is there a cubendo-like MINIMIZE FILE option?

[Mudchild]

Hey all

In SX 2's Pool, you can select audio files and 'minimize' them, which creates new versions of the files MINUS any parts of the file that are NOT referenced in the project - great for removing unwanted material and reducing file size. Reaper doesn't seem to have this option - or is there some other aspect of the way it works which takes care of this?

Thanks

M

[404NotFound]

You can achieve this via File -> Save project as... -> Trim and convert media.

[Mudchild]

Originally Posted by 404NotFound

You can achieve this via File -> Save project as... -> Trim and convert media.

Thanks for that. However, I would prefer not to have to 'Save As' everytime I wanted to chuck out the unwanted stuff. There is no option to simply 'trim media' at present?

[zanoni]

1.split-cut after split part

or

2. r-click; item settings; loop selection of item

never ask if reaper can do it but how---reaper can do it all.

[Tallisman]

Originally Posted by Mudchild

Thanks for that. However, I would prefer not to have to 'Save As' everytime I wanted to chuck out the unwanted stuff. There is no option to simply 'trim media' at present?

once you have trimmed, glue, then do a clean project directory... still not as fast-n-easy as cubendo... but another work-around at least.

.t

[Amberience]

Originally Posted by zanoni

1.split-cut after split part

or

2. r-click; item settings; loop selection of item

never ask if reaper can do it but how---reaper can do it all.

That doesn't remove it from the file though.

[heda]

I would love the minimize function without having to save a new project

[hopi]

do I not understand?

I'd say when you have everything cut and trimmed and then glued to itself, and the project saved, ...then use the action to remove the unused files from that project folder...

is that not what you want?

[heda]

hopi, the minimize function would remove the parts of the audio items that are not being used from inside a file that is used on the project. not only the files that are not used entirely on the project.
I don't know if I explained it well. Let's say you record a big file, you split it in different items.. and remove some of them. Then minimize function would have to remove those removed sections of the wav file, join them together, or create a separate file for each remaining separated part. And reposition the remaining items accordingly so they remain at the same position they were before.

[richie43]

Originally Posted by heda

hopi, the minimize function would remove the parts of the audio items that are not being used from inside a file that is used on the project. not only the files that are not used entirely on the project.
I don't know if I explained it well. Let's say you record a big file, you split it in different items.. and remove some of them. Then minimize function would have to remove those removed sections of the wav file, join them together, or create a separate file for each remaining separated part. And reposition the remaining items accordingly so they remain at the same position they were before.

That's exactly what hopi is describing. After you have chopped, moved, and rearranged things, glue them and use the cleaning action-done!

[Lawrence]

Sounds like the same result - if - glue can glue / minimize a bunch of edits on the same track without putting them all back together. If glue always puts selected clips together - consolidates them - maybe not the same beyond the scope of a single clip.

[heda]

ok, but if you have many separated items in one track and glue them, you create a lot of silence between them in the glued version, which is maybe one of the uses of a minimize function. to remove silence parts. So it is not the same as glueing and cleaning. A minimized wav cannot be played outside reaper because it would have all parts joined in time without silences.

You would have to glue one by one into different files and then you can clean. But of course if you have a few items only.. you can glue and clean.

[richie43]

Originally Posted by heda

ok, but if you have many separated items in one track and glue them, you create a lot of silence between them in the glued version, which is maybe one of the uses of a minimize function. to remove silence parts. So it is not the same as glueing and cleaning. A minimized wav cannot be played outside reaper because it would have all parts joined in time without silences.

You would have to glue one by one into different files and then you can clean. But of course if you have a few items only.. you can glue and clean.

Is the main purpose of this to save hard drive space? I am trying to figure out why i would need a file that can only be played back in Reaper and has all of the silence removed, just to save space. Hard drives are the least expensive piece in a DAW, I don't see why I would not be fine with gluing Reaper-style. Maybe help me understand what this does for you....

[heda]

Originally Posted by richie43

Is the main purpose of this to save hard drive space? I am trying to figure out why i would need a file that can only be played back in Reaper and has all of the silence removed, just to save space. Hard drives are the least expensive piece in a DAW, I don't see why I would not be fine with gluing Reaper-style. Maybe help me understand what this does for you....

Yes... you can save a LOT of disk space...
imagine.. I have a project with 100 tracks.. steams exported from 0:00 .. some tracks only are some seconds in one part of the song... but the rest is silence. since reaper cannot read OMF, I have to ask for all tracks from 0:00 to import from other collaborators.

