Deleting Blank Space

[Jabod]

This may well be a rather silly question but, as I can't find an answer, I'd rather look silly and be able to achieve what I'm aiming for than appear all knowing and failing miserably

Having just bought Vinyl Studio and converted an album I have an approximate 20 second blank at the start and end of each side. Most of this is due to the deck I'm using as I've bought this specifically to digitise my vinyl collection (shifting my Linn about each time I want to work on this project was an absolute non starter) and the needle drop isn't particularly good, drifting off 90 degrees and needing to be adjusted mid flight. I'll probably manually drop the needle in future. But. Whatever happens I'll have some blank space, if not at the start of a side then certainly at the end. I can find no way to delete this space. Tried the "hold shift" when selecting the space but that did nothing. I can see no way to save the individual track so perhaps I have to recreate the tracks although that seems counterintuitive.
I can load the individual track into Audacity and delete the space there but that appears to remove meta data and is no longer seen as part of the album.

Any advice gratefully received.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi,

The easiest way to do this is by manipulating the track break markers.  That's what they're there for.  So:

1.  Position the red marker at the end of the audio for track 1, say.

2.  Drag the green marker to the start of track 2, thus eliminating the gap between the two.

You should end up with something like the image below (click on it to expand).   And at the start of the album, you just need to advance the first green marker, of course.

[Jabod]

Thanks for the very quick response Paul.

What you suggested is exactly what I did originally but nothing happened. The very good reason for this is that I was correct in my original post in that you have to recreate the tracks for the changes to take effect. I've now done this and everything is how I'd like it so that's all good.
The only reason I didn't do this in the first place is that it appears counterintuitive. In day-to-day computing (and I've been in the business since 1971!  ) when you open up a saved file and edit you expect to see a "save" or "save as" option which doesn't happen here and if taking the create tracks option leaves you wondering what will happen to the original tracks and will you need to recreate everything from scratch. Now I know 
During the second "Save Tracks" function it shows that the only tracks being rewritten are the ones that I've altered (start and end) and none of the others. If I'd been brave enough to try then all, obviously, would have been well but I didn't because the album I chose as my debut with the software was one I don't like. The reason for choosing that album was because of the new deck and I had no idea about any possibility of the cartridge skating - which it didn't.
Thinking about it it would appear that Vinyl Studio sees the album as one file, even when split into tracks, and not as separate files. That makes sense from a programming and editing point of view (the only ones that count  ) and if I'd thought about this earlier then I'd have no need to to ask for the advice. One plus is that the information is now available for anyone who checks here in the future.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

> The only reason I didn't do this in the first place is that it appears counterintuitive. In day-to-day computing when you open up a saved file and edit you expect to see a "save" or "save as" option...

Yes, VinylStudio doesn't work that way.  We do try to make it clear that you need to save your tracks explicitly:

• In the Getting Started section of the help file (there's a link to that in the Record window).
• In a popup when recording completes (which you can then hide, for subsequent recordings).
• There is a 'Save Tracks' button in the Split Tracks window in a prominent position.

Perhaps it's less clear that you need to save them again after making changes, but that's a leap we expect people to make.  We will see if we can improve that.  But past experience can be a two-edged sword.  It can mislead you.

[Jabod]

I wouldn't worry overly about this Paul. A fair chunk of my failure lies with me undoubtedly.
The major problem, for me of course, was the preconceived expectation of how changes would/should be made (btw, I fully expected to have to save whatever changes I made explicitly). This being the first album I'd worked on as I bought the software without trying the 5 album trial by the time that I came to edit the tracks to clean up the blank spaces I'd forgotten that the initial save is "create album" and in editing is "save tracks". Can I blame old age  Had I remembered that then I wouldn't have had a problem as the "save tracks" button would have meant precisely that to me. A learning curve for sure and one that's now been straightened out so thanks for the help.

Two possible slight improvements to avoid other silly people getting caught:

1. Have a text box on the editing page clearly saying something like: "Remember to click on the "save tracks" button on the upper right of this page to save your changes" or/and
2. Display a message when quitting the editing page saying: "You are closing the editing page and have not saved your changes. If you wish to save your changes click cancel below and then click the "save tracks" button on the upper right of this page. Otherwise
    click OK to discard all changes made this session."

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hmmm.  Don't like option 2, far too intrusive.  And screen space is precious, people are always asking us to add stuff.

No, I think the best solution is, in the existing places where we talk about the need to explicitly save your tracks, we should add a rider to the effect that if you make changes you will need to save them again.  I'll look into it.

[Jabod]

Thanks Paul but, as I've said earlier, I wouldn't worry overly about this.
I have to accept that I was pretty dumb in the first place and, as I couldn't find anything here or on the internet generally it's not exactly a problem for people. I also appreciate that you've written the software in a way that is non destructive of the original recording and you can therefore return to it as and when and start pretty much from scratch.

The big plus by me having asked the question and you responding is that the "problem" and the solution are now present within this support forum so should be easily found by anyone having a brain fart like myself 

And to add:

I'm very impressed with your software; it does a really good job for a very fair price. I've only done 3 albums so far (out of nearly 400 so a way to go yet) and the last two went very smoothly indeed. There's loads within the software that I haven't had any need to investigate but I intend to play around with bits and pieces as I go along - but using fully completed albums in the first place 

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Well, I'm not worried exactly, but I do think you have a point.  We'll add it to one or two of the popups that VinylStudio displays to new users (i.e. until they turn them off), most likely.  I see no harm in that.  And glad you like the software, thank you.