Is There A Way To Dis-Associate Regions Paths From Soundfiles To Retain The Regions?

by **jmh** » Fri Oct 10, 2025 7:43 am

Todd R wrote:there are 15 soundfiles not used out of a total of under 200 soundfiles for the entire edl

I don't really need create a solution that is going to take a lot of time to program, I'm gagging to be done with this project!

I had a job where I did that stuff every day (on linux). I was amazed with what could be done piping command line utilities together. For me that portion of the job was like doing crossword puzzles (if I enjoyed crosswords). When I started working on that stuff, a one-liner command might take me all day to write. Years later, you could just type it in. Yet you would regularly hit challenges where you would have to search online for solutions and you'd find posts by these old masters (or kids) that were far above what I was doing.

But you would have to do it by hand anyway if you were missing both stereo and mono tracks.

Record two tracks in a test edl, save and close, move the audio to another folder, make 2 links that point to one of them in the original folder. If you can open and playback test.edl, and if the popup tells you the filenames, then you do the same for your edl. You should be able to get the whole thing done pretty quick.

by **Todd R** » Fri Oct 10, 2025 1:36 am

jmh wrote:What happens if you disable the tracks? Do you still get the message?

Disable Track does not disable the requirement to path the edl regions to the regions' source soundfile at first launch of SAW Studio 64.

I only need to skip 9-10 pop-ups when fresh launch of SS for this job, so it isn't very painful

and I will soon be finished with the project

by **Todd R** » Fri Oct 10, 2025 1:27 am

jmh wrote: 2 hour audio files.

I doubt I have a rush over 20 mins

jmh wrote:Jut right click on the multitrack view track label. Bunch of useful stuff there.

ok, thanks

jmh wrote:If there is 200 rather than 15 missing files, I would seek the help of someone to extract the filenames from the edl.

there are 15 soundfiles not used out of a total of under 200 soundfiles for the entire edl

jmh wrote:In linux it would take me 5 minutes to do it and make all the symlinks to the missing files - powershell 5 days. But a powershell person familiar parsing binary files could do it quick too. Some versions of windows have a linux subsystem, or may have unix tools (forget what it is called). Do a search to see how to find out if you have bash, sed, grep, tr... I might be able to help - although binary files are trickier and the windows versions of these commands sometimes have their own quirks.

My autohotkey tempotool extracts different filenames. I was hoping some of the guys would use it - but as far as I can tell nobody has used it or maybe nobody uses a tempomap. Non-believers!

Anyway I'll look at the script. That may be easy to bend to your need too.

I doubt I will do another job like this in SAW, so for the one job it doesn't seem a good use of my/ your time. Really, I was looking to see if it was already possible.
I don't really need create a solution that is going to take a lot of time to program, I'm gagging to be done with this project!

by **jmh** » Thu Oct 09, 2025 6:42 pm

Todd R wrote:Yes, corresponding sample rates...Good point about mono and stereo.

I think if the rate and or depth is different, saw converts the audio on the fly when opening the edl. That would be a long wait to needlessly convert 15? 2 hour audio files.

I'm not sure I know how to disable the tracks...I'll look it up

Jut right click on the multitrack view track label. Bunch of useful stuff there.

If there is 200 rather than 15 missing files, I would seek the help of someone to extract the filenames from the edl.

In linux it would take me 5 minutes to do it and make all the symlinks to the missing files - powershell 5 days. But a powershell person familiar parsing binary files could do it quick too. Some versions of windows have a linux subsystem, or may have unix tools (forget what it is called). Do a search to see how to find out if you have bash, sed, grep, tr... I might be able to help - although binary files are trickier and the windows versions of these commands sometimes have their own quirks.

My autohotkey tempotool extracts different filenames. I was hoping some of the guys would use it - but as far as I can tell nobody has used it or maybe nobody uses a tempomap. Non-believers!

Anyway I'll look at the script. That may be easy to bend to your need too.

by **Todd R** » Thu Oct 09, 2025 1:00 pm

jmh wrote:For now, you could try one big dummy audio file with several appropriately named links to it in your audio path (and never write to it)?

jmh wrote:It would have to be longer than the longest original file referenced - and it may as well be silence in case you unmute it. Also do it at the normal resolution and sample rate too. You might need a stereo and mono version.

sure, longer than longest duration was clear to me. These tracks' fader volume is infinity (mute) so I don't need to deal with mutes. Yes, corresponding sample rates...Good point about mono and stereo.

jmh wrote:Another experiment. What happens if you disable the tracks? Do you still get the message?

