Mysteriously bloated DP project file...

[zed]

Hi folks,

Just wondering if anyone else has had the experience of a DP file which gets huge, for no apparent reason.

I started with a project that was only 2.4 MB, and then I spent a few hours recording several takes of a guitar solo and doing some audio editing. Then I started to notice a severe slow down of DP and started seeing beachballs, so I decided to save, quit DP, and restart. When I did so, I noticed my file size had grown to 137.8 MB.

The first thing I did was to flush the undo history, because I figured that maybe it was keeping track of the audio recorded in. Indeed, that brought my file size back down to about 4.6 MB when I saved it again. BUT... an hour or so later (after no additional recording of audio), the file size had grown to 118.1 MB, and flushing the undo history no longer made a difference.

Something is definitely wrong here. I also tried to load the song into a new DP project but DP crashed as soon as I started playing the chunk that I'd been working on. (There are actually 13 chunks in the project... maybe I should start being superstitious?)

Any suggestions from anyone? I am going to wait for a little feedback, but I am thinking I might have to dump my DP preferences, maybe? I am not very excited about having to reset all my custom commands and preferences.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you can share,

Zed

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Hi folks,

Just wondering if anyone else has had the experience of a DP file which gets huge, for no apparent reason.

I started with a project that was only 2.4 MB, and then I spent a few hours recording several takes of a guitar solo and doing some audio editing. Then I started to notice a severe slow down of DP and started seeing beachballs, so I decided to save, quit DP, and restart. When I did so, I noticed my file size had grown to 137.8 MB.

The first thing I did was to flush the undo history, because I figured that maybe it was keeping track of the audio recorded in. Indeed, that brought my file size back down to about 4.6 MB when I saved it again. BUT... an hour or so later (after no additional recording of audio), the file size had grown to 118.1 MB, and flushing the undo history no longer made a difference.

Something is definitely wrong here. I also tried to load the song into a new DP project but DP crashed as soon as I started playing the chunk that I'd been working on. (There are actually 13 chunks in the project... maybe I should start being superstitious?)

Any suggestions from anyone? I am going to wait for a little feedback, but I am thinking I might have to dump my DP preferences, maybe? I am not very excited about having to reset all my custom commands and preferences.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you can share,

Zed

May not apply since it appears you were doing all audio, but I have one MIDI device that is constantly sending enormous amounts of continuous data. If I don't filter it out, it brings DP 4.61 to its knees in one or two takes!

But if isn't MIDI data that is plaguing you, then perhaps someone else can offer an opinion.

FWIW, the offending device is a Kurzweil PC2x and sends out Ctl #19. Also, if you have an arpeggiator going (or a drum machine) that can also add lots of usless data to clog your file.

To find out if that is happening, go to list view in your MIDI tracks. You might also check for excessive volume (ctl #7) or other massive control data in either MIDI or audio tracks.

[Tim]

Do you use MIDI Device Groups?
If so, check to see if they've been duplicating?

[zed]

May not apply since it appears you were doing all audio, but I have one MIDI device that is constantly sending enormous amounts of continuous data. If I don't filter it out, it brings DP 4.61 to its knees in one or two takes!

Thanks for your response MIDI Life Crisis. I have had a problem before with a MIDI device that sends unwanted continuous data, but that is not the case in this instance.

I was not recording any MIDI at all... just recording some guitar stuff while playing along with a single MIDI piano track (i.e. there is not even pitch bend information on that track).

And Tim... I do have a couple of MIDI device groups set up in that project, but they don't appear to have been duplicating... and they were completely uninvolved with the chunk I was working on.

Zed

[buzzsmith]

Zed:

I don't know if this helps or not, but if you're running Panther it may explain a few anomalies...

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... ght=#51388

=bz=

Edit: Whoops, just noted your sig...nevermind!

[modular]

Hi Zed,

I had a similar problem where a DP file grew from 8.5 MB to 300MB. What had happened in my case is soundbites spontaneously duplicated themselves in the soundbites window and on various tracks. I suddenly had 25 "Guitar Overdub-25" or 25 "Piano Chorus-13"-all named the same and all the same size. This anomaly didn't increase the size of the actual audio files on disk but rather the markers within the various audio files multiplied like bunnies. Removing unused soundbites didn't help because all the duplicates were in the various tracks. I went through by hand and removed all the duplicates (a process that took over an hour) and the problem went away. Like you I had numerous chunks in the session.

[Timeline]

There are many ways bloating becomes you.

: History saves, Non merged tracks, Takes on same tracks, Coversions left in audio folder, Giant mixes with lots of moves an such.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Delete history. Merge audio with crossfades first for click reduction. Remove unused soundites and flush.

That should get you close.

