Adobe Audition 2.0 cramming my hard drive.

[Spitz]

Hi,

I have a problem with Adobe Audition 2.0. Every time I record a new song, a new idea--a simple melody--I always end up recording the riffs many times because I either screw up or I simply want to change something in them, forcing me to record again. This means that quite a lot of tracks (in .wav format) are recorded and end up saved in my computer, filling A LOT of space since, I repeat, they are large wave files.

This is true for every Adobe Audition 2.0 session, as short and simple my new "song" is. Of course the more complex songs/ideas take a lot more space because have more tracks in them...etc.

The problem is that, while these files are saved in my computer, I don't even use them! They're just erratic takes that lie around taking space unnecessarily.

Is there a way Adobe Audition 2.0 can delete these unused files automatically when I save my session and close the program?

For every session I start, I know exactly which track files I'm using and know their location in my hard drive, but spotting every single one of them from among 50 other unused tracks which I have to carefully select and delete is a very tedious and time-consuming burden. I'm hoping that Adobe Audition 2.0 can solve this problem on its own.

Thanks a lot!

Spitz

[dobro]

Well, if you save the particular tracks in a session that you want to save, then click on Save or Save As for the whole session, Audition will prompt you about whether you want to save the other tracks you haven't saved. If you click on 'No to All' or something like that, it will just dump the tracks you haven't saved.

[tarnationsauce2]

Actually Dobro that isn't exactly true. AA2.0 will save ALL takes automatically. Even if you "delete" them from the session (even unused punch-ins). They will still be saved in the session's "recorded tracks" folder. If you take a look in your recorded tracks folder it will be full of a bunch of unused wav files.

There is some software that will purge all unused files, but I can't seem to find it.

But there is another way.

1. Create a new folder.
2. Open your session.
3. "Save session as" and tick "save copies of all associated files" and save in the new folder you created.

That will save the session as a backup and save ONLY files that are actually used in the session.

Then you can delete the old folder if you are sure the backup you created works.

[mixmkr]

I have found this to be a hassle too. My work a round has been to name the tracks I wanted to keep, and not name the others. That way, I can go back to the "recorded folder" and easily distinguish which ones to toss.

For what it's worth, this feature of AA2.0 sucks....unless I am missing something.

[dobro]

ts2 - I'll take your work for it, cuz to tell the truth, I've never tried to do what Spitz is trying to do. I save everything.

I don't know if this will help, because I'm using 1.5, but after recording a take (in multitrack view), if you're not satisfied, you can right click the track and click "Destroy track" instead of "Remove Track". This will remove the file from the session and delete it from disk. Assuming you haven't saved it before that...

[dobro]

Well, I do that all the time. After I save a session and then reopen it later, I mean. When I reopen sessions, I often want to copy a track and move it to a different track and give it a new name to match the new track. After I do that, I do the right-click/delete thing to get rid of the old track I've copied. You can do the same thing even before you've saved the session, so Spitz could use that approach successfully.

[tarnationsauce2]

Originally Posted by danny.guitar

I don't know if this will help, because I'm using 1.5, but after recording a take (in multitrack view), if you're not satisfied, you can right click the track and click "Destroy track" instead of "Remove Track". This will remove the file from the session and delete it from disk. Assuming you haven't saved it before that...

AA2.0 does not have the "destroy track" option any more. Now when ever you record in AA2.0 it saves automatically, all takes, all tracks.

Originally Posted by dobro

Well, I do that all the time. After I save a session and then reopen it later, I mean. When I reopen sessions, I often want to copy a track and move it to a different track and give it a new name to match the new track. After I do that, I do the right-click/delete thing to get rid of the old track I've copied. You can do the same thing even before you've saved the session, so Spitz could use that approach successfully.

The problem is that even though you have deleted the old track from the session, it is still on the hard drive.

[austinm08]

Originally Posted by dobro

Well, I do that all the time. After I save a session and then reopen it later, I mean. When I reopen sessions, I often want to copy a track and move it to a different track and give it a new name to match the new track. After I do that, I do the right-click/delete thing to get rid of the old track I've copied. You can do the same thing even before you've saved the session, so Spitz could use that approach successfully.

Did you know you can just click near the top left where it says the track name, and a cross of arrows will appear.. arrows pointing up down and left and right.. and you can just move the tracks up and down?
...^
<-|->....................<---it will look like that
...v

[dobro]

Is it any faster than copying a track to a new track? And does it move the settings from the previous track to the new track (that's what I'd really like)?

[lpdeluxe]

zenpicker posted a utility on this forum http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthr...o+file+cleanup
Read the whole thread before you use it.

