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Tracktion Manual
Chapter 3 - Archives
What is a Tracktion Archive?
Tracktion archive files (.trkarch files) allow entire projects and edits, along with all the material needed to play them back correctly, to be compressed into a single file.
Archives can be compressed losslessly (meaning that there's no loss in sound quality - this uses FLAC compression and is great for making back-ups, but the files produced are quite large) or lossily using Ogg-Vorbis compression (which produces very small files for easy distribution, but degrades the sound quality slightly).
When creating archives of edits, there is also an option to include only the sections of audio files that are actually used in the edit, so if you only use 1 second of a 3-minute file, only 1 second will go into the archive.
How do I load a Tracktion Archive (.trkarch) file?
Just like loading a project file, you can double-click the .trkarch file, drag-and-drop it onto the Tracktion window, or use the 'load archive' menu item to find it.
You'll be asked to choose a directory into which the archive will be decompressed, and then the original project files will be copied from the archive into this directory, and the project will be opened, after which you can use it like any other project.
How do I create an archive of my entire project?
If you select a project, its properties panel will contain an 'export project' button. This will let you create an archive containing copies of all the material inside the project, compressed either losslessly or at various compression ratios.
Instead of putting the files into an archive, the export dialogue box also has an option to copy the files to another directory - this can be handy for backing-up or taking a snapshot of the project.
How do I create an archive of just one edit?
As well as exporting an entire project, you can choose to export a single edit (either select the edit on the projects screen, and click 'export edit', or open the edit and click 'export').
Unlike exporting a project, where all the files are copied, you are given the option to copy only those sections of audio files that are actually used in the edit. You also have an option to leave a few seconds of extra audio at the ends of these excerpts, so that after the archive is opened there's a bit of room for fine-trimming.
Another difference between exporting an edit and exporting a project is that for a project, copies are made only of files that come from that project, but for an edit, copies are made of any files from any projects that it references.
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