Comping question (post-comping, actually)

[b1j]

FYI, I’m in Studio One.

After I’ve chosen the best takes (layers in S.O. terms) and arrived at the comped tracks I want, when is it OK to delete all the takes I didn’t choose? I have zero expectation of digging into them anymore. I think the answer is “now.” Is there any downside? For that matter, is there any benefit in deleting them?

[Gordon Currie]

My answer would be delete things that are less than great as soon as possible.

I prefer to do everything possible to create a continuous track with chosen comp versions, EQ, effects and volume automation baked in.
I can then export that, ending up with multiple WAVE files that I can sum, balance and pan to quickly recreate a mix in ANY DAW.

I do the same with digital photography and video. Ultimately I pick the best shot, or take, and throw the rest away.

Some people may find comfort or freedom in having lots of variations and versions a decade down the line. It's the opposite for me.

I also don't care to remix/redo. I'd rather spend that time on something new.

Re: upside to keeping takes - some say you may want to revisit later when you have more skill/experience/equipment/plugins etc.
I find this to be a 'sounds good on paper' argument that after 30 years working with DAWs, I have never found valuable in practice.

Re: upside to throwing away takes - it can reduce mental and storage clutter. Mental hoarding is just as real as physical hoarding.

[jim1960]

The only problem with that is you might hear something you don't like at some point and if you delete the alt takes you'll not have those to use to fix the issue.

But here's something to consider... those alt takes don't take up much room and are easy to hide. On top of that, storage (if it comes to needing more) is cheap. There's not much upside to dumping them which is why I never do.

[Doug Young]

I don't delete anything. If I'm truly done with a project and am sure I'd never re-open it, I might delete the whole project, but I'm not going to spend time deleting individual takes. if I'm still working on the project, I might need them. I just listened to a track this morning that I had declared done, but not yet released, and heard something I didn't like. It was good to be able to go back to the individual takes and see if I have a better part.

I do sometimes put original takes in a folder (Logic calls them "track stacks"), that I can collapse so that I can clean up my working area. Or I might just shrink the track size down as far as they will go.

As far as disk space, this might be a slight exaggeration, but I suspect the total of all my audio recordings over decades don't add up to as much as a single video project! Audio files are small, and disk space is cheap. At the most, I might throw old projects on a backup disk, just to get them out of sight.

[KevWind]

Myself (in Pro tools) I just collapse them so only the single comped take is showing

[Mobilemike]

I never delete anything. There have been several times when I comp’ed a take that sounded great in isolation, but when I got deeper in the mix there was a syllable here and there that stuck out, or got buried, and grabbing different takes from the raw tracks helped fix that.

Pro Tools allows you to hide tracks and make them inactive - meaning they don’t show on your screen or take up any CPU power, but are simple to get back if you want them. Maybe Studio One has a similar feature?

[b1j]

Yes, all the unused takes are hidden, collapsed. I think Studio One has made it their business to have every feature of Pro Tools or Logic.

Alright, I’ll see what I have. I don’t expect to find better takes, because I tend to stop tracking once I have a good one. But I do have a handful of small trouble spots. I’ll check the takes for those phrases (or notes!), but if there’s no help there, I’ll ditch any remaining unused takes and just punch in anew over the glitches.

I thought of an advantage for this. I have eight more full measures to track at the end. Studio One puts each new layer into the first empty space below that track. This can mean the new takes don’t go in consecutively, wreaking havoc when I try to organize them for comping. This way, I’ll start with no extraneous layers, and all the new takes will be easier to deal with.

[FrankHudson]

I've been recording in DAWs for around 25 years, the stuff does pile up.

While working on a project I've never taken the time to delete unused takes. My focus in on moving forward with the mix to the point that I decide to abandon it or complete it.

On some audio pieces I may remix several times thinking I have the final, only to change my mind after hearing it on a different system, in a different mood, or just sleeping on things and listening the next day.

There'd be wisdom in deleting the projects that I didn't find validity in, or the rejected tracks or takes for the "keepers," but by then I'm thinking of moving on to the next project. I don't recommend what I do, just reporting.

The best idea I've read so far in this thread is conscientiously keeping bounced stems of every track and storing them outside of the DAW's own project. Not only would this be protection against a DAW or a DAW's project format becoming obsolete, it would protect against plugins going away if I ever wanted to "remix/remaster" years later. That would increase the amount of audio files I've accumulated though.

[Chipotle]

With disk space being practically unlimited these days (and audio doesn't take up much space anyway, compared to video!), why delete anything? Extra time for little gain, IMO. It's easy enough in most DAWs to keep make unused stuff invisible.

