Groove Clip Looping vs Bouncing

[sjoens]

Does leaving a clip in Groove Clip Loop mode leave it "unrendered" or use more resources than bouncing it to clips?

[msmcleod]

It depends.

If it's an audio clip, and it's doing real-time stretching, then yes.  It'll also likely not sound as good, as the real-time stretching algorithms prefer speed over quality.

For MIDI clips or audio clips that aren't being stretched, the difference will be negligible.

It also depends what you mean by resources... if you mean CPU, then the above is true.  If you mean disk-space / memory, then bouncing it will actually increase disk-space or memory usage.

[John Vere]

@msmcleod 

Question. In another thread I was having issues with exporting a chopped up track and bringing it back as a complete track. I would export as stem, delete and replace with the stem. I’ve done this a zillion times. But all of a sudden the audio engine was randomly stopping. 
Someone recommended I just bounce the track to clips.  
I did this and it most certainly seems to create a complete track. But reading what you just said brings up this question. 
The way I did it before created a true new audio file that was complete end to end with no edits or Melodyne ghosts. 
So does bounce to clip not create a clean audio file but simply is a visual change and the audio file still has a zillion edits that Cakewalk has to decipher as it plays? 
This would be important to know. 
 

[msmcleod]

Just now, John Vere said:

@msmcleod 

Question. In another thread I was having issues with exporting a chopped up track and bringing it back as a complete track. I would export as stem, delete and replace with the stem. I’ve done this a zillion times. But all of a sudden the audio engine was randomly stopping. 
Someone recommended I just bounce the track to clips.  
I did this and it most certainly seems to create a complete track. But reading what you just said brings up this question. 
The way I did it before created a true new audio file that was complete end to end with no edits or Melodyne ghosts. 
So does bounce to clip not create a clean audio file but simply is a visual change and the audio file still has a zillion edits that Cakewalk has to decipher as it plays? 
This would be important to know. 
 

Bounce to Clip, Bounce to Track and Audio Export all use the same code behind the scenes.  They're all creating clean audio files.

Of course with the bounce commands, you still have the old clip objects in memory and the old clips' audio on disk to support Undo, so until you either clear the undo history (or reload the project), they'll still be taking up resources.

[John Vere]

Thanks Mark I just tested this and as you see the original audio folder is a total mess. The vocals originally were only done in 3 takes with a few punch ins so would have been about 8 files. The only vocal track kept was Vocal 3.  The guitars I did in a couple of takes.   But this is probably nothing compared to what I think a lot of people do to projects with 100 guitar and vocal takes. 

 

So I used bounce to clips on the Vocals and one guitar track and this is now much better. Of note is that after the bounce it renamed the guitar track to it's currant name. Goes to show why you should always name tracks before recording not after. But there are still more files than what is being used.  

 

So I did SAVE AS to a new location now it's almost perfect and If I had have bounced the Banjo and the Guitar Rythym it would be perfect. 

 

 

[sjoens]

Thanks Mark.  Processing more than storage.  I gathered Clip Looping is just a visual representation that the system processes on the fly and bouncing renders the repeats as one solid clip creating a new, bigger file in the Audio folder.  Stretching wasn't a factor as I knew about that.

Edited November 14, 2023 by sjoens

[sjoens]

Good example John.  Each clip in each Take Lane in each Track creates an audio file in the folder. 

Bouncing all those takes together in a single track creates another single file.  So you'll have a lot more Audio files than you might see in the project, creating the "total mess" you speak of.  Nice, because even tho saving and/or closing the project loses the Undo menu, the (edit) files are still there for you to reuse if needed.

Bouncing and saving to a new folder consolidates the finished project with only pertinent files, and you lose all the edits, takes, etc.

Sometimes I wish MIDI tracks worked the same way. feature request?

Edited November 14, 2023 by sjoens

[John Vere]

But if you observe the second screenshot that is the same version after bouncing to clips and saving And then close and reopen the project. The big mess is gone. 
So my logic is This must save the  CPU from having to sort out the big mess during playback. 
 

[sjoens]

Looks like you're using Create one file per clip when saving, which will reduce the number of files saved to a new location.  Bouncing actually increases file count.

W/O Create one file per clip:
Project unbounced tracks = 22 audio files in folder / 22 reported files in Project > Audio Files... / cwp = 1082kb
Project all tracks bounced = 31 audio files in folder / 9 reported files in Project > Audio Files... / cwp = 831kb

Same results after saving/closing/reopening CbB.

With Create one file per clip:
Project unbounced tracks = 12 audio files in folder / 12 reported files in Project > Audio Files... / cwp = 1082kb
Project all tracks bounced = 21 audio files in folder / 9 reported files in Project > Audio Files... / cwp = 829kb

Same results after saving/closing/reopening CbB.

[Bridget Murphy]

Enough for a start.

[Glenn Stanton]

On 11/14/2023 at 9:41 PM, sjoens said:

Looks like you're using Create one file per clip when saving, which will reduce the number of files saved to a new location.  Bouncing actually increases file count.
...
Same results after saving/closing/reopening CbB.

the trick was to "save as" so the new project file was only taking the bounced files with it (the example John was showing) so there is a reduction.

and this is generally a best practice for archiving or sharing projects - bounce tracks from zero (1:01) to end (or export tracks for the same consolidation and reload) and save the project as "myproject-v###" or "myproject-v###-ARCHIVE" etc etc so it's "clean". best to also include project documentation - track list, effects, settings, other metadata, lyrics, artists, etc  so if you revisit a project years later you can be refreshed...

Edited November 29, 2023 by Glenn Stanton

[sjoens]

Yes, according to his 3rd screen shot and my comments above.

But I was replying to his 2nd screen shot which I took to be Saved or Saved As to the same location (overwritten), which has never reduced file count for me.

[Bridget Murphy]

The UI/UX seems to be not user friendly.