but post more about what your doing below the question in case it can help others. (if you have time anyway, thanks).