Then I use auto trim/split items (remove silence) and remove anything below -90.0dB. now I have a clean layout of items.. but a lot of wasted space... I can glue one by one.. but.. reaper is known for having actions for everything. I want a single click command to glue one by one and clean the project

you can also think there is also a performance gain where reaper does not have to read from disk when there is no item. But having 100 tracks full of silence parts.. making read from disk for nothing... doesn't make sense. I think I must kill all those zeroes on my hard drive


...wait... now that I think of it... maybe it is possible to make a custom action to go item by item from selected items and glueing them to individual files.

[richie43]

Originally Posted by heda

Yes... you can save a LOT of disk space...
imagine.. I have a project with 100 tracks.. steams exported from 0:00 .. some tracks only are some seconds in one part of the song... but the rest is silence. since reaper cannot read OMF, I have to ask for all tracks from 0:00 to import from other collaborators.

Then I use auto trim/split items (remove silence) and remove anything below -90.0dB. now I have a clean layout of items.. but a lot of wasted space... I can glue one by one.. but.. reaper is known for having actions for everything. I want a single click command to glue one by one and clean the project

you can also think there is also a performance gain where reaper does not have to read from disk when there is no item. But having 100 tracks full of silence parts.. making read from disk for nothing... doesn't make sense. I think I must kill all those zeroes on my hard drive


...wait... now that I think of it... maybe it is possible to make a custom action to go item by item from selected items and glueing them to individual files.

I guess it makes a little more sense if you are talking about exporting for another person. But unless they have the same DAW software, will it make a difference? Then you are back to wanting their DAW to be able to do this, not just Reaper and Cubendo, unless I am still missing something. I have 100+track projects, and yes, they are big, but to me a 3 or 4 GB project is still not unreasonable or unthinkable. Are you talking BIG like 10GB's or more? If your minimize function could reduce something like that to a more manageable size, then I could better understand why it could be a big deal. But if you are wanting to make something like a 3 or 4GB project smaller, then I am still not seeing the big deal, that's not a HUGE project size in my world. But for pure honesty's sake, Reaper is the only DAW I have ever used (came from all analog universe), so I have always been happy with how much it has liberated my work! I would love to understand why your request would be THAT great. I am not trying to insult you, I would really love to understand this, I have no problem with Reaper's way of doing this.

[heda]

well.... with my new big fast hard drives, I have plenty of space... I guess I am still used to the way I worked with my old computer where I needed the last bit of space in the hard drive But I think order and optimization of resources is important. Follow reaper's philosophy. Optimization of resources and speed. That's why reaper is so fast and kills every other daw. Don't waste resources even if you have full of space in your hard drive. Believe me it will get filled soon no matter what you do

The thing is everything will go smoother with smaller files than large files... even doing backups of your projects in a external hard drive or the cloud... I know... with today's computers... maybe not such a big deal... but really.. depending on the project.. you can save 50% of the space or more. do you want to backup 4Gb? or 2Gb per project? It's even worse when working in surround with 6 channeles per wav.. at 96Khz 32 bit.. files are pretty big... you can save many Gb cleaning your projects.

[richie43]

I'm sure it can save the space. And I don't work in surround, so i can't sympathize there. But Reaper can clean up the folders and reduce size considerable, maybe even save 50% like you are describing. But they will be in files that can only be opened in Reaper. That's what i am trying to understand here. You ask for a way to clean projects and reduce size, and Reaper already does this. But then you ask for a way for Reaper to reduce the size but "realign" or relabel them so that they are smaller but could easily be lined up properly in another DAW software, but very few softwares can do that. So I am back to my question that i was asking before; what is your primary objective? What are you wishing for Reaper to do that it is not doing to fit your ideal work-flow?

[heda]

no I'm not asking to be able to open those files in other DAW.. just in reaper.. it could be if reaper could export to OMF or some other format.
If I want to export to other DAW I would have to consolidate again from 0:00
because Reaper cannot export to OMF yet.

[richie43]

Originally Posted by heda

no I'm not asking to be able to open those files in other DAW.. just in reaper.. it could be if reaper could export to OMF or some other format.
If I want to export to other DAW I would have to consolidate again from 0:00
because Reaper cannot export to OMF yet.

Then I am back to not understanding what Reaper is not doing. I can clean my project folder, reduce the size, all just fine in Reaper. And again just for the record, using something fast like PathSync (an old synch tool made by Justin), I can back-up a 4Gb project to an external HD in a few minutes, as opposed to a 2GB project taking a whole minute... I now that we all want everything, but since you are not trying to open this outside of Reaper, I am not seeing any issue..... I say go make music and be happy about it. That's what i'm off to do now!!