Project Backups, Alternatives and file size huge [SOLVED]

[guavadude]

I've reworked my template to include full orch in addition to my usual pop production layout. I've used the option click on ON/OFF button to have all tracks unloaded but there are a lot of purged VIs in place and a lot of buses. My previous pop only template was 160 tracks and 5mb in size. Now I'm at 440 tracks and the size has grown to 250+mb. I'm trying to figure out why it would be so large...if it's caused by using more buses or what?

 

I save projects as Folders with only audio files. I don't use Packages and I haven't been using Alternative versions (but I do have the backup set for 3 Alternatives.) Instead I just Save As into a new project for each revision and as a backup. What's happening is that my 250mb project is growing in size to over 1gb. Then if I use several for revisions, the whole folder is just getting out of hand size wise. Even using clean up to delete the backups still has each project size at over 500mb since it contains the original and I guess one alternative.

 

I'm looking for some ideas on how to shrink down my template size. I guess I could just import or recall a patch or ch strip to load what instruments I need instead of having them in place unloaded in the template. Is there a better way for me to be using the Alternative projects, should I set this to just 1 Alt since I'm kind of creating my own with the project saving?

[Atlas007]

The undo history could also contribute to project's file size.

[polanoid]

The undo history could also contribute to project's file size.

This could only be the undo histories of edited *Audio Files*. The times when Logic stored the song's undo history together with the project are long gone (since 10.4? I don't know exactly)

[polanoid]

I've reworked my template to include full orch in addition to my usual pop production layout. I've used the option click on ON/OFF button to have all tracks unloaded but there are a lot of purged VIs in place and a lot of buses. My previous pop only template was 160 tracks and 5mb in size. Now I'm at 440 tracks and the size has grown to 250+mb. I'm trying to figure out why it would be so large...if it's caused by using more buses or what?

 

I save projects as Folders with only audio files. I don't use Packages and I haven't been using Alternative versions (but I do have the backup set for 3 Alternatives.) Instead I just Save As into a new project for each revision and as a backup. What's happening is that my 250mb project is growing in size to over 1gb. Then if I use several for revisions, the whole folder is just getting out of hand size wise. Even using clean up to delete the backups still has each project size at over 500mb since it contains the original and I guess one alternative.

 

I'm looking for some ideas on how to shrink down my template size. I guess I could just import or recall a patch or ch strip to load what instruments I need instead of having them in place unloaded in the template. Is there a better way for me to be using the Alternative projects, should I set this to just 1 Alt since I'm kind of creating my own with the project saving?

 

Could you upload your template so the forum members can check what may make it so large?

[MikeRobinson]

But also – "today, you will never run out of [external] storage."

[guavadude]

I'm trying some stuff out. I made patches for all of the instruments I created which are basically a ton of Kontakt instances, purged but in place. I'm going to scale back to my basic pop setup and just try adding perc ensemble, strings, brass etc as needed and not have ten short string options in place.

 

I get that drives are cheap but it's just way out of control now. I was thinking that I could stop using VEP and just use Logic with the full template in place with each track completely powered off. It's the alternate versions that I think are killing me. I can live with a 250mb session, but with the alternates it's 1gb, then with all the variations and revisions, each track I'm working on is 10gb. That's too much. thx for the ideas.

 

I am now deleting the old revisions when the project is done instead of keeping them for no reason. That's helping but I need to fix the issue at the source.

[David Nahmani]

If the Logic project file itself is large, there may be something inside its package that is bloating it (when saving a project organized as a folder, the Logic file itself is still a package with many files inside).

 

For example, in some situations Logic can put audio files inside the Logic file's package. Here's a recent discussion we've had on this topic: Weird Logic Project file size behaviour

 

If you want to have a look, open the Logic Project folder, Control-click the Logic Project file and choose Show Package Content, then start navigating the folder hierarchy, looking for files that are bloating it. If you need help with that I'm happy to have a look.

[guavadude]

The only things I'm seeing that's of any size in the package contents are the project data at the top level and the project data in the project file backups folder 00 and 01. I have it set to backup to three alt versions right now. So I think everything is working as expected, my template is just so many instrument tracks that I'm going to have to approach it differently or buy more drives.

 

It is nice having everything in the template ready to go. Using patches isn't working quite as well. I know of others who just import tracks from a large template as needed so I might try that. thx

[guavadude]

Just following up. It was the hundreds of VI channels that were bloating the template. Even though the instruments and channels were completely disabled, they still take up quite a bit of space in the Logic file.

 

I saved patches after I created summing stacks of each VI articulation so I could load them separately. I also created an ALL Patch so I could load several library options all at once, choose the one I want and delete the others.

 

Not as elegant as having everything in place all the time but my Logic files dropped from 300mb to 30mb.

[Atlas007]

Were those native or 3rd party VIs?

[guavadude]

All instances of Kontakt. Trying to setup a big template for scoring.

[David Nahmani]

Great, thanks for letting us know.

 

Meanwhile you could have your huge template saved somewhere on your drive, but start working from the smaller template. When you need a collection of instruments from the bigger template, choose File > Import > Logic Project to import the tracks from the huge template into your current project.

[guavadude]

yes, that's what I'm doing. I'd also like to use the patch library and just recall the section and library I want to use.

But I'm having some real issues with that. Sometimes patches are recalling correctly and sometimes they are incomplete and not as I saved them. So yeah, importing may be the better way to go. thx

[gst]

Hi there. This problem has been bothering me for years now - as well as most other people working with huge templates.

I've done many test to work out which Kontakt patches seem to bloat the files (Orchsetral tools are a big contributer, as well as damage 2, for example) but depiste trying to clamp down on the big offenders my template with no data inside is ~500mb. Although this size is caused by having many Kontakt instances, it's also a logic problem, because equivelent Cubase projects take nowhere near the space wiht the same patches loaded.

Have there been any recent breakthroughs on this? or is it something that needs to be adressed by the logic team?

I don't want to have to use the common work arounds such as loading from other projects, or track stacks because of it forces you into a certain way of routing audio paths / adds loads of work that has to be repeated in every project. For now I've accepted that projects have to be this big, but it does seem really silly.