[ardour-users] what does DESTORY really do here?

[Tim Mayberry]

On Sat, 2006-01-28 at 13:09 -0600, David Slimp wrote:
> I can't find specific info on this in the wiki manual...
> 
> I record a piece of audio (let's say 60 seconds),
> but only want 40 seconds in the middle, so I
> select that range and then choose "separate region",
> which leaves me with 3 regions total.
> 
> If I "destroy" the unwanted first and third parts,
> does that actually remove the data from the disk
> (freeing up space by changing the original audio file)?
> Or does "destroy" not actually remove the data,
> since it's not removing the entire single audio file?

As I understand it ardour only has the capability to mark whole files as
candidates for deletion, either forcibly or by examining what files are
unused/referenced by the session file and deleting those.

Removing a section of audio from an audio file like you describe is a
little tricky as there are at least three ways I can think of doing what
you want and that is either to create a new file that contains the end
section and truncate the first somehow, create just one new file and
copy the bits you want to keep from both sections of the original file
that you want to keep and then change modify the audio regions to
reflect positions of the audio within that new file or probably what is
the easiest thing which is just create two new files containing the
regions you want to keep and delete the original file.

There is also the possibility of removing sections of the audio file in
place so that no new files need to be created but I'm not sure how to do
that.

The last method might be possible at the moment in ardour, I'm on the
wrong machine to test this out though so I can't tell you if it does.

I'm sorry I haven't really answered your question, I think there is some
work being done by Paul to support another type of destructive recording
but I'm not sure what he is doing or how at the moment.

Tim.