sfk files

Carri wrote on 9/19/2020, 10:59 AM

Hello- I'm not super tech-savvy, but I'm trying figure out how to manage all of the sfk files that get built up when working on a project in Sony ACID. When creating a song, every time you make a change to a track, a new sfk file is created. I once deleted them all, then when I tried to open that song again later to work on it again, I got an error that said "file not found" or something like that. The entire song was wiped out and we had to re-do the whole thing. Is there a setting to get rid of these sfk files so they don't bog down my computer? Would it be safe to delete all of the old sfk files and keep the most current ones? It's hard to tell which one is for which track, but I don't need any of them, and it's super annoying!

Comments

sheppo wrote on 10/3/2020, 6:27 PM

*.SFK files are kind of important for acid. They store things like the peak information - so the whole wave file isn't accessed to show the waveform on the timeline, but also it stores things like the beatmap information for a file (if it is beatmapped). So, yeah, absolutely don't be deleting them if you want to be able to load your project again! :)

What you can do though, is save your project and pick the option to "copy all media with project" - this will save all the audio files and related *.SFK files to the same location as the .ACD file, and then you can safely delete the SFK files in the original location where you originally opened the audio file in acid from..

'fun' fact: They're called SFK files because the owner of Acid, Soundforge and Vegas before Magix, and Sony was a company called Sonic Foundry.

schwermetall wrote on 10/4/2020, 11:54 AM

I concur that ritually deleting the sfk which is platform specific meta-data is counterproductive. I would change the folder view so that the files are hidden like system files.

Former user wrote on 10/28/2020, 2:10 PM

Missing the point. Over time, these files can number in the thousands and they can actually eat up quite a bit of space on your sample drive.

MAGIX needs an option to place these files in a specified temp directory - like WaveLab, Cakewalk, Cubase, and other DAWs can - not next to the source files.

This is really bad file/asset management.

People do not want a DAW writing tons of application specific metadata files to their sample drives. Hiding them does not eliminate, or even mitigate, the issue.

Carri wrote on 10/29/2020, 3:49 PM

So I'm getting conflicting answers, depending on opinions. I don't want the hundreds of files and don't need them. I once deleted all the sfk files and then later found out that the project they pertained to could not be opened anymore so I think I did something wrong. If there a "safe way" to delete them without losing your song that you are working on? Perhaps leave the very last one? So confusing.

Former user wrote on 10/30/2020, 10:33 PM

So I'm getting conflicting answers, depending on opinions. I don't want the hundreds of files and don't need them. I once deleted all the sfk files and then later found out that the project they pertained to could not be opened anymore so I think I did something wrong. If there a "safe way" to delete them without losing your song that you are working on? Perhaps leave the very last one? So confusing.

Carri, Go to Preferences, click on Folders and look what your folders are set to. In my case, I have set the folders to one dedicated folder instead of Acid scattering everything all over the place in your PC. Everything goes in that folder. I don't record audio into Acid but if I did, I would set a secondary folder for that in Preferences' Folder tab.

I think the answer to your question lies here. At least you get control over the amount of files Acid creates. I hope this answers your question.