Sampler Instruments, Samples, Freeze Files, and Impulse Responses: Can I delete them from my project folders?

[David MacNeill]

I have all these folders named Sampler Instruments, Samples, Freeze Files, and Impulse Responses in a completed 13-track album, ready to do my final mixes and take to mastering. Can I safely delete these folders from all my project folders? Some of the Sampler Instruments are enormous and I've unfrozen every track already.

[fuzzfilth]

I'm not sure I understand the question. Are these folders empty ? If so, yes, you can delete them, though they will be created once you open the projects again, so that's quite pointless.

If the folders are not empty, they quite probably might be used by the project, so given that you're this close to finishing the album, now is the worst point to discover that a project can't find something which may cost you hours to resolve, just because you deleted it a day earlier. 

Once the album is done, you may go on and weed out in there, only to discover that you want to redo one part three weeks later and hit that wall again.

Still, it is unclear what the desired result is, other than catering to your OCD, perhaps ?

Edited May 27, 2022 by fuzzfilth

[Atlas007]

Those files were normally used to create your project and upon saving same, you had selected these options in the Save dialog box to include them in your project file.

As fuzzfilth pointed out, it wouldn't be wise to do such a clean up at this point in time.

Those files may become crucial in the future, wishing to revisit them in a future Logic version, which may not include all of these specific files.

It would therefore be highly advisable to find a way to backup that project before working on one of its copy to experiment at proper time, the desired cleanup.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Atlas007

[David MacNeill]

Yes, I did blindly select those options early on in this album project. As the album progressed, I realized that I didn't need those folders since I was going to be mixing on my own rig. That's why I'm now wondering I can just delete them — and yes, perhaps a little OCD is active here — but of course I would only do so on a copy on another drive, just in case. Seems silly to store yet another damn copy of Mellotron.exs and a million default Logic piano samples on my archive drives when I will always have access to my Logic library.

[David Nahmani]

12 minutes ago, David MacNeill said:

Yes, I did blindly select those options early on in this album project. As the album progressed, I realized that I didn't need those folders since I was going to be mixing on my own rig. That's why I'm now wondering I can just delete them — and yes, perhaps a little OCD is active here — but of course I would only do so on a copy on another drive, just in case. Seems silly to store yet another damn copy of Mellotron.exs and a million default Logic piano samples on my archive drives when I will always have access to my Logic library.

Are all the Sampler Instruments, Samples and Impulse Responses used by that project part of the Apple Sound Library that is installed with Logic Pro on your Mac? Are there frozen tracks in your project that use those frozen files?

What I would recommend is that you open your project in Logic Pro, then do a Save As onto a different drive under a different name (you can for example append "_new" or "_cleanedup" to the name). For that new Save As, provided all the other type of files are standard factory settings included in your Apple Sound Library, select only the option to copy audio files into the project. 

Now close everything, and try to open that new project, double-checking that everything opens as expected. 

[ozinga]

I wouldn't delete anything until the album is released 

[David Nahmani]

12 hours ago, ozinga said:

I wouldn't delete anything until the album is released 

Yes, that's probably wise. 😀

[David MacNeill]

17 hours ago, David Nahmani said:What I would recommend is that you open your project in Logic Pro, then do a Save As onto a different drive under a different name (you can for example append "_new" or "_cleanedup" to the name). For that new Save As, provided all the other type of files are standard factory settings included in your Apple Sound Library, select only the option to copy audio files into the project. 

Well that worked. The whole album went from about 45GB to just under 30GB. I didn’t even prune inactive audio files — I may be OCD but I’m not crazy! 🙃

[David Nahmani]

Just now, David MacNeill said:

The whole album went from about 45GB to just under 30GB. I didn’t even prune inactive audio files — I may be OCD but I’m not crazy! 🙃

Great! 😃