Melodyne files

[reginaldStjohn]

You must be using a global audio folder. If you use per-project audio then you would have folders for each project with just that projects audio in it. It makes it easier to clean up unused audio files and move the project around.

Edited February 8 by reginaldStjohn

[Helios.G]

1 hour ago, reginaldStjohn said:

You must be using a global audio folder. If you use per-project audio then you would have folders for each project with just that projects audio in it. It makes it easier to clean up unused audio files and move the project around.

Melodynes files bypass that, regardless of how you setup your project folders.  It's audio is sent to a specific "separations" folder usually in the documents section of windows under Celemony.

[Glenn Stanton]

the option to edit the file path for the cache seems have been blocked at some point in v5, but i created a directory junction (using "mklink /J") to redirect it from the OneDrive documents folder to the project drive Melodyne folder (like i had it before they changed it).

so far, so good.

[John Vere]

@treesha
Earlier on in this thread I claimed there was nothing in my folder but that was actually the one in Program Files. The Document location had 340 MB in it. Sorry about the confusion 

Edited February 9 by John Vere

[Glenn Stanton]

the only problem is the documents path - is if it is the OneDrive (personal) documents folder - the reason i added the junction - i was seeing my OneDrive backing up separation files as i was working on them, and i suspect that could have caused a crash or two. since the OneDrive doesn't seem to follow a junction link, the separations on my project folder no longer risk contention from the cloud service.

as W11 has been pretty stable, most times i didn't go through my usually process of pausing Google and OneDrive and setting airplane mode on. and since Celemony changed the option to get the cache path, the junction solved the issues (as well as getting dynamic project content off my C drive).

[treesha]

On 2/4/2024 at 12:20 PM, Glenn Stanton said:

i keep it on my "quick access" list (along with a few other products which cache renderings in the documents folder - sometime mine, sometimes the "public" user...) so i am reminded to periodically clean them up. 

Hi Glenn, just curious what other products you know cache renderings? Ty

[CSistine]

IMHO this is definitely a good example of a failed software design by Celemony (but they are by far not the only ones in that boat)!

For me it would absolutely make more sense to store the rendering cache somewhere in the project folder instead! If you want to clean a project, then everything belonging to the project should be in there (except audio files that the user explicitly links from another place as it is possible in CbB and some other daws).

[OutrageProductions]

17 minutes ago, treesha said:

... just curious what other products you know cache renderings? Ty

All video platforms that use XML files for their edit decision list will hold render files somewhere on a drive... until you manually delete them.

[Glenn Stanton]

for me - Melodyne seems the be the main one but i've found some of the Arturia products generate tmp files when you're tweaking settings, but i remove them as part of the content sync i do to the cloud disk periodically. my studio design work has several products which do spin-up temp files, the main one is my rendering engine Podium. so i just clean that one periodically as well (from a quick access link).

i could imagine though, if you have an audio editor (like RX, SoundForge, Acon, etc) which launches from CW, i would presume there is some caching. for me, if i need to edit an audio file that is used within CW, i usually open the file in the editor directly.

Edited February 9 by Glenn Stanton

[Glenn Stanton]

3 minutes ago, Sistine said:

IMHO this is definitely a good example of a failed software design by Celemony (but they are by far not the only ones in that boat)!

they probably ran into support issues where too many custom configurations on the cache were eating up support folks time, dunno. just guessing, but it would be nice to restore the custom folder setting as well as default to the project folder when an ARA call is made so the project & cache are in the same location. might be something CW stopped supporting - i.e. passing the folder, or even possible Steinberg said no more folder name passing in VST3 LOL ? 

Edited February 9 by Glenn Stanton

[mettelus]

1 hour ago, treesha said:

just curious what other products you know cache renderings

Pretty much any media application that has undo or auto-save functionality will have this. Most that can be opened in stand-alone mode will have these listed in preferences. Ironically, the caching eats up disc space (which may or may not auto-purge on close, but the path should be selectable/listed in preferences), but the undo levels eat up RAM in most cases and I have seen some apps default to 250 undos. I always set undo levels to 10, and if I go past that threshold I will close out the file without saving and open the last saved version. Cakewalk defaulted to 100 or even 250 undos (I cannot remember now), which is why "saving often" was the common trick to make the app run more smoothly.

High level, the media apps to check preferences on are DAWs, wav editors, graphics programs, video editors, etc. Some even go so far as to create an "auto preserve" file, which is a duplicate of the file you open before you start working, so that if you save a mistake you can still back out of it. Even apps with smaller files tend to do this (Word, Excel, etc.) but you don't notice that as much as the ones that work with massive (audio, graphics, video) files.

