Where are my Files Located?

This help page covers the following topics

Where are my Saved Tracks Stored?
Controlling How Saved Tracks are Named Using Custom Strings
How Singles Tracks are Named
Where are my Recordings Located?
What Files does VinylStudio Actually Create?
Archiving your Recordings

Where are my Saved Tracks Stored?

When you save your tracks, they are normally stored in the following folder:

Music
    <Name of your collection>

You can change this folder in VinylStudio's , and you can also browse the folder from within this dialog.

VinylStudio offers considerable flexibility in how tracks are stored within this folder. By default, albums are grouped in folders by album artist, like this:

Music
    <Name of your collection>
        Beatles
            The White Album
                01 - Back in the USSR.mp3
                02 - Dear Prudence.mp3
                ...

You can select (or change) this behaviour using the dropdown in VinylStudio's . There are separate settings for albums and singles.

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Controlling How Saved Tracks are Named Using Custom Strings

Advanced users, or those who are interested in what is going on, might like to peruse or enter custom strings into the to determine exactly where your split-up tracks are stored. These gives you a high degree of control over where the saved tracks end up. That said, the preset values in the dropdown lists normally suffice, and option 2 (group tracks by album artist) is recommended for both albums and singles.

To do this, you use keywords to tell VinylStudio how you want your tracks to be named and grouped into folders. When saving each track, VinylStudio replaces these with the album title, track title or whatever, as appropriate. The following keywords are available:

[Album Artist] The album artist, e.g. Beatles. For compilations, we recommend you add the album to your collection under 'Various Artists' and enter the artist separately for each track. For singles, add the album to your collection under the name of the performing artist, or perhaps (for a sampler EP) again 'Various Artists'.

[Album Side] The album side on which the track appears, starting from 1.

[Album Title] The album title, e.g. The White album. For singles, this is not normally used when saving tracks but you will need to enter something when you add the album to your collection, perhaps the name of the 'A' side, that you will recognise later.

[Track Number] This is the track number on the album, starting from 1. This is useful for preserving the order that the tracks appear in on the original album. We recommend omitting this keyword for singles.

[Track Title] The title of the track, e.g. Back in the USSR. All tracks must have a title and this keyword is mandatory.

[Track Artist] The track artist, if there is one. If not, this keyword is ignored. For this keyword to work properly, you should only enter track artist information for compilation albums / EPs.

[Performing Artist] This is (in descending order of priority), the track artist, if any, the performing artist, if any, or, failing, that the album artist. Useful for singles or for grouping all your tracks by performing artist (if you don't care which album they came from).

[Sort Artist] This is the sort artist, if any, or, failing that, the album artist. You can use the sort artist for any purpose you like, it has no special meaning to VinylStudio.

[Genre] The genre you have assigned to the album, if any.

[Composer] The composer you have assigned to the album or track, if any.

[Conductor] The conductor you have assigned to the album or track, if any.

[Artist Alias] The artist alias you have assigned to the album or track, if any. You can use this to enter the album or track artist in an alternative form, e.g. 'John, Elton', which you can then use in the filename of your saved tracks. For files that use ID3 tags (WAV, AIFF, DSF) this is placed in TSOP ('performer sort order') tag. For other file formats, there is no tag for this.

[Lyrics] The lyrics you have assigned to track, if any. Works only at the track level (i.e. there is no corresponding field for the album itself).

[Comment] The comment you have assigned to the album or track, if any. Use this for anything you like.

[Year] The release year of this album, if any.

[Label] The 'Label' field in the Edit Album Details dialog.

[Grouping] The 'Content Grouping' field in the Edit Album Details or Edit Track Details dialog.

[File Type] The file type (e.g. MP3, OGG).

Inserting a backslash (\)slash (/) specifies a folder rather than a file name. Thus for example:

[Album Artist] - [Track Title]

might result in a file called, Beatles - Back in the USSR.mp3, whereas:

[Album Artist] \/ [Track Title]

might generate a folder called Beatles containing a file called Back in the USSR.mp3, like this:

Music
    Beatles
        Back in the USSR.mp3

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How Singles Tracks are Named

By default, all singles tracks and spoken word material (i.e. those albums where you have told VinylStudio 'This is a single') are grouped in folders by album artist, like this:

Music
    <Name of your collection>
        Elton John
            Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
            ...
        Elvis Costello
            Watching the Detectives
            ...
        Joe Bloggs
            Interview with the Dalai Lama
            Interview with the Pope
            ...
        ...

Again, you can select (or change) this behaviour in VinylStudio's by clicking on the 'For singles' radio button. Note that, by default, the album title entered is not used when naming the files. It is however included in the files as a tag.

Where are my Recordings Located?

It is useful to know where your 'raw' recordings are located if you want to back them up or if you would like to move them elsewhere (typically to an external hard drive). By default, VinylStudio stores your recordings in the following folder structure:

Recordings
    <Name of your collection>.mcf           -- a file
    <Name of your collection>               -- a folder
        Elton_John~Best_of~side1.wav
        Elton_John~Best_of~side2.wav
        ...

