Converting old Pro24III (midi-only) .sng files to .cpr questions

I have a bunch of .sng files created on Pro24III in the late 80’s on an Atari ST. These are midi-only. I was able to extract these from the old ST diskettes using ST Recover (to recover the disk image) and FloImg (to recover the .sng files from the .ST images. Links…

I’d like to convert these to .cpr format to be able to load and use them into Cubase Elements 10 (which I have yet to buy) Some questions…

  1. Apparently Cubase SX3.1 is available for download because it was the late version that could read .sng files to convert them to .cpr …is that correct?

  2. If I buy Cubase 10 Elements, is that license good enough to also download + use SX3.1 for the files conversion?

  3. Can I install the “XP mode virtual machine” on a Win10 laptop and run SX3.1 on that? Will the license work? (All I’m doing is loading .sng files and saving them as .cpr… no editing or whatever)

  4. Will all the “parts” of the midi-only .sng files still be preserved in .cpr files? Thanks.

I was messing around with Steem and a version of Cubase Lite 1.0 that sorta works on it. It seems the default file format for that is .all

I tried to load a .sng file into it, but I couldn’t tell if it worked because the screen resolution was weird. I tried saving it as an .all file - it took it – but it’s much smaller than the .sng file (from about 32k to 5k in size) so I’m not sure what happened.

And what was the difference between the .sng vs .all vs .arr files? Anyone know?

And instead of having to mess with old versions of Cubase to bring these file formats into today, wouldn’t it be easier for Steinberg to create a standalone program that simply converts these old formats to .cpr?

Also how does one retrieve the knowledgebase link in the 3rd post of this thread:

I have asked Steinberg if they could create a standalone program that simply converts these old formats to midi files. I didn’t get any answer. It seems that when Steinberg say they do not support a product anymore… well, they really mean it. They do not support it anymore… in all possible ways. In our case all .sng files created with these obsolete Steinberg products now belong to the trash. Thank you very much guys.

You’re expressing your frustration, and I understand- but it’s reasonable that a company does not respond to support questions on a product that was discontinued in the previous millenium.

Search this forum, there are a few topics discussing how to get the music out of those files.

https://forums.steinberg.net/search?q=.sng

The link worked when I tried it just now. It’s possible it was repaired since you last tried.

Thank you for your contribution, Steve, but it is a bit pointless. It’s like saying that a Word or Excel document created in 1985 can reasonably be inoperable today because Word and Excel have evolved since the 80s.

And before giving your advice, be sure to research which operating system Cubase SX3 is still running.

See my full post on how Steinberg provides a free converter for 1 month,

From my memory a .sng file is a Cubase Part. If I am wrong, I am sorry for wasting your time.
I believe that .sng file would convert to a modern CPR file using the "import Cubase part " feature under the file menu of Cubase Sx3 . If it loads then use save as and then you have converted to the modern .cpr format.

I have been a Atari Pro24 v3 since '88 and it wasn’t until I had access to several laptops of different eras running different versions of Windows and different era Cubases that I sussed this issue.

So here is the formula:

Load Pro24 *.SNG - into ST Cubase v 1/ 2 - save as Cubase *.ARR

Load ST Cubase * .ARR into Windows Cubase 5.0VST via IMPORT CUBASE Arrangement - save as *.CPR

Load (OPEN) 5.0VST *.CPR >> upwards