Delete unused audio data

[Deesnay]

Hi there,

I noticed that, when you remove parts of audio clips, the source audio file remains intact – which is usually fine, because it allows to retrieve the deleted parts later if needed, e.g. by extending the clip's boundaries again.

However, there are times when you'd rather have the unused audio data completely removed, in order to save disk space. Is there a way to do that?

I'm aware of the "Utilities > Clean Audio Folder" feature, but as far as I understand, it removes audio files that have become totally unlinked to any project, as a whole. In my case, the files are still linked: I would like to remove only parts of these files that are no longer used, so that (e.g.) a 10MB file becomes a 2MB file.

I have tried the functions from the clips' drop-down menu, but it doesn't seem to help.

To  be more specific, my use case is the following: I have a huge audio Cakewalk project that has become too big to handle, and I'd like to split it into smaller files by keeping only one song in each Cakewalk project, rather than keeping all multitrack songs in the same Cakewalk project. However, I'm afraid that splitting the project won't help if each smaller project resulting from the split still includes all the original audio data.

[reginaldStjohn]

When you split an audio clip and want to get rid of the parts that are no longer audible then "bounce" the clip. That will create a new clip and the audio that was "clipped" should be able to be removed as long as it is not referenced somewhere else.

[mettelus]

18 hours ago, Deesnay said:

I have a huge audio Cakewalk project that has become too big to handle, and I'd like to split it into smaller files by keeping only one song in each Cakewalk project, rather than keeping all multitrack songs in the same Cakewalk project.

In addition to bouncing clips, which will create new clips of the size being used in the project, the easiest way to clean up things afterwards is to do a "Save As..." of a project and put it into a new folder. Check the "Copy all audio with project" and only audio in use by that project will be put into the new folder (the original files you started with will remain in the original folder which you can either archive or delete as the situation requires).

For your situation, I would make a copy of your original folder first just in case, then open it, delete all content but one song, do a Save As for that song and close it (do NOT save the original project when closing). Rinse and repeat until all songs are in their own separate folder/project.

Edited April 23, 2023 by mettelus

[msmcleod]

To remove the trimmed audio from clips, either use "Apply Trimming" or "Bounce to Clip(s)".   Apply Trimming simply removes the trimmed-out audio, whereas "Bounce to Clip(s)" will also combine all selected clips into a single clip , and also apply any clip automation to the new clip.

To remove unused audio files, use "Save As" and save the project to a new location.

 

[John Nelson]

My heartfelt advice is, don't delete anything to save space. Use external SDD or whatever and archive. You WILL be glad some day.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

1 hour ago, John Nelson said:

My heartfelt advice is, don't delete anything to save space. Use external SDD or whatever and archive. You WILL be glad some day.

Then you can sell all your wrong takes and flub notes as a sample pack which some rando ***** youtube producer will use to make beats as a challenge video.

[Deesnay]

On 4/23/2023 at 3:51 AM, John Nelson said:

My heartfelt advice is, don't delete anything to save space. Use external SDD or whatever and archive. You WILL be glad some day.

You're 100% right! Actually, my very problem at the moment is rather about RAM. My musical partner loaded 60GB of audio into one single Cakewalk project, and the file cannot be rendered anymore, due to the huge amount of data.

So the plan is to keep all original source files indeed, but nevertheless work with separate projects and make sure that each of them won't load all the data.