I will hide tracks I didn't use, or if using takes/lanes/layers within a track, just set the track to only show the comp. This way I only see what I'm actually working on, but everything is still there should I ever want to go back. And yes, I've wanted that on occasion, when I needed to grab a section from an alternate take to "band-aid" over a flub in the otherwise preferred take. I'm sure every decent DAW has a way to similarly visually hide stuff you don't need to see. (I also use Reaper, where deleting a take or track in the DAW *doesn't* automatically delete the associated media file on disk, so real cleanup is even more of a pain.)

Occasionally, a track will have so many takes it gets to be unwieldy. I may, in rare cases, do an initial comp, bounce the comp to another track, and then start adding takes or doing punch-ins on the new track. But I would still keep the original comp track around, just hidden, in case I ever want to go back.

Every song has its project and media files in its own folder on the computer's drive as well, so when I'm done with a song, its files don't clutter up any other projects. If I did start to run out of disk space or otherwise want to clean up, I'd just take the entire folder(s) and archive them to external storage.

[runamuck]

If a recording is unusable I delete it because I don't want to waste time in the future sifting through garbage. Listening to it once was enough.

On the other hand I may have several usable takes, all possible to use but not my favorite. I keep those just in case.

[keith.rogers]

I wouldn't delete anything until someone that might have better ears has heard it and given some objective feedback. Once it's been handed off, released, put on YouTube, whatever, then I pretty much forget about it. About once a year I just go through and delete projects (audio or video) whole, though I usually keep the "final" around unless I listen to something and hate it .

Yeah, video, crazy. I have 3TB for my projects and music and photo libraries. Video takes up about 2/3 of that, and in terms of numbers it's not 1/10 of the audio projects, never mind 10k (compressed) music files and 15k photos.

[b1j]

Good thoughts. Consensus seems to be: hold onto the takes.

I’ve now given a listen to all the hidden takes, and they’re basically so many loads of garbage. What seems unexpected by the good folks here is that my unused takes were unused because they are unusable. Welcome to my world.

I’m not like some producer working with talent that delivers several boffo performances, differing only by a nuance here and there. No, I make what is surely a classic noob mistake: I stop tracking the moment I have what feels like an aggregate mistake-free take. There’s nobody in the control room saying, “let’s get another one.” Of course, I don’t really know what I’ve got until the editing’s done, and by then I’ve probably struck the setup and cleared the room for the other uses we have for the space.

I feel like it’s time to add that to my work — to wait to call it quits until I think I have the entire part covered at least three times. That will be more likely to save me some punching in after the fact, and also probably raise the quality of the performance, too.

Tomorrow I begin another four-day window in the room with my panels. Yay. I’ll start by deleting the unused takes.

[Doug Young]

If something's truly bad, then sure, delete it if it helps keep things organized. Like if I discover I was out of tune on a take, then no reason to keep that around. I might even use it by mistake somewhere, so get rid of it. But even small snippets, like a false start, I usually don't get rid of. When it comes editing time, it's possible that that one bar I did manage to play is the best of the bunch for that few seconds.

As far as knowing when to stop, I usually try to get at least a few complete takes that I'm pretty sure are good. I usually relax once I get a good take, and in many cases, the ones that follow are better. The challenge is that often when you're playing, you don't know what the good takes are. Sometimes the take I thought was "the one" actually sucks when I listen back, and another that I thought I messed up sounds good. That's a good reason to not do anything rash, like cutting off the last notes, or swearing at the end :-) You just never know.

I've been inspired by the sessions I've done with Steve Baughman. Steve's a perfectionist, and to me, every take he does is a keeper, no editing really needed in most cases, but he doesn't stop with one take, and will do quite a lot. We'll often record anywhere from 5-10 complete takes of a tune, and again, for the most part, I'd release any one of them as-is. But Steve wants most of all to capture the feel he's after, so we'll listen to them all, and Steve will take notes on parts he likes or doesn't as we go, but most of all, he's looking for the take that was the most musical, in some undefined way. We'll use that one, even if it has even some blatant mistakes in it, and use that as the base, fixing small parts in the comping if needed. Usually there's a take or 2 that Steve declares "perfect", but that he thinks sounds less musical - it's easy to play stiffly when going for perfection. So those get ignored, in spite of being flawless, in favor of whatever one he thinks flows the best, musically.

[dnf777]

I have been following this with interest, as it touches on my biggest weak spot. Organizing tracks, songs, projects, stacks, etc…has been a hurdle I have yet to overcome. To be honest, I have the exact same issue with digital photography. Good working knowledge of hardware, capture, processing……but naming files and organizing is where it all comes off the hinges….#

[KevWind]

Yes I should clarify:: When I do multiple takes which is usually vocals and lead guitar (either acoustic or electric)
On the lead guitar parts if I have bad notes that are not in the correct key or scale and definitely don't sound right and when I audition those parts I will definitely delete any bad or off notes
On vocals I often sing full song parts on the multiple takes and will then comp the lead vocal --- but may use only parts of the rest of takes as background vocals and delete the unused portions of the takes