hi all, i have been using logic 8 for a few months now. just sort of dove in from a stand alone HD recording system. a friend of mine told me i should not be recording to my internal system drive on my mac so i just installed a second hard drive (big one) and plan to use that from now on. my question (first of many) is: when a project is "done" and packed away in its folder..is it smart/wise to get rid of everything except the last and final version? do you clean up as you go along? or just keep everything having to do with the song from day 1? seems to me i have plenty of extra unused takes, fade files (what are they anyway?) that will never see the light of day...is it right thinking to get rid of anything not in use in the arrange window of the final version if you are sure that is the keeper? thanks. -tim

Hi Tim, welcome to the forums! Leave the fade files alone! These are built by Logic when you create fades on audio regions. As regards to unused takes, best to then flatten the take folders in Logic itself, and/or use the Audio Bin (in Logic) to delete unwanted audio files... But be careful, and make sure you know what you are deleting first! Do keep backups of all your project folders! It's very rare, but once in a while a project can become corrupted... You'll avoid much heartache by keeping backups! Hope that helps, Rounik

thanks Rounik. it does help. wasn't sure if it was common practice to just keep everything. -Tim

No problem Tim, I'm hesitant to give definitive advice on this... and you'll find many producers prefer to keep everything and others will save disk space... It depends on your personal working practices. Personally, with the price of storage being much cheaper than ever before, it make sense to keep everything and/or save your project as another copy (save as...) and then optimize that copy. Cheers Rounik

Hi Tim, Just thought I'd add to the sound advise of Rounik... Here's what I've found works for me: I keep all my Applications on my (250 gig) Internal Drive... I write and save my Projects to an external (250 gig) Firewire Drive... and I file/store all my 'never to see the light of day stuff' on a fast USB 2 500 gig external drive AND I never throw away anything I have laboured for hours over, because... you never know... Also any Project that is 'Completely Finished' I burn to Disk... you can never have too many copies. Hope this helps, Cheers, Bj