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PowerTracks Pro Audio
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... snip ... In a different post, I explained that I was having issues with cut/copy/paste. Rharv suggested to do edit/track/consolidate audio track. ... snip ... Somehow, that seems to have corrected the issue. Bernie Consolidating audio makes a HUGE difference to how much work your computer is doing in the background. Before you consolidate a track the computer has to go through all the edits you've made, decide which edits to keep and which edits to ignore, seek, find and load each correct audio clip, make edits to the selected audio clips, make automatic crossfades at the beginning and end of each clip and then play the resulting audio clips as one continuous audio track. More edits means more tasks to perform prior to playing an audio clip. Consolidation means just that, all the final edits are combined into one, continuous audio track. If you're editing audio tracks section-by-section (let's get the bass intro right, let's get the bass first line of verse 1 right and so on) it doesn't hurt anything to consolidate an audio track every few edits. Create four habits to help reduce program and computer crashes: frequently consolidate audio tracks while editing, frequently save work-in-progress song projects, frequently delete back up and temporary files that are no longer needed and frequently defragment your computer hard drive(s).
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PowerTracks Pro Audio
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Joined: Dec 2000
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It's too bad there's not a main interface button that selects all, consolidates the entire track, deselects all, makes sure your "now" time is positioned where you started.
As opposed to interrupting your workflow by and manually hitting CTRL-A to select the entire track, selecting Edit, Track, Consolidate Audio Region, and then occasionally finding that CTRL-A didn't select the entire track and adjusting start/end points, then hitting ESC to deselect the track after consolidation.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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PowerTracks Pro Audio
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Joined: Dec 2006
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No shutdowns again last night during a 2 1/2 hour session. The frequent use of consolidating audio tracks seems to have solved the issue! Thanks all for your help! Bernie
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PowerTracks Pro Audio
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 11,021
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It's too bad there's not a main interface button that selects all, consolidates the entire track, deselects all, makes sure your "now" time is positioned where you started.
As opposed to interrupting your workflow by and manually hitting CTRL-A to select the entire track, selecting Edit, Track, Consolidate Audio Region, and then occasionally finding that CTRL-A didn't select the entire track and adjusting start/end points, then hitting ESC to deselect the track after consolidation.
John, That's a great thought to place in the wishlist. I'd vote +1 to add my support.
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PowerTracks Pro Audio
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Joined: May 2000
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it doesn't hurt anything to consolidate an audio track every few edits. Doesn't Consolidate remove the Undo options? I'm pretty sure you should make sure you have no needed 'undos' before Consolidating. There is a slight trade off.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
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PowerTracks Pro Audio
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Journeyman
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Journeyman
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Not sure if undos disappear. However, I try to make sure my edits are what I want before consolidation. Bernie
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PowerTracks Pro Audio
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Audio consolidation does remove undos so rharv's caution is right on the money.
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PowerTracks Pro Audio
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You explained it well when you said Before you consolidate a track the computer has to go through all the edits you've made, decide which edits to keep and which edits to ignore, seek, find and load each correct audio clip, make edits to the selected audio clips, make automatic crossfades at the beginning and end of each clip and then play the resulting audio clips as one continuous audio track. More edits means more tasks to perform prior to playing an audio clip. I would add that for most users this is likely all happening on the same hard drive used for the OS, any Services checking in, Antivirus, etc. .. and that some of this occurs in real-time. You hit play and the system has to try to read all those edits using whatever buffer you have set as the time span to get it done.. Simply moving your 'Temp Audio Directory' to a different drive can help alleviate some of the drive 'thrash' that occurs when working on audio. All edits get stored there during a session and get wiped clean when you end the session. I feel most systems are adequate for audio as far as processors goes .. they usually spend a lot of their time waiting for requests. The first thing to cause a bottleneck is usually the drive. On a typical system this can be demonstrated at boot using Task Manager; the Performance tab can show the processor and RAM is not what is taking so long... and you sometimes can even hear a mechanical drive working away (SSD not so much, as it responds much faster).
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
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PowerTracks Pro Audio
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... snip ... I would add that for most users this is likely all happening on the same hard drive used for the OS, any Services checking in, Antivirus, etc. .. and that some of this occurs in real-time. You hit play and the system has to try to read all those edits using whatever buffer you have set as the time span to get it done.
Simply moving your 'Temp Audio Directory' to a different drive can help alleviate some of the drive 'thrash' that occurs when working on audio. All edits get stored there during a session and get wiped clean when you end the session. ... snip ... Unfortunately many people use a laptop. Most laptops only has space and connections for one internal drive. Software will recognize an external secondary drive but that is of little use unless someone is willing to always have an external drive connected. The user should also assign the external drive a permanent drive letter.
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