[ardour-users] New to ardour jack and delta 1010lt

[Paul Davis]

> On that note,   anyone know what the 'cleanup '  does in Ardour, Ive 
> checked the docs
> can't find anything.
> 
> IE: when is a good time to use it?
> After the whole session or during?

cleanup looks for audio files that were recorded by ardour for this
session, but are no longer in use. "in use" means "present in any
playlist in any snapshot of the session". if you have unused playlists
(e.g. alternate takes) cleanup will volunteer to delete them for you.
then it will search all snapshots (including the one you are working
with), and move all unused captured audio files into the "dead_sounds"
directory within the session. at this point, you could still potentially
get material that was "cleaned up" back, though its quite tricky to do.

it is advisable, even "firmly recommended" that after this cleanup step,
you save the session, exit ardour and restart. this will enable you to
confirm that the session still works as expected. if all goes well (and
it should), you can then do the 2nd phase cleanup, which will remove the
files from "dead_sounds" (at which point, the material is not
recoverable without backups on your part).

note that the presence of snapshots can cause user confusion, as in "why
didn't cleanup do anything?" the answer is frequently that there are all
capture audio files are in use in this snapshot or in others.

--p