Need help with audio management

[ccjones87]

I've been on a project for over a year off and on and I'm realizing I need a better way to manage the audio I'm creating in DP. The delete unused soundbites function appears to have royally screwed me over. It would seem I wasn't clear on how the software determines what is unused and what is.

There was a picture change and I have had to go back into some older sequences. Only some of the correct audio is playing back. A lot of it isn't being found or is playing something else entirely. I've got extensive back ups and tried copying over the contents of the audio files folder from a month ago to see if that could re-link what was missing, but that just seems to have exacerbated the issue. There's no crazy deadline or anything, but I'm at a loss with how to proceed.

I have all of my MIDI for each sequence, but short of going through each cue and reprinting EVERYTHING, is there anything else I can try to do?

[daniel.sneed]

I feel your pain, ccjones.

Right now, I can't figure what's happening.
For years on, DP has never screwed any audio on my projects.

AFAICT, within a project, DP sees a soundbite as *unused*, when it does not appear anymore in any chunk (sequence).
I make intensive use of *delete unused soundbite*. Never a single glitch here.

[stubbsonic]

What I've started doing before I archive a project (assuming that all my edits are final)-- is I merge soundbites on all tracks. (This renders all the bite-gains, crossfades and pitch edits-- if any).

Then I play everything to make sure it's all right and proper. Then I use the select-unused-soundbites, and delete them. I suppose to be extra safe you could create an entire back up of the full project before doing this. Disk space isn't as expensive as it was.

The merge step makes sure crossfades are intact.-- If you choose "compact" to trim the fat, rather than the above merge, you have to make sure to leave extra room for crossfades. It might be nice if DP would just consider all crossfades to be USED before compacting.

I suppose if I thought I might open the files in other DAWs down the road, I might including leading silence or trim all soundbites to start at the top a measure. But I usually don't do that.

[ccjones87]

I feel your pain, ccjones.

Right now, I can't figure what's happening.
For years on, DP has never screwed any audio on my projects.

AFAICT, within a project, DP sees a soundbite as *unused*, when it does not appear anymore in any chunk (sequence).
I make intensive use of *delete unused soundbite*. Never a single glitch here.

Right on Daniel. I usually have no issues with it either. In fact, it saved my ass on my last movie when the project got so big my system couldn't handle it. That would seem to be my understanding of the command as well, though this project seems to indicate otherwise... I suppose this week will be spent manually re-linking files and re-printing stems. Wish me luck!

[ccjones87]

What I've started doing before I archive a project (assuming that all my edits are final)-- is I merge soundbites on all tracks. (This renders all the bite-gains, crossfades and pitch edits-- if any).

Then I play everything to make sure it's all right and proper. Then I use the select-unused-soundbites, and delete them. I suppose to be extra safe you could create an entire back up of the full project before doing this. Disk space isn't as expensive as it was.

The merge step makes sure crossfades are intact.-- If you choose "compact" to trim the fat, rather than the above merge, you have to make sure to leave extra room for crossfades. It might be nice if DP would just consider all crossfades to be USED before compacting.

I suppose if I thought I might open the files in other DAWs down the road, I might including leading silence or trim all soundbites to start at the top a measure. But I usually don't do that.

Great suggestion stubbsonic. I could certainly make better use of the merge soundbites function. I'll give this a try on the next project. As for crossfades, agreed!

[ccjones87]

Crisis MOSTLY averted. Had to go through every back up of the project and copy over the audio files folder from each, using the "keep original" function in finder to prevent the creation of duplicates. Still missing a couple things for one or two cues, but I'm back on track!