When I see screen shots of the Track View of music done on DAWs (usually Pro Tools) in magazines such as Sound On Sound, the screen shot shows the tracks populated by dozens of discrete clips separated by blank space in between the clips. I have often wondered about why this is so.
 
Do recording have to be chopped up to leave blank spots where there is no audio? This would ensure no noise between musical phrases, but must be labour intensive to do all that chopping up over many tracks. Or, is this something that Pro Tools does for you? And is it something that the "professionals" do to keep their recordings "pristine".
 
Then, why do we bounce to clips, if all audio needs to in discrete chunks? Just wondering...

Remove Silence function is your friend here - I have it set up as a keyboard shortcut so it really isn't a big deal to do it. If you keep all the "silent" parts  that still takes up space on your hard drive, which will mount up after a while.
I also find it makes it easier to identify what's going on visually, but YMMV.

That is an interesting question, and my "hunch" is that it may be used to avert FX that may react to audio even if it is silence (although none come to mind readily). It also allows for editing to be more discrete (which may be the real reason). Clips also allow for FX to be used on a clip-level rather than in the entire track, which can mitigate CPU-intensive plugs.
 
From a "disk usage" perspective, a clip is simply a window into the underlying wav file, so it is possible to have a 40GB wav file but only be using 1 MB of it (incredibly extreme example). After I get to a certain point in editing, I will bounce clips to create a new audio file for the simple reason that playing a single wav file is easy (is all Windows Media Player does) and not CPU/disk intensive at all.
 
From a "big picture" perspective, I think this is more a matter of taste, since machines now have enough RAM/speed that "clips all over" isn't going to cause issues unless it gets "too intense" (like the extreme example above).

I see that particularly in tutorials about using loops and samples.
The most common subject  in hobbyist mags (like Computer Music) is how to use sampled single hits or such in projects. Those usually start with a few bar drum loop, which is split into single hits which are FX'd individually, reversed and blaablaawhatever to make them really cool :o/ and the rhythm tracks are actually build of single hits.
Also, guitar or horn riff (loops) are dropped here there accordingly directly from the sample/loop libraries

paulo
Remove Silence function is your friend here - I have it set up as a keyboard shortcut so it really isn't a big deal to do it. If you keep all the "silent" parts  that still takes up space on your hard drive, which will mount up after a while.
I also find it makes it easier to identify what's going on visually, but YMMV.

Now I wasn't aware of this function, that is, I wasn't aware of what it was used for as I have never tried it. Must try.
 

mettelus
That is an interesting question, and my "hunch" is that it may be used to avert FX that may react to audio even if it is silence (although none come to mind readily). It also allows for editing to be more discrete (which may be the real reason). Clips also allow for FX to be used on a clip-level rather than in the entire track, which can mitigate CPU-intensive plugs.
 
From a "disk usage" perspective, a clip is simply a window into the underlying wav file, so it is possible to have a 40GB wav file but only be using 1 MB of it (incredibly extreme example). 

 
I had no idea this was the case.

Kalle Rantaaho
I see that particularly in tutorials about using loops and samples.
The most common subject  in hobbyist mags (like Computer Music) is how to use sampled single hits or such in projects. Those usually start with a few bar drum loop, which is split into single hits which are FX'd individually, reversed and blaablaawhatever to make them really cool :o/ and the rhythm tracks are actually build of single hits.
Also, guitar or horn riff (loops) are dropped here there accordingly directly from the sample/loop libraries

 
Yes, I am aware of these situations, but in the case of SOS, they are showing completed famous recordings.
 
 

It's very rare that any of my takes run from song start to end without a break, (unless it's a live recording of course).  If you need a short guitar bit here,  here,  and here it's easy to set the now time, press record and just record that little bit (several times).
 
The gaps between clips are just the silence left behind where you've not recorded anything.  It's not always the result of hours of edit/delete.

Karyn, yes I do that too. But I was under the impression that you then bounced all the clips to one contiguous clip.
Guess I was wrong. As mettelus explains, it save disk space by leaving gaps.

optimus
Now I wasn't aware of this function, that is, I wasn't aware of what it was used for as I have never tried it. Must try.

There's a current thread about some problems with this function :  Remove Silence Question.
 

Paul P

optimus
Now I wasn't aware of this function, that is, I wasn't aware of what it was used for as I have never tried it. Must try.

There's a current thread about some problems with this function :  Remove Silence Question.
 

I must be doing something wrong then as it has never caused me any problems.

Many engineers in a pro studio (from where most of these PT screen shots are taken from) will cut out the dead spots for miked stuff.  There is always noise and it is an old habit.  Besides, it keeps them occupied while the producer stokes the lead singer's ego for the next take, or the band argues over doing a bass solo or something inane the engineer doesn't want to get into.  You hide your head in the work since you already know the answer and have seen this scene play out a hundred times.  It is like smoking or doodling, something to pass the time while getting rid of noise without setting up gates.
 
I find myself doing it at home while I'm thinking, since it is a very mechanical process like driving, taking virtually no human cpu cycles.
 
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