Save a copy as... awesome to save CPU Power?

Hallo community!

 

I noticed that every time I "save a copy as..." the project gets smaller, like significantly smaller, namley from 800 mb to 400 mb...

So this is great, but how? I assume that recorded tracks that were deleted before are still being stored in the first project, making it heavy...? Otherwise I cannot explain how it becomes ligther when copying it.

If that is the case, is there a way to completly erase deleted tracks directly?

 

Thank You!

Edited December 13, 2020 by Gianni_Gon

are you saving as a package or folder? if you're saving as a folder, the resources for the project are in there, and the 'save a copy' project file refers to those resources...

Funny how every question creates two more, haha

I cmd save... is that package or folder? I'm not familiar with the terms. With resources do you mean the regions on the track or the deleted regions that are still being stored?

 

...I mean, if they are being stored, cause I dont know if they are

when you go to save (you set this option in the 'save' window, not the 'save a copy' window); you have a choice to organize the project as a package (where the audio files etc are stored INSIDE the project file), or as a folder (where you get a folder per project, with audiofiles etc in folders within that folder).

 

there are pros & cons to both; i save everything as a package; for me, that simplicity of having one file per project works; many others here prefer folders.

Note that the project size affects RAM usage, but not CPU usage.

Just a side-note to this. I’m new to logic and not at the computer now, but as I recall there’s a clean up project function that basically clears your undo history and discards all the clips of old recordings made in your projects life time that is presently not in the region view. Other daws have similar functions and that can drastically reduce the project size. I don’t know if save as does a similar thing? Of course you should be pretty satisfied with the current state of your project before doing the clean up.

And yes. The CPU doesn’t care about those clips. But ram usage and project load time is reduced

Just a side-note to this. I’m new to logic and not at the computer now, but as I recall there’s a clean up project function that basically clears your undo history and discards all the clips of old recordings made in your projects life time that is presently not in the region view. Other daws have similar functions and that can drastically reduce the project size. I don’t know if save as does a similar thing? Of course you should be pretty satisfied with the current state of your project before doing the clean up.

I agree with you Ninecows and keep my projects clean and tidy at all times if for no other reasons than having to constantly upload them onto servers to share with contributors or clients. So yes, if you keep track of unused files, cleaning up, delete unnecessary alternatives, undo history etc... then you should, in theory at least, get the same (or better) results as you do with a blind save as. Good point.

But... it is my understanding (I could be wrong though) that logic does not load unused audio files from the audio bin into ram and even reads audio files used in regions from the disk unless something like flex is enabled for that track (then loads into ram). Perhaps this has changed but if not, all cleaning up a project is going to accomplish is saving hard drive space (apart from a little bit of ram being freed up from things like undo history, etc.) and shorten load times but won’t drastically (or much at all) improve performance.

But... it is my understanding (I could be wrong though) that logic does not load unused audio files from the audio bin into ram and even reads audio files used in regions from the disk unless something like flex is enabled for that track (then loads into ram). Perhaps this has changed but if not, all cleaning up a project is going to accomplish is saving hard drive space (apart from a little bit of ram being freed up from things like undo history, etc.) and shorten load times but won’t drastically (or much at all) improve performance.

 

To be honest I don’t know how Logic does here, but I would assume that it is not for free to keep those abandoned clips. Coming from Reaper I have the feeling that Logic really likes to fill up the ram. Reaper was/is extremely lightweight and when I made the jump to Logic I noticed that projects that ram without issues on a basic 15 yo PC in Reaper would have dropouts on a 2011 iMac and Logic. Same projects worked nice in Reaper on the same machine.

 

Anyway. I just like to keep things tidy and keeping too many open ends distracts me from moving onwards. I have sort of a extreme approach to what takes to keep. A take has to be really great and pleasing - otherwise I hit delete and don’t look back

I remember the old days with Cakewalk 8 and how I discovered that my MASSIVE 4 gb hard drive was slowly cluttered and filled with these clips. Cakewalks clean up function was far from perfect, wave files were stored in one big folder and with random naming so many times wrong stuff was deleted. That was not fun...! Makes you appreciate how far we have got in both storage space, ram and software development

But... it is my understanding (I could be wrong though) that logic does not load unused audio files from the audio bin into ram and even reads audio files used in regions from the disk unless something like flex is enabled for that track (then loads into ram). Perhaps this has changed but if not, all cleaning up a project is going to accomplish is saving hard drive space (apart from a little bit of ram being freed up from things like undo history, etc.) and shorten load times but won’t drastically (or much at all) improve performance.

100% correct robinloops. The project file is what is loaded into RAM. Reducing the project folder size as I suggested earlier is useful only for uploading/downloading the project folder to/from a server, or reduce storage space.