I'm not sure I know how to disable the tracks...I'll look it up
currently, these SAFETY tracks are "hidden" in another layer and SAW will ask to path the missing soundfiles at first launch (15 or so times). Once SAW is open and running, if open the edl, SAW only asks once

jmh wrote:...or do the tracks contain regions that reference to both existing and missing audio so they must be active?

yes

jmh wrote:Can you still navigate like tabbing to region boundaries on disabled tracks?

yes

that's all a lot to cover in a job with around 200 soundfiles...I was just looking to see if I could defeat the multiple dialog pop-ups on first launch...answer appears to be no :-)

by **jmh** » Thu Oct 09, 2025 12:14 pm

For now, you could try one big dummy audio file with several appropriately named links to it in your audio path (and never write to it)?

It would have to be longer than the longest original file referenced - and it may as well be silence in case you unmute it. Also do it at the normal resolution and sample rate too. You might need a stereo and mono version.

Another experiment. What happens if you disable the tracks? Do you still get the message? ...or do the tracks contain regions that reference to both existing and missing audio so they must be active? Can you still navigate like tabbing to region boundaries on disabled tracks?

by **Todd R** » Thu Oct 09, 2025 11:49 am

MMP wrote:I am having a difficult time imagining the workflow that this would enhance. Can you describe it in more detail?

thanks!

OK
Vision editor sends me an xml of of their Premier Pro job after achieving picture lock.
I translate the xml with AA Translator to create a SAWStudio edl.
Open the edl in SAW and audio editor (me) has to path the audio.
The vision editor often sends 6 or 8 tracks of audio which usually gets cut down to 3 or 4 tracks (stereo tracks is why).
I won't have all the audio in the vision editor's job. They will have used camera (scratch) audio from multiple cameras;
as well as the pro audio recordings that I likely have provided.

That original sequence may well need to be shown to the director/ producers, etc.
I might well need that camera audio for reference to find the corresponding pro audio if said audio has been recorded.

I might also need to supply the vision editor with timecodes related to their edit and possibly include filenames which would be tied to the empty regions;
or I might request missing camera audio if corresponding pro audio was not recorded and does not exist.
The SAWStudio File view will also have info including the vision editor's file locations, which could be helpful.
There are many reasons to retain such information :-)

Throwing that info away on a project that has taken several years to complete seems like a waste to me as importing an xml into SAW Studio is not possible afaiaa.

by **MMP** » Thu Oct 09, 2025 6:12 am

I am having a difficult time imagining the workflow that this would enhance. Can you describe it in more detail?

thanks!

by **Todd R** » Thu Oct 09, 2025 1:13 am

Todd R wrote:I have a big job with regions that I want to keep in my edl, yet which have no soundfile associated to the regions

to clarify, the audio soundfiles do exist in my vision editor's job; mostly camera audio that was replaced high quality audio via audio recordist.
I was just never delivered that audio from the editor.

Todd R wrote:so, every time I launch the job, SAW prompts for missing media paths; which I always just CTRL+ENTER to skip the search

Correction: CTRL+LftClk

by **Todd R** » Thu Oct 09, 2025 1:01 am

Bob L wrote:No... because a region has to have some source data to define the region data itself. Not sure how you are trying to use the regions with no source pointers, but it might be best to just create a 20 min file and point them all to that.

Bob L

Thanks, Bob, this very quick response is greatly appreciated.
I want to retain the original edit for reference.
I could put all these events into the control track, but my control track already has a couple hundred cues and that time spent would be rather wasted.
There is valuable info in those empty regions which would be very difficult, if not nigh on impossible, to replicate once deleted.

So, if I were to re-path these regions, would not the soundfile name change to the newly re-pathed soundfile name?

It seems the easiest way to deal with this is ignoring the path as that info I want is retained, it just takes 15 CTRL+LftClk every time I fresh launch SS.

by **Bob L** » Wed Oct 08, 2025 11:22 pm

No... because a region has to have some source data to define the region data itself. Not sure how you are trying to use the regions with no source pointers, but it might be best to just create a 20 min file and point them all to that.

Bob L

by **Todd R** » Wed Oct 08, 2025 6:07 am

I have a big job with regions that I want to keep in my edl, yet which have no soundfile associated to the regions

so, every time I launch the job, SAW prompts for missing media paths; which I always just CTRL+ENTER to skip the search

I was thinking I could just use a dummy soundfile, yet some of the durations of these are audio rushes and might be 10-20 min long

is there a setting to set SS to not search for the missing media on launch?

Is There A Way To Dis-Associate Regions Paths From Soundfiles To Retain The Regions?

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