[tarnationsauce2]

Originally Posted by lpdeluxe

zenpicker posted a utility on this forum http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthr...o+file+cleanup
Read the whole thread before you use it.

Aha! That's the little program I was talking about. Thanks for finding it.

[Eli Weiss]

Whew! This was what I needed. I can't believe AA doesn't handle this better.

Glad to see the tool supports AA2 and AA3 both, as I am still switching back and forth.

Great forum...already solved my #1 problem with Audition...thanks, all...

[lpdeluxe]

Yeah, I tried to burn a CD of a bunch of takes of our band and it wouldn't fit on a CD...turned out to be 33GB!

I've gone back to 1.5. The features that 2.0 offers aren't enough to make me want to fill up my hard drive with outtakes.

[dobro]

I've been using 3.0 and this is way I do it: to begin with, I save the session inside another folder with the name of the song on it.

Back in Multitrack, if I like a clip I've recorded or imported and want to save it, I right click on the clip and name it how I want. This identifies it as a clip I want to save. Then when I save the session, I make sure that I save the named clips I want to save NOT IN THE RECORDED FOLDER that Audition automatically wants to put things in, but in the folder I created at the beginning. I also delete all the unwanted clips from the File Window on the lefthand side of Multitrack. Then when I've saved everything, I Close All and close Audition. I go into Windows Explorer and open up the folder I created for the song and check and make sure the clips I wanted to save are all in the folder. In addition to the clips I named and saved in the folder, there's also the Session File and there's the _Recorded folder. I delete the entire _Recorded folder, which instantly gets rid of all the takes I don't want, leaving just the clips I named and saved and the Session file in the song folder.

Sweet.

[zenpicker]

dobro, out of curiosity have you checked out the cleanup tool mentioned above? (I will cop to being its poppa...) It does something very akin to what you describe but with just a couple mouse clicks. The newest version does support both Audition 2.0 and 3.0.

Originally Posted by dobro

I've been using 3.0 and this is way I do it: to begin with, I save the session inside another folder with the name of the song on it.

Back in Multitrack, if I like a clip I've recorded or imported and want to save it, I right click on the clip and name it how I want. This identifies it as a clip I want to save. Then when I save the session, I make sure that I save the named clips I want to save NOT IN THE RECORDED FOLDER that Audition automatically wants to put things in, but in the folder I created at the beginning. I also delete all the unwanted clips from the File Window on the lefthand side of Multitrack. Then when I've saved everything, I Close All and close Audition. I go into Windows Explorer and open up the folder I created for the song and check and make sure the clips I wanted to save are all in the folder. In addition to the clips I named and saved in the folder, there's also the Session File and there's the _Recorded folder. I delete the entire _Recorded folder, which instantly gets rid of all the takes I don't want, leaving just the clips I named and saved and the Session file in the song folder.

Sweet.

[dobro]

I've heard of it and would be willing to try it. The thing that makes me nervous is this: if I understand it rightly it works by deleting everything in the session EXCEPT designated clips, is that right? I don't know if I trust myself to always get it right and not make mistakes. See, the way I do things now, if I make a mistake I can always get the clips I want from the _Recorded folder. But I suppose I could as easily get it from the Recycle Bin, right? lol

[zenpicker]

What it does is pretty simple - it just identifies the WAVs referenced in the session (.ses) file, compares them to the list of WAVs found in the target audio directory (typically but not necessarily <project name>_Recorded), and allows you relocate or just delete the unreferenced files. So there's really no user judgment required (you see, I made this for my own use and didn't trust myself either!). If it's referenced in your mix, AFC won't touch it.

The best thing is to use it with the Move option until you're comfortable with what it does, then graduate to Erase if that's your desire. At one level it's just handy as a disk organizer, using Move to warehouse unused audio on a secondary hard drive or the like without actually deleting it. I do this all the time.

One warning: because of the size of WAVs it proved infeasible to mess with the Recycle Bin, so deletes are always hard deletes. Another argument in favor of Move until you are used to the tool and you thread it into your normal working style.

Please feel free to post any further questions here, or if you don't want to eat up forum space just send them to me at afc_support@rootedproductions.com.

Originally Posted by dobro

I've heard of it and would be willing to try it. The thing that makes me nervous is this: if I understand it rightly it works by deleting everything in the session EXCEPT designated clips, is that right? I don't know if I trust myself to always get it right and not make mistakes. See, the way I do things now, if I make a mistake I can always get the clips I want from the _Recorded folder. But I suppose I could as easily get it from the Recycle Bin, right? lol