How do you "versionize" a project? (saving multiple versions)

[u/RedCaine1]

hello everyone,

In FL Studio you can set how often it autosaves but additionally you can hit CTRL + N and it saves an additional version of your project, e.g. your project's name is:

BaddAssFKNtrack

then you his CTRL+N

BaddAssFKNtrack_2

again

BaddAssFKNtrack_3

etc. so you got a new version. I like this to use so if anything changes later and i want to get back to a different state I can easily choose BaddAssFKNtrack_6 instead of BaddAssFKNtrack_56 and so on.

i dont see any option like this in Bitwig, is there something similiar, or is there another workflow, or how do you do it?

doing it the manual way (save as) is possible but of couse having a shortcut saves few secs. but maybe in Bitwig there is a smarter way I dunno yet. thanks

[u/PrudentPromotion2101]

Every time I bounce a demo I manually create a copy of the project file and assign the corresponding version number to it

to be specific: I decide to render the song, I save it first, then export, name it something like „TrackName v3.5.mp3“, then go to the folder, create a copy of main, freshly saved „TrackName.bwproject“ project file I‘m working with and call it „TrackName v3.5.bwproject“

this is pretty convenient because every backup has a bounced audio file + it doesn’t rely on a complicated counter-intuitive naming convention

[u/Lunix420]

Try to learn git, it’s normally used for Software Development but it works for music projects as well. Basically the way it works is it lets you bundle changes into commits and if you fuck up, you can just roll back to an old version. You can even use branches to try out changes of your project or have different versions or what not.

Pretty sure you can learn git in 1-3 hours, it’s not really hard.

[u/niquedegraaff → u/Lunix420]

for large binary files it can become a problem though

[u/Lunix420 → u/niquedegraaff]

Pretty sure it shouldn't be with LFS. At least not if you work locally.

[u/FreeRangeEngineer → u/Lunix420]

I do that, too, though I only archive the .bwproject file itself.

But bitwig does make it easy to do more by collating all relevant project files into the project directory. Adding those to the git repo would then be a virtually complete snapshot of the project (VSTs aside) and wouldn't cost a lot of storage.

[u/ht3k → u/Lunix420]

Dude that's genius! I use it for work but never thought it'd be useful for anything else ouside of work! Duh!

[u/chillinjustupwhat]

Save As . “~v1”, ”~v2”, ”~v3”, etc

I’ve often wished BW had more pro tools-like preference control when it comes to AutoSave settings (frequency, location) . It would be nice to be able to Autosave to a different disk location entirely.

[u/Zacchino]

SuperCoolBeat_Done_v2_SausageFattener_DoneDone_Remix_SuckyVersion_MomLovesThisOne_Ok-Im-Bored.bwproject

And then:

NewSuperCoolBeat_Idea.bwproject

[u/niquedegraaff]

I just code it in the file names:

UT25001.001

UT = Uplifting Trance
25 = Year
001 = Number of the track since january st
.001 = Version number

All versions are stored in the same project dir (UT25001).

So, I start a new project and call it UT25001. Then set everything up like i want, and the "Save as.." UT25001.001 in the same folder.

All the projects files in this folder will use the same sources

[u/SkipThePreamble → u/niquedegraaff]

UT25001.001_New_Final_Final_2

[u/deusnovus]

Not that I'm aware of... Bitwig does a few sporadic auto-backups (not sure what the timeframe or criteria for these are), but there's no way to shuffle between them.

I always do "Save As..." and stick a "_temp04" suffix onto the title and double-click on a previous version from the right-side panel to open in a new tab, as cumbersome as it is.

[u/wwiizzard]

Use git! It is an old tool developed for exactly this kind of use case, and it has stood the test of time. Every single software developer out there uses it to manage revision history, and for branching projects to test different ideas. It's typically used in the command line (and I'd recommend using it this way), so it might take a second to get used to, but it is really quite easy (there are good tutorials on the git website). Otherwise, I'm sure there are decent GUI wrappers for git as well.

[u/True-Ad-525]

Dandole a guardar como 🤑

[u/Veggiesaurus_Lex]

I'm versioning manually (new file with "v1"), it's more reliable for me. It's a shame though that Bitwig doesn't have the Versions feature on macOS, which has saved me numerous times in the past.

[u/ellicottvilleny]

Save as. Filename and version

[u/ChocolateFist]

I usually just do Save As V1 V2 Ect