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Danger deleting audio regions?


amusong
Go to solution Solved by David Nahmani,

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I had a bad experience once when I deleted some audio regions in a project. I had project, let us call it Project 1. I wanted to use some elements of the project (to do with setup) in a different project, let us call it Project 2.

 

I saved Project 1 as Project 2, so now had two projects. I did not need the audio files from Project 1 in Project 2, so deleted the audio regions within Project 2, but left the tracks set up as they were from Project 1, assuming that all the audio in Project 1 would be OK. This went on further, as I was recording for a day with a friend and we make about half a dozen songs. Project 2 was saved as Project 3 and the audio regions deleted , etc etc. All projects were saved in the same folder.

 

Imagine my horror, when at the end of the day, we were having a beer and started to listen to the projects, and found that in deleting the audio regions from the Project 1 they had been deleted entirely from Project 2 and from Logic. And so on down the line of projects from that day. All the work we had done that day, except for the last project, was gone. After a frantic search on my computer I found the audio files in the Macbook's trash, and although the filenames were a nightmare, I was able to eventually recreate all the projects from that day's recording. A very close call.

 

Ever since that day I have kept every darned audio file I have ever created and just hide them when they build up in a project. But it's becoming tedious to manage and uses a lot of storage. I have looked this issue up in the manual, and online, but there is really no useful information on this issue. Which I am now facing again.

 

My question.....is there a safe way to delete an audio region from a project, that might be being used in another project, without affecting the other projects audio files? And in general how does the deleting of an audio region work on Logic?

 

(Yes... I know....templates...but they can get messy for me too, and each project is different in some way, and usually requires some changes in settings, which I prefer to make from scratch. So I would still appreciate knowing the answer to my question :)

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You have to make the projects self-contained:

 

Before you record anything: Save As and include Audio Files. This way anything you drop in will get copied. So when you delete something, it just belongs to this project.

 

Or File -> Project Management-> Consolidate if you already recorded some stuff.

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My question.....is there a safe way to delete an audio region from a project, that might be being used in another project, without affecting the other projects audio files? And in general how does the deleting of an audio region work on Logic?

First, it's very important to make the distinction between an audio region and an audio file. A region is just a pointer to an underlying audio file which is stored on your hard drive. You can have multiple regions, in one or multiple projects, all pointing to the same audio file on the drive. If you delete only the region from one project, that does not affect other projects. If, in the process of deleting the audio region, you delete the audio file on the drive, then when you open another project with another region pointing to that audio file, you'll get a warning that Logic cannot locate the audio file (because you've just deleted it).

 

In your case I believe that in the process of deleting the regions, you've actually deleted the audio files. I don't know exactly how you deleted the audio regions so it's hard to say, but my guess is you must have had a warning, such as the one below, and chosen to delete the audio files?

 

delete.png.daa12054a70e2ef94098243bb2d0ae04.png

 

If you have that warning and choose "Keep" then you'll be able to accomplish what you're asking: to delete the regions from the current project without affecting the other projects that may have regions pointing to the same audio files.

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Thanks David....I believe you have described exactly what I did and I recall getting that warning....so my bad of course. I will pay more attention next time I get this warning, and will also set up a test project to run through the whole process and check it out more thoroughly.

 

I think we can say.."problem solved" with both of the above very useful responses.

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Ah.....I understand your point more clearly now. Nonetheless, I am pretty anal about saving my projects frequently but on this occasion I moving pretty quickly so I could have made the mistake you are suggesting. I am going to be much more knowledgeable and careful now, thanks to all this advice.
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Thanks chaps,

I have a 4TB flash drive on my Macbook Pro and run two 4TB backup disks that I keep in separate places. I usually back up the whole machine on Time Machine, on both drives, at least once a week, depending on how much work I am doing in Logic. I got sick of trying to do everything with external drives for several reasons, one of which is that I travel a lot and, like to have everything accessible in the one place and portable. If you work full time in a studio, in one place, and don't move around, a solution with many external drives might be the right thing for you....in fact that's what I would do. But I don't so having a big drive on my machine works for me, and I am very fastidious about backups. This means that managing data carefully on my computer is a worthwhile thing to do for me.

 

However, the other reason I want to be able to delete files has to do with my work method. If a project starts to look good, I may in the end go through several generations of it. I am currently working on the 6th generation of a project I started about a year ago. Each new generation is saved under a different numbered project title. I like to retain the earlier versions for a very specific reason.....sometimes I go past "the peak" and start to fiddle too much and overthink stuff,and the project started to deteriorate in a way that is hard to recover from. There have been several occasions where I abandoned an advanced version and went back to an earlier version to complete the project. If I try to carry all the files ever associated with the project forward, though, I end up with these huge projects, with masses of hidden files, that take a long time to start, and every time I move around (from my studio desk, to my lounge usually) the audio system usually resets which takes quite a while. Using UAD plugins makes this even more tedious. if I don't happen to have a UAD device plugged in at my new location I get a b&*^dy error message for EACH UAD plugin EVERY time I move. I might move around like this a few times a day and its a PITA. So I like to work with slimmed down project versions, with only the audio and MIDI files that I need for that version.

 

So there you have my reasons. I have just been so s&%t scared to delete things because of my earlier experiences, but as result of the above advice I have today successfully slimmed down some projects I am working on, without losing any data, so I am content.

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