Go to the Media Pool and click on the "broom" this removes
all unused media from the project. Then when you save the
project put a check box in the "copy all media with
project", create a new folder and save the project. In
this folder will be the saved project and a copy of all the
media files used in it. Now go delete the folder that you
originally recorded all your media to when you started the
project. My work ethic is always to start a Vegas project
with the same default record folder and then when I save
the project in the above manner I go and clean out my
default record folder.

Hope this helps,
Brian Franz

OK, so how do you reclaim wasted space in audio files that
are being used.

Say I record a band, they play the song 3 times. I use the
entire first take execpt for the 3 seconds of the second
take and 5 seconds of the third take.

Even when I clean the media pool and just keep the files
ive used, the backup is still going to be 3 times bigger
than it needs to be. and at 20 or so tracks of 24 bit over
a 6 minute song, that is considerable.

Logic Audio has the "optermize" feature, Pro tool has
somthing similar, they look at what is being used and trim
the files to suit, (with a settable ammount to keep either
end of the file)

How does Vegas deal with this?

If I am understanding your issue correctly...Edit your tracks with crossfaeds, etc. Once you have it to your liking perform a
"mix to new track". This will create an entirely new wav file out of your combination of takes 1, 2, and 3 edited together.
Now you can delete the active takes and events of the original tracks and remove them from your system. I usually keep
original tracks on CD-R just in case I need them later. Hope that's it.

Kind of long winded, when you have to do that to each and
every track (could be upto 24) and then for 9 or 10 songs.

I just want a one button option to do the entire song
automaticily. Destructivily edit every file and just keep
whats on the timeline. Just about every other multitrack
program has it.

I could be wrong (use the program mainly for video), but
guess that VV handles audio in a manner similar to most
good editing programs.

If you've mixed 24 tracks and you "render" to a new .WAV
file, the new file is just that, NEW.

Working with video (or with audio in other editing programs
such as WaveLab), if I render a 24-track project to a new
file, the 24 tracks become just one (in the case of video)
or two (in the case of stereo audio).

If my VV video project also contains multiple sound tracks,
rendering it to .avi will put all the effects contained in
those multiple sound tracks on one stereo sound track which
will play on its own, in the absence of the original
source .wav files.

At this point, you should be able to delete the original
files without affecting your final project. What you'll
lose, of course, is the opportunity to go back and remaster
the project, but, then, again, you probably have your
source files residing on some other form of storage media
(such as tape or CD, right?).

Hope this helps.

Caruso

Another disk management trick: when ever you do a "mix to
new track", save the project before getting rid of the old
tracks (i.e.,"ProjectxSubmix3.veg").

This gives you a way to go back and make corrections to
portions of a mix, and also lets you remove clutter from
the timeline as you move onward toward completion.