[zed]

I had a similar problem where a DP file grew from 8.5 MB to 300MB. What had happened in my case is soundbites spontaneously duplicated themselves in the soundbites window and on various tracks. I suddenly had 25 "Guitar Overdub-25" or 25 "Piano Chorus-13"-all named the same and all the same size. This anomaly didn't increase the size of the actual audio files on disk but rather the markers within the various audio files multiplied like bunnies.

Hey Modular,

That seems to be what is happening to me. I have numerous instances of many soundbites with the exact same name. And now my file has grown to 233.6 MB since I posted this message this afternoon. It has grown by more than 100MB, and I have not done ANY additional audio recording, and no MIDI recording. The only thing I have done is to move a few sections around to try out a different arrangement. When I saved (after flushing the undo history again), the file size had grown again.

Gosh this is frustrating. I tried to replicate the problem in a brand new DP project by duplicating some audio and doing a bunch of edge editing, but every new soundbite had a unique name (as they are supposed to).

I am not sure what has gone haywire in my current project... but it is an important project, and I am not too impressed with this.

Thank you to all who have responded, thus far. I will follow your suggestions Timeline... but I don't want to merge the audio until I have finished editing my takes... and yet the file is growing so quickly, that editing is going to become difficult and maybe impossible if I don't merge the audio soon.

Zed

[Tim]

That's freaky man!
I've not had the pleasure of ever meeting them gremlins.

What happens when you Select Unused Soundbites?
Do the extra ones highlight (or do they think they have a home)?

I'd make a safe copy of the project folder, and then start tryin' stuff like, delete unused soundbites, compact project, etc.

I wonder if loading all the chunks into a new project would bring all of those duplicate soundbites in......

[modular]

Hi Zed,

That's what happened to me. Just doing some editing caused the file to balloon exponentially. The "select unused soundbites" command doesn't work because all the clones reside in a track. If you go through each track and erase the duplicates and then remove unused soundbites (I removed rather than deleted), things should resolve themselves. It seems to me that when I had all the chunks pruned of clones I saved the file and then imported the chunks into a new session. I don't really remember since this was last summer but I do know that I was able to fix things. I do know that the only thing I could do was to manually removed the duplicates.

Good Luck!

[zed]

Hey guys,

I finally got my file size back down to 2MB, by merging all the audio for each take (the audio had been recorded in several takes all within one track). I deleted all unused soundbites, so that only the newly merged files remained, and then flushed the history and saved the file. The result was a normally sized file... however, I will have to keep my eye on things to see if it starts to grow again, especially since I still need to record some more guitar parts.

That's what happened to me. Just doing some editing caused the file to balloon exponentially.

Modular... I suspect this is some kind of bug with regards to numerous takes and lots of edge editing within one track. In the time since you had this problem, has it not recurred? I am concerned that it might pop up again... makes me even more inclined to jump towards DP 5... although there is no guarantee they have fixed whatever is causing this.

What happens when you Select Unused Soundbites?
Do the extra ones highlight (or do they think they have a home)?

Tim... it's weird, indeed! The duplicates were mostly NOT highlighted when selecting unused soundbites, so they must have had a home.

Thanks again for your feedback, folks. I will post more info if there are further developments or if I learn some more.

Regards,

Zed

[modular]

Modular... I suspect this is some kind of bug with regards to numerous takes and lots of edge editing within one track. In the time since you had this problem, has it not recurred? I am concerned that it might pop up again... makes me even more inclined to jump towards DP 5... although there is no guarantee they have fixed whatever is causing this.

Hey Zed. I haven't had this problem crop up again in the last six months and I'm a heavy DP user. Seems to have been only on that one project.

[Timeline]

I have had situations where the sounbites listing did not match my audio files folder. Once merged double check that and pull out the audio file folder sounbites that are not listed in the soundbites folder to say a second reserve folder. then, relaunch the song and see if it declares missing files. If not, your good to go. Might be a way of getting around it. Sounds like it's additional "takes" where the issues lie though.

[zed]

I have had situations where the sounbites listing did not match my audio files folder. Once merged double check that and pull out the audio file folder sounbites that are not listed in the soundbites folder to say a second reserve folder. then, relaunch the song and see if it declares missing files. If not, your good to go. Might be a way of getting around it. Sounds like it's additional "takes" where the issues lie though.

Hey Timeline,

Thanks for the tip.

I investigated, and indeed, I found 99.1MB of assorted guitar audio still residing in the audio folder, but which should have been deleted when I cleaned up the project. I removed those soundbites and reopened the project, and sure enough they were no longer needed by the session.

I will keep an eye on these things from now on. Despite the frustrations, what I have learned over the past few days is how easy it is to merge audio and to keep track of things. I think I will be managing my projects more efficiently from now on.

Zed

P.S. That's good news Modular. I hope this doesn't crop up again for me any time soon.

[art bain]

Just a thought, but do you have "Edge Edit Copy" checked in the Sequence Editor mini-menu. If you do, then every edit you do creates a new soundbite with a new name in your soundbites window. You can wind up with lots 'n lots of bites!