Hi
Sonar X3
 
A year ago I did a project which created many trash files.  I create in MIDI and convert those files to WAVs for final mix.  The project folder has like 5 different bass tracks, 4 different drum tracks (combined kit) that were created because I kept changing them till I came up with the track I wanted.  So, today I went into the folder to prune out the no longer needed tracks to store the project on DVD-RWs.  I looked down the list of the tracks in the timeline.  I saw that Bass (4) was the one there, so that means I can delete the 3 other bass files, right?  Not so.  I went to load the project and found that actually a wav file called Bass (146) was the actual file I needed to keep.  So, not wanting to delete files I need, I abandoned the pruning and just kept them all.  My question is why did the timeline tell me that Bass (4) is the one the project was using, but it was actually Bass (146).  Is there a more accurate way to index the actual file names in the project? (some kind of track manager, perhaps). Please help me take a 10gig project file down to a 1.5 like it should be.
 
Thanks
John B.

The easiest way to reduce a project to the active files in the project is "Save as" the project to a new folder with "Copy all audio with project" enabled in the "Save as" dialog.

scook
The easiest way to reduce a project to the active files in the project is "Save as" the project to a new folder with "Copy all audio with project" enabled in the "Save as" dialog.

This worked well.  Thanks
 
John B.

What Steve said is certainly the best way to to clean away unwanted tracks. And normally the best way to back up projects.. 
 
But! just in case, and this has happened to me, you actually change your mind and you want an old discarded take, then you should also have back ups stored somewhere with everything still stored. This is done by drag and drop or copy paste to a new location.  Of course no point keeping bad takes. 
 
And so another thing to keep i mind is to always name a track BEFORE you record it. 
Naming tracks afterwards doesn't show in the audio folder. 
 
I have default templates with extra tracks already named 
Bass 1 , Bass 2 Bass 3 , Gutar 1   Guitar 2 etc. 
This way if your ever digging for audio in the folder they will be easier to spot. Sonar adds those seemingly random numbers which I'm sure nobody's ever been able to decipher. 
 

We have a lot of projects from customers (over 1.000 per year).
We always use "Clean Audio" from the Utilities menu.
Then we move the cleaned project to a backup server. This is saver as "Save as". In some cases "save as" with the option "create one file per clip" created projects with destroyed audiofiles.
 

Thanks guys!
 
All of my instrumentation is (usually) MIDI sample programs.  The vocals are the only audio tracks that I record, but after everything is tracked I convert everything to audio, including the vocal track.  IOW-I solidify all the takes into one track I call "Lead Vocal", "Background Vocal" or "Harmony Vocal".
 
John B.