Hi, I was just wondering if there is something like a version control that is designed to handle audio files. Some great functions would be if the version control works be saving each track in a multi-track file and let the user mix different versions of the tracks together. Also, saving only changed parts or pre-processing somehow to conserve disk space. I understand that since audio files are compressed, delta saving between versions rarely works but what about comparing the newer version of the audio file with the older version wav format, get the deltas and compress the delta? Does such a system or something similar exists(is it even possible, feasible?) The reason I ask is that a composer friend of mine sometimes can't decide which track/version sounds good and ends up saving a lot of duplicates and forgetting which files are which. edit: a little more background. It's not the really the composer but the players. They are in different places and they each have a track that they record in (vocal, guitar, drums, etc) The have a song to record and they can't really play together in 1 place or at the same time(location and schedule problems) they end up sending a lot of files to each other. They also use non lossy compression for quality reasons so the files take a lot of space. Worst case is we could use a normal version control system and treat each track as a separate file and only mix them to listen (still takes a lot of space since you get a lot of similar sounding tracks saved) but it's a bit tedious so I was looking for a specially made version control system to handle audio (specifically multi-track) files. [Edited by - yapposai on October 9, 2009 8:36:24 AM]

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I was just wondering if there is something like a version control that is designed to handle audio files. Some great functions would be if the version control works be saving each track in a multi-track file and let the user mix different versions of the tracks together.

Couldn't you do basically the same thing by either saving various versions of the session or saving the stems of the session and keeping those as source then making changes to copies of that source?

Edit: I see that he doesn't want to save multiple versions. If his computer is hefty enough to handle it perhaps having copies of the tracks would help?

If you're really wanting version control then look into Alienbrain or Perforce. Then you could save the same session but under different version numbers and always go back and look at past versions. I'll be honest though, I do not know how much it costs for an individual to use but my team has used both to great success.

Quote: Also, saving only changed parts or preprocessing somehow to conserve disk space. I understand that since audio files are compressed, delta saving between versions rarely works but what about comparing the newer version of the audio file with the older version wav format, get the deltas and compress the delta? Does such a system or something similar exist(is it even possible, feasible?)
the reason I ask is that a composer friend of mine sometimes can't decide which track/version spunds good and ends up saving a lot of duplicates and forgetting which files are which.

To be honest, I'm not sure. I do know that many DAWs offer a compare feature with their plug-ins. Perhaps using that could help in the short term. Also what I do when I can't decide is put two instances of the plug-in on that track and save the settings for each. Then I can toggle which plug-in is active. Sure it takes a little more processing power but I've never had it become an issue or impede me from working.

Thanks for the reply. We'll probably stick with treating each track as different file and sticking them in subversion.