The project opens and saves 5-7 minutes

[Asato Maa]

Hello, there!

Colleagues, I faced an unusual problem.

I have 3 audio files in my project, with a total duration of about 20 minutes. And some VST synth tracks.

I edit these audio files for the purpose of grid binding. As a result, I get about 50 or 100 small segments. The original files are not changed.

And here is the problem itself: the more small segments of audio inside the project become, the longer the project opens and saves.

It can takes about 5-7 minutes and appears windows 10 system pop-up window , indicating that the program is frozen, and it is proposed to wait, or exit the program.

I paid attention to the swap file. While I'm working on the project, it starts to take up 33 GB, and after rebooting the system it takes 16 MB.

Perhaps the fact is that the Cakewalk uses non-destructive audio editing.

My computer: intel core i5 10400f, 16gb ram, ssd drive. Cakewalk version is 2022.11 (build 021).

Question: how to solve this problem, and how to record and process subsequent projects with long audio files?

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Asato Maa

[msmcleod]

You could apply trimming to the clips to shorten them to their new extents. 

Just right click on the clip and select "Apply Trimming".  This command is selection based, so if you want to apply to more than one clip, just select the other clips before executing the command.

[Asato Maa]

19 hours ago, msmcleod said:

You could apply trimming to the clips to shorten them to their new extents. 

Just right click on the clip and select "Apply Trimming".  This command is selection based, so if you want to apply to more than one clip, just select the other clips before executing the command.

Thank you very much!

But how can I understand that Trimming is applied for all my audio clips?

Is there any check mark for visual understanding that the effect is applied? I think it would be great to add this feature in future releases ?

 

[msmcleod]

4 hours ago, Asato Maa said:

Thank you very much!

But how can I understand that Trimming is applied for all my audio clips?

Is there any check mark for visual understanding that the effect is applied? I think it would be great to add this feature in future releases ?

 

 

There is - the corners are "cut" at the bottom if there is audio that has been trimmed out:

[Starship Krupa]

On 3/29/2023 at 12:27 AM, msmcleod said:

You could apply trimming to the clips to shorten them to their new extents.

So taking 5-7 minutes to load or save is expected behavior under these conditions?

And the cure is to apply destructive editing?

I'll take a guess and suggest that the idea is that Cakewalk can read 50-100 small files faster than it can read 20-35 segments each of 3 larger files. And saving is faster under those conditions?

5-7 minutes seems like a really long time to me. It's been my understanding that reading audio files from a disk isn't an "expensive" process.

[msmcleod]

58 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

So taking 5-7 minutes to load or save is expected behavior under these conditions?

And the cure is to apply destructive editing?

I'll take a guess and suggest that the idea is that Cakewalk can read 50-100 small files faster than it can read 20-35 segments each of 3 larger files. And saving is faster under those conditions?

5-7 minutes seems like a really long time to me. It's been my understanding that reading audio files from a disk isn't an "expensive" process.

A number of things could be causing this, such as:

- "Use one file per clip" setting
- The size of the audio file
- The speed / fragmentation status of the disk.

Creating separate file handles is a relatively expensive operation, which is why whenever possible Cakewalk packs multiple audio segments into a single file.  This has it's downsides though, such as speed of editing.

Even so, seeking through a large file can be relatively slow especially when it's fragmented.

The fact that the project in question grows to 33Gb, but then ends up as 16GB would lead me to believe the size of the clip is huge - and the OP has said, they're 20 minutes long.  That is a big audio file.

I don't think I've ever gone above 12GB, and most of that was sample libraries, not internal audio.

So I think in this case, trimming the clips down to size is the right call.

[Starship Krupa]

7 hours ago, msmcleod said:

The fact that the project in question grows to 33Gb....

It was the swap file, I believe, not the project itself. And they said that it expanded to 33G, then down to 16MB after rebooting the system. Would that suggest there's a lot of memory in use?

They said that their system uses an SSD, so speed/fragmentation wouldn't be an issue, would it?

I'm very curious about this because I want to avoid this situation myself.