So, I've been trying to figure out how to delete unused samples. I read that if you save as, and copy samples, that will work. When I tried that it also copied all my drum samples too. Is there a way to not have this happen?
I have messed around with this a bit more. I started a new song, loaded up the drum machine with samples from a preset that I built months ago. I did a save as and hit the "copy samples" button. It copied all my drum samples into that new folder. I deleted some of the samples and it messed up my drum machine telling me the samples could not be found.
It appears that even though that same drum kit is in the core of my machine it still copies the drum samples. I haven't tried that with the stock beatmaker samples, but I would guess that happens too.
So... if you have specialized drum machine samples it will keep making copies every time you save..... maybe.
I have another theory about it and will experiment when I get time and get back on. Possibly recording any scratch track before the drum machine is loaded, even just snapping my fingers. Doing a "copy samples" and see what happens when I record another track then just hit the normal save without the samples button being pushed. If it copies the new track waves into that folder then that would be the way to do it.
Well, last night I took a song that I had copied all the samples to. I added my custom drums with a ton of samples. Saved the song and it didn't save the samples. (Nice). I then added a guitar wave file. It recorded the file in the "recordings" directory, even though there is a folder for samples under my test song. I had to save test song, version 2 and copied all the samples to get that (and all my drum waves) into a new folder. I then had to delete version 1 of the test song.
Not an ideal system.
I don't think there is any good way around that. Just the way it goes. I suppose the only way to do it is to copy samples and just make new song folders then delete the waves under "recordings".
Also.. If a take isn't going to cut it, maybe hitting undo under "song" is the only way to kill that file off out of the "recordings" folder. Not sure on that.
That concludes my findings. If anybody else has any better ideas let me know.
If you load samples into BM or make audio recordings you have to delete them manually. Saving with the copying all sample option, is just a easy function to save all the samples you use in a that project. Basically packaging the BM file and all the sample associated with it.
I have not used every DAW out there, but the most "reliable" file system I've seen (except pro tools) is the tracker Renoise. Every sample used gets saved within the project file. So years later, you can simply click that project file, and the whole project comes up and plays perfectly without any searching for missing files etc..
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The file system can be a bit trial and error to get used too and I'm still not there yet.
If you suss it out let me know