Auto-deselect tracks without clips in edit selection

[herrturtur]

Looking for a workflow enhancement:

I have to consolidate final edits in a large session to (shift+cmd+k) export them into folders per song.

I usually create a selection marker per song when the final edit is done, so I can jump around the project and don't mess up any song starts/endings (e.g. when sending playbacks for external overdub recordings and reimporting etc.).
Before consolidating the final edit I click on my selection marker. Everything is highlighted (edit selection). I could press (shift+alt+3) to consolidate. But before that, I manually deselect all tracks that do not contain any clips or only muted clips. Because I don't want to waste disk space in a 150+ track project AND I don't want to send out a whole bunch of empty audio tracks to the customer.

I guess there is no way to "auto-deselect" tracks that do not contain any present clips within an edit selection. But maybe you guys face the same problem and have a smarter workflow to share here?:)

Thanks!!

[BScout]

There is no way to find (to select or deselect) tracks with no clips. This is something I've been asking for (most DAWs have this).
The way SoundFlow does it is extremely slow (it's a way I've done it with AppleScript but it requires going track by track to check if any clips exist.)

Something I've wanted (and hoped the new scripting SDK would at least have this in the property of a track) so that empty tracks could be selected, deselected, deleted, hid, or hid and made inactive.

[albee1952]

Here's what works for me: Consolidate all tracks back to 00:00:000. While all the tracks are highlighted, go to the Clips bin and all the relevant audio files will be selected(no other audio will be selected at this point). Right-click and choose Export Clips as Files and send to the folder for that song. Nothing else needs to be done beyond this(just wondering if you are approaching it in a different way)

[herrturtur]

Hey, maybe I did not understand your post. I know how to consolidate + export. That's not my point I was just looking for a way to avoid creating empty clips. In large edit sessions e.g. big band, where lots of songs get edited in a row (in one session), it can happen that only 50 of 80 tracks contain audio. Before consolidating and exporting, I have to go through all the tracks and de-select the ones without audio manually. Because if you select an audio track without anything on it, make an edit-selection and hit shift+alt+3 (consolidate), Pro Tools will create an empty audio file that will fill up your drive with just as much data as clips containing "real" audio. I guess there's no way around doing it manually or just live with empty audio files. I just don't like sending these to customers or colleagues, since they might scratch their head and wonder if something went wrong on my side.

[its2loud]

Use the Object Grabber tool to select all your clips across all tracks. Then consolidate the selection. Only the tracks with clips on them will be consolidated.

If you need a movie demonstrating, I'll send you one.