Deleted Audio Files Not Being Removed From Disk / Naming Question

[ADUS]

OK so I finally got my new DAW setup installed.  Brand new PC and brand new install of Splat (Oct 2018 Final Version) and then the latest CbB next to it (as was recommended in a previous post of mine).

So before installing any 3rd party plugins I wanted to just test the basics of using CbB.  Here are the steps I did and the outcome:

1. started brand new project from blank scratch using the "--no tracks or busses-- option in the new project dialog box
2. I then title it and save it in a per-project audio folder.  So far so good.
3. I added a new track and record some vocal takes from my mic, resulting in the audio files showing up in my project's audio folder:
   
4. I then delete 1 of the 5 takes.
5. Save the project and close CbB
6. Open CbB backup and I notice it never deleted any of the audio files.   I figured the one with the take I deleted should be gone, no?

Note:

• when I say "take", I just mean another recording further along in the track.  Only one take lane was used
• I do not have "versioning" turned on at all.  I understand it would need to keep recordings of takes to revert back to a previous version, but I do not use that feature.

Questions:

1. why aren't the recordings being deleted?

why don't the file names match the clip names given by CbB?   My track view shows "Recording 1", "Recording 2", "Recording 3",.....   but these file names show Rec (4), Rec (6), Rec (8), etc...  I never hit the record button more than 5 times, so how can there be recordings labeled up to 12 in the Windows Explorer?


Thank You!

Edited July 24, 2021 by ADUS
adding to title

[David Baay]

If you saved at some point before deleting the take, the file would be expected to persist until you use the Clean Audio Folder or Cakewalk Audio Finder utility to remove orphaned files. If you deleted the clip before saving, the file should have been deleted on closing the project (i.e. when it would no longer be needed by undo).

I checked the file numbering, and saw this:  While recording the first take, the file has a (Rec1) suffix, and does not include the track name. On stopping recording the track name gets added and the Rec number increments. The same happens with subsequent takes so you end up with all even- numbered files. That seems new, and I'm not sure what the purpose of renaming is, but I haven't had occasion to pay attention to this for quite a while.

In any case, when I deleted the take clips, saved and closed the project, the files were deleted as expected.

Edited July 24, 2021 by David Baay

[ADUS]

Yes I did save before deleting the take, but I then saved afterwards again.   In the past Cakewalk would delete this file as it is no longer used by anything in the project.  It seems like that logic in the programming has been lost somewhere along the way if I am not mistaken.

 

 

[Noel Borthwick]

No once you save the project the files are committed. It would be data loss if Cakewalk removed the files because the saved project is referencing them

[ADUS]

37 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

No once you save the project the files are committed. It would be data loss if Cakewalk removed the files because the saved project is referencing them

But the thing is the project is NOT referencing these recording anymore.  They were deleted from the track.   This USED to work correctly.  I remember after saving and closing CbB, the files would disappear from the folder as they were no longer being referenced.   

[Byron Dickens]

I think one of the lead developers probably knows how this is supposed to work.

Edited July 25, 2021 by bdickens

[Noel Borthwick]

4 hours ago, ADUS said:

But the thing is the project is NOT referencing these recording anymore.  They were deleted from the track.   This USED to work correctly.  I remember after saving and closing CbB, the files would disappear from the folder as they were no longer being referenced.   

This is exactly how it has always worked there is no change. Once the project file is saved with a referenced take it doesnt matter if you delete the take later and resave, Cakewalk will not auto delete the take files because it can lead to data loss. For example a user may have manually copied the project, or autosave could have made a backup copy of the cwp file that is still referencing the deleted take.
Its working how it was designed to work. Use the clean audio command to remove unreferenced data  manually.

[Michael Vogel]

Just to add my few cents to provide even more clarification. 
CbB (as Sonar previously) edits non destructively, which means that all audio data is committed to disc. As Noel said once a project has been saved all data has and will continue to to be committed to disc even if it’s deleted from view by deletion of a visible track. The data files remain. 
 

[ADUS]

Oh of course, I am not questioning Noel at all.... my memory must have been mistaken here from how it used to work.

So let me just understand....   lets say you have a bunch of audio recorded to several tracks and save the file (no versioning enabled)....  then you delete ALL tracks (make the project look like a blank template with zero tracks... it will STILL keep the audio files after saving and closing out of Cakewalk?

THANK YOU!

 

[Michael Vogel]

Yep. Thats the nature of non-destructive editing. Everything is saved in the project audio folder. It’s a great protection however you can use the Clean audio tool to delete what may become an orphaned audio file. In a very real sense, the cwp file is a record of all the midi data recorded and all the audio edits done to the various audio files. But all the audio tracks remain in tact and true most recent saved  project file will show all the latest edits. The referenced audiophile file remains unchanged.  There are however various editing processes that are destructive and commit changes to disc.

It’s worthwhile reading up the reference guide to come to grips with the ideas behind non-destructive editing. ON the surface it may seem wasteful but it makes for a very flexible and safe way to edit what is sometime extremely valuable audio data.

[John Vere]

This system has saved butt many times so I won't complain.

An example would be to comp a single guitar track out of a dozen lanes. You "think" you're happy so to clean stuff up you bounce this to a fresh track and delete all the originals. Of course best practices would dictate a back up project on a separate drive, but sometimes that doesn't happen. During mixdown you discover a nasty guitar mistake! You know that this would have been easily fixed if you still had those lanes, right. Ah! they are still there in the audio folder so no problem. 

It would have totally sucked if Cakewalk had deleted them just to save 50 MB on your 4 TB hard drive. I stopped worrying about unwanted audio files the day they invented the external hard drive. Sure a Laptop with a 240 GB drive as your only storage sucks, but that's were external drives or a large internal data drive(s) shine. 

Edited July 26, 2021 by John Vere

[Noel Borthwick]

Worse would be if you  had a backup of the original CWP in the folder but the audio files were missing because they got deleted. Users frequently make copies of CWP files and edit one master file. For this reason all audio is retained until the user decides its not required (typically by using clean audio)