Any album art you have downloaded in VinylStudio is also stored in your collection folder (in a sub-folder called artwork).

You can tell VinylStudio where to store your collection when you initially create it and you can open to display the contents of your recordings folder from within the .

Your collection (.MCF) file stores information about your collection (such as album and track titles), rather than the recordings themselves. MCF files are precious and we recommend you back them up regularly. They are not very large.

If you want to move a collection from one place to another, it is important to maintain the relationship between the MCF file (e.g. My Collection.mcf) and the folder containing your recordings (e.g. My Collection). The golden rule is that both of these must reside in the same parent folder and must both have the same name.

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What Files does VinylStudio Actually Create?

In addition to your split-up tracks (which are generated on demand), VinylStudio creates, for example, the following files when you record an album (these are the 'raw' recordings of the album):

Elton_John~Best_Of~side1.wav (or .aiff, etc)
Elton_John~Best_Of~side2.wav (or .aiff, etc)
...

When you scan an album for clicks, the following files are created in addition (these files contain your click repairs; take care not to lose them!):

Elton_John~Best_Of~side1.wav.crd (or .aiff.crd, etc)
Elton_John~Best_Of~side2.wav.crd (or .aiff.crd, etc)
...

Any album art you have downloaded in VinylStudio will be stored in a folder called artwork located in your recordings folder, e.g.:

artwork
Elton_John~Best_Of.jpg

Artwork from other sources is left in whatever folder you saved it in when you acquired it. VinylStudio does not alter or delete these files.

Finally, some files used internally are created in folder vsfiles. VinylStudio can regenerate these automatically so you don't need to back them up (although regenerating the waveform display is rather slow for DSD recordings, so you might like to keep them in that instance):

Elton_John~Best_Of~side1.wav.wfd (or .aiff.wfd, etc)
Elton_John~Best_Of~side1.wav.wfo (or .aiff.wfo, etc)
Elton_John~Best_Of~side1.wav.wfs (or .aiff.wfs, etc)
Elton_John~Best_Of~side1.wav.wft (or .aiff.wft, etc)
...

Archiving your Recordings

You may want to archive some of your recordings to save disk space. You can achieve this by making copies of the recorded WAV (or AIFF, etc) files and the CRD files containing your click repairs as described above. You can then use the 'Remove Recordings' option in the Album menu to delete the original files from your hard disk. It is worth retaining the album itself in your collection as this will allow you to restore the recordings and CRD files at a later date should you wish to work on that album again. If you delete the album from your collection completely, track names and trackbreak information (and any filter settings used) will be lost. Trackbreak information and the like is stored in your MCF (collection) file.

Note that deleting your recordings will also delete the CRD files containing your click repairs, so you should archive those first too. It will also delete the 'waveform' files but VinylStudio can regenerate these automatically so there is no need to back them up (and we recommend that you don't bother).

[Album Artist]	The album artist, e.g. Beatles. For compilations, we recommend you add the album to your collection under 'Various Artists' and enter the artist separately for each track. For singles, add the album to your collection under the name of the performing artist, or perhaps (for a sampler EP) again 'Various Artists'.
[Album Side]	The album side on which the track appears, starting from 1.
[Album Title]	The album title, e.g. The White album. For singles, this is not normally used when saving tracks but you will need to enter something when you add the album to your collection, perhaps the name of the 'A' side, that you will recognise later.
[Track Number]	This is the track number on the album, starting from 1. This is useful for preserving the order that the tracks appear in on the original album. We recommend omitting this keyword for singles.
[Track Title]	The title of the track, e.g. Back in the USSR. All tracks must have a title and this keyword is mandatory.
[Track Artist]	The track artist, if there is one. If not, this keyword is ignored. For this keyword to work properly, you should only enter track artist information for compilation albums / EPs.
[Performing Artist]	This is (in descending order of priority), the track artist, if any, the performing artist, if any, or, failing, that the album artist. Useful for singles or for grouping all your tracks by performing artist (if you don't care which album they came from).
[Sort Artist]	This is the sort artist, if any, or, failing that, the album artist. You can use the sort artist for any purpose you like, it has no special meaning to VinylStudio.
[Genre]	The genre you have assigned to the album, if any.
[Composer]	The composer you have assigned to the album or track, if any.
[Conductor]	The conductor you have assigned to the album or track, if any.
[Artist Alias]	The artist alias you have assigned to the album or track, if any. You can use this to enter the album or track artist in an alternative form, e.g. 'John, Elton', which you can then use in the filename of your saved tracks. For files that use ID3 tags (WAV, AIFF, DSF) this is placed in TSOP ('performer sort order') tag. For other file formats, there is no tag for this.
[Lyrics]	The lyrics you have assigned to track, if any. Works only at the track level (i.e. there is no corresponding field for the album itself).
[Comment]	The comment you have assigned to the album or track, if any. Use this for anything you like.
[Year]	The release year of this album, if any.
[Label]	The 'Label' field in the Edit Album Details dialog.
[Grouping]	The 'Content Grouping' field in the Edit Album Details or Edit Track Details dialog.
[File Type]	The file type (e.g. MP3, OGG).