Process > Apply Effect > Remove Silence ??? Parameters are offered for levels and times, including lookahead.

Didn't we do that to save on processing. Though there is silence between vocal lines (or any phrases) the silence gets the FX you have on the track. The computers are lots beefier than they used to be and I don't think it's as important as it used to be. I still do it to clean it up visually like Karen said. I get to know where I am by the various patterns of clips.

 wow indeed, thank you all for such good answers. some of your answers apply to some songs , others apply to..well....the others. i remember back in the "guitar tracks" running on millennium  days it was suggested to make a bunch of clips to save RAM, however, today the machines and software we use has so much more everything one does not need to worry about it. i remember having to turn off everything that could possibly start to run in the background or guitar tracks would drop out, i.e. stop running.    

Bristol_Jonesey
The descent from background noise to digital silence may not be appropriate in a lot of cases and can sound fake and also slightly disconcerting.

 
I have some remastered (to CD) Philips Beethoven Late String Quartets where they attempted to remove the background noise/hiss while they were at it.  The result is dead silence between notes, then a blast of noise with each note.  Sounds pretty bad, especially with headphones.  It would have been much better just to leave the noise as our brains can filter it out.
 

I used to do it that way, too: chop the track into phrase-clips and use slip-edits to trim them. I did that because it's what I'd always wanted to be able to do with tape, but it was impractical until computers came along. I did a lot of things in the early days of DAW-based recording just because I could.
 
Sometimes, though, the transition from low-level background noise to total silence was detectable in the final mix, and I didn't like the effect. Sometimes, you'd even inadvertently lose something important, like the singer taking in a breath.
 
So for the past 5 years or so I've saved myself the trouble of splitting clips and instead used gain envelopes. It's always non-destructive. It's less time-consuming. It allows you to preserve as much or as little ambiance as you want, and to tweak the rate at which the levels transition to and from "silence". 

bitflipper
I used to do it that way, too: chop the track into phrase-clips and use slip-edits to trim them. I did that because it's what I'd always wanted to be able to do with tape, but it was impractical until computers came along. I did a lot of things in the early days of DAW-based recording just because I could.
 
Sometimes, though, the transition from low-level background noise to total silence was detectable in the final mix, and I didn't like the effect. Sometimes, you'd even inadvertently lose something important, like the singer taking in a breath.
 
So for the past 5 years or so I've saved myself the trouble of splitting clips and instead used gain envelopes. It's always non-destructive. It's less time-consuming. It allows you to preserve as much or as little ambiance as you want, and to tweak the rate at which the levels transition to and from "silence". 

+1 for all that. I sometimes work with a singer-songwriter and minimal instrumentation, so the change from silence to ambience can be noticeable and sound unnatural. Gain automation usually sounds smoother to me.

Not only that, you can get as surgical as you want with the envelopes, applying all sorts of curves to your fades.

Having no experience with gain envelope automation, but now very interested, for the OP and the rest of us, are there any tips you can give us about best ways to do that, for example with vocals?

• Are you applying to an entire track or multiple tracks simultaneously?
• What things do you pay attention when you determine the best curve?
• What do you listen for that helps you to know you've gone too far?

I actually have a lot of the vocals already split because I'm toggling the "R" on off as I record. I find it makes it easier to re do parts. I leave enough in and out silence recorded to avoid artefacts. This also makes it easy to copy /paste stuff around latter with no splitting involved. each verse, chorus and sometimes phrase is already isolated. 

chamlin
Having no experience with gain envelope automation, but now very interested, for the OP and the rest of us, are there any tips you can give us about best ways to do that, for example with vocals?

• Are you applying to an entire track or multiple tracks simultaneously?
• What things do you pay attention when you determine the best curve?
• What do you listen for that helps you to know you've gone too far?

I very rarely bother with Clip Gain but instead use Track Volume envelopes.
I work on one track at a time and the curve is really all about context - adjust it until it sounds right.
Sometimes the prettiest of curves doesn't give the most musical of results.
The morals is - use your ears, not your eyes.