how do i remove unused cubase tracks?!

[Robertt8]

ok. i've got cubase LE which i don't know all that well. here's what i need to do...

i recorded a bunch of tracks and i only need to keep the newest versions of each take (about 8-10 takes per track). mostly i need to get rid of the unused tracks so i can send this cubase file to a guy to mix...how do i do that?

any step by step would sure be appreciated.

cheers!
tait

[Agent47]

I use SX3, and haven't used old-style Cubase for a few years now, but...

It should be simply a matter of selecting the track (click on the dark grey bit where the track name is, on the left) and then hitting delete. At least that's how I do it in SX3.

Good luck!

[legionserial]

If the old takes are still on the grid, the first thing you need to do is delete them from the grid. Basically if the takes are stacked up on top of each other, make a note of the number of it, then right click, and choose send to front on all the other take numbers that aren't being used, highlight, then delete. It will ask you whether you want to send them to trash if or not. Send them to trash. Once you've done all that, open the pool window (ctrl+P) and goto the trash folder. All the files you just deleted should be in there. Make doubly sure you want to get rid of them for good, then right click on the trash folder and empty trash.

Another thing you can do to clean things up is to look, again in the audio pool, at all the audio tracks that aren't in trash. There should be an icon next to them to indicate if they are being used in the project. Or a number or something that indicates how many times they have been used. Anything that doesn't have a number or icon by it can feasably also be removed without affecting your project should you want to. Just always make extra sure you want to delete before you do, because obviously once it's gone, it's gone.

[ecktronic]

Delete all the waves you don't need in your main Cubase window.
Then simply go to the Pool and (right click) select "remove unused media", then (right click) select "empty trash" and "delete".

Eck

[Robertt8]

hey! thanks a ton guys...

[xstatic]

Before you start deleting stuff, there is one GIANT thing you need to watch for. Make sure you only have ONE song per folder. If not, following the steps these guys described above (which is the correct way) will delete other songs also.

For example.... You have a folder for your music, then you start a new project in it called song 1. You record a bunch of stuff and everything is great. The you do a new song called song 2 and you put it in the same folder as song 1. You do tons of tracks on song 2 and then decide to get rid of a bunch of them. You delete them from your arrangement window and everything is good. Now you go into the Audio Pool and select remove unused media. On the pop up you select erase from hard drive. This is kind of the standard way of going about all this to free up space. What you may not have noticed is that because songs 1 and 2 were in the same folder, the Audio pool referenced the files from both projects. When you had song 2 open and selected remove unused media, all the tracks from song 1 that were not part of song 2 got treated as unused media. When you erased the files, song 1's audio files just went with it.

Another thing to watch for is templates. When you make a template file, it stores routings, channel counts etc... If you already have audio or data in the project when a template was saved, it saves witht the template.

For example. You take song 1 from before (now assuming that songs 1 and 2 are properly saved in seperate folders) and you save a template after doing song 1. Now when you start song 3, you start with your template from song 1 because you like the way it is laid out. When Song 3 loads you will notice that all the tracks from song 1 loaded also. So now you delete those files form song 3 so you can have a fresh start. At the end of song 3, you do your whole remove unused media thing, now song 1 will be gone. With the files in the template, the audio pool viewed them as unused in song 3 since you deleted them from the arrangement, but they happened to be the files needed from song 1.

To make a long story short, in the whole remove unused media process, there are some options. One of those options is to remove something from the pool, and not actually delete it. With shared files, removing things from the pool is better because it leaves the file for whatever else may need it.

[TyphoidHippo]

Originally Posted by legionserial

If the old takes are still on the grid, the first thing you need to do is delete them from the grid. Basically if the takes are stacked up on top of each other, make a note of the number of it, then right click, and choose send to front on all the other take numbers that aren't being used, highlight, then delete.

Not that there's anything wrong with what legionserial said to do - but personally, I find that a much faster way of doing the same thing would be to hold down the control (Ctrl) button, then click on the top take (the one that you want to keep) and drag it up or down a track - then just delete all the garbage ones that are left under where it was - then hold down the control button again, and click on the take you moved out of the way just a second ago and drag it back down to the proper track. By holding the control button down, it assures your take won't move forward or backward in time as you drag it up and down to different tracks.

(Then, again, like everyone else said - Make sure you don't have any audio files from another project in your current project's folder, and then just Ctrl+P, right click, remove unused media - delete, right click - empty trash, and delete, and you're good to go!)