Edited February 9 by mettelus

[John Vere]

But now a minimum size for OS drive is 1TB so all this is not worth worrying about really. Have get over our W7 workflows.

I have just built a new computer back in November and have installed a ton of software and plug ins. It’s sitting at 10% and because nothing much is stored there as time goes on I doubt it will ever exceed 30% in its 3 year lifespan. Yes I will replace it then.  It will become a data drive. 

[Glenn Stanton]

it's not the size that matters. um, well for some things it does ? , but more the concern should be: what happens if the disk breaks down or something in the complex microelectronics or software does something wrong?

corruption on large storage systems is certainly possible when using single hard disks  and SSD. so it might not matter until a bunch of old nff files somehow get mixed into your latest client delivery files during a disk optimize process or simply bad sectors and memory leaks resulting in bad writes, or power outage causing write caching to do the wrong thing -- resulting in many hours of clean up and recovery or worse sharing them in that condition. 

nothing wrong with an old workflow which keeps extraneous files cleaned up and projects etc backed up and recoverable.

Edited February 9 by Glenn Stanton

[Wojtek Stecyszyn]

I have a over 5GB of Melodyne files in Celemony\Separations folder!!!

I'm not confident in deleting these files - won't it result in regions missing in my projects?

Some of the files are old - from last year. I would have to go thru every single of my project since last year and look among hundreds of clips in each to see if there is any RFX Region and render? Is that the only way?

On 2/9/2024 at 9:37 PM, John Vere said:

But now a minimum size for OS drive is 1TB so all this is not worth worrying about really. Have get over our W7 workflows.

I have just built a new computer back in November and have installed a ton of software and plug ins. It’s sitting at 10% and because nothing much is stored there as time goes on I doubt it will ever exceed 30% in its 3 year lifespan. Yes I will replace it then.  It will become a data drive. 

1TB seemed like a lot for me when switching from 250 GB disk space but It gets crowdy eventually and Im now trying to fing places where I can deleta some files and make free some space. 

[Bristol_Jonesey]

Common practice with Melodyne is to render each section as soon as you've finished editing.

[mettelus]

1 hour ago, Wojtek Stecyszyn said:

I'm not confident in deleting these files - won't it result in regions missing in my projects?

If Melodyne was active in a saved project, the separations will be recreated when reopened. If the cwp seems larger than normal (in the MB range) it is a good sign that there are active Melodyne Region FX in it, and the cwp stores that information to pass to Melodyne when the project is re-opened. If you want to test this, do a test project, leave Melodyne active on some audio, save it, then rename your Separations folder and re-open the cwp. That cwp will open more slowly, and create the Separations when it does.

As Jonesey said, if you bounced Region FX, those Separation files will never be referenced again. Either way, it is not necessary to maintain them; they just make cwp's with active Region FX load faster.

[Wojtek Stecyszyn]

I'm just one of these guys that keeps endlessly perfecting things so If I tune a vocal in Melodyne then I usually copy it and render the copy to work further but keep the original Melodyne region in a case that I want to go back and change, do it better  (a backup file with still RFX Region )  Very convenient and safe way but  I was not aware that this will cause this folder to grow so big!! Ok, from today I will change my approach.  Thanks guys for info  @Bristol_Jonesey and @mettelus  Very helpful. Cheers

Edited December 10 by Wojtek Stecyszyn

[sjoens]

Thanks for reviving this topic or I would have never known.

On 2/9/2024 at 8:20 AM, CSistine said:

IMHO this is definitely a good example of a failed software design

Once rendered, cache files are useless, right?  So why keep 'em.

[mettelus]

8 hours ago, sjoens said:

Once rendered, cache files are useless, right?  So why keep 'em.

Even not rendered, the data required to recreate the separations is saved in the project file (just takes a little longer for a project file to load and recreate them if purged out), so it might be better to think of it as a temporary working directory that doesn't self-purge. There is a setting in Melodyne to change that from the default 10GB to something more reasonable (but be sure it is big enough to house one active project).

Two other folders that are temporary working directories that do not self-purge are:

     C:\Windows\Temp

     C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp (this requires "Show hidden files, folders and drives" checked in Windows Explorer->Folder Options->View tab)

Those two folders can also grow to rather large sizes (I always purge them before imaging). Anything that is in use by an active program cannot be purged, but the rest is safe to delete. The AppData Temp file is potentially also huge if you have never purged it out.

[sjoens]

More obvious is Recycle Bin which affects all HDs on the system.

Some say don't worry about deleting them as 10 GB is nothing on high volume drives.  But when multiple folders behave this way they can add up.  Besides, 10 GB is just enough to redline a drive close to capacity..

Edited December 11 by sjoens