I deleted parts of an audio file, how do I "close up" the empty spaces?

[JeffOYB]

Hi! I apologize but I don't really know how to describe this question accurately since I don't know the terminology.

I have an audio file, a track. I selected and deleted the errors in the track. There are now spaces/gaps throughout the track. I would like to get rid of all those spaces, or gaps. How do I do this? I sure hope that I don't have to move each remaining chunk of audio over to butt up where it should be...

When I search for help I come up empty because I know I'm not using the right words to describe what I want to do. Condense? Compress? Contract? Ha. ...Hopefully a human can understand what I mean! Thanks!

[ryclark]

Where are you doing the editing? Is it in the Waveform view or the Multitrack view? I think that what you are asking about is called Ripple Delete. It means that when you delete a bit of audio on a Track in the Multitrack view Audition automatically moves the audio to the right of the cut to butt up to where you made the cut thereby not leaving gaps in the audio. See video tutorial https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=Sa9EXYGkFs-blwTWjqmYCQ&q=audition+ripple+delete&oq=audi...

[JeffOYB]

Thanks! So... I have a file with hundreds of gaps where I've deleted material. How do I "collapse" the space b/w all of them at one time? It looks like with Ripple Delete that I right-click select the gap then choose Ripple Delete. Well... I'm not going to be right-clicking hundreds of gaps. Is there a way I can apply this to a whole file? Fingers crossed! Thx!

[ryclark]

Unfortunately no there isn't. You are supposed to do it as you go along I'm afraid. However it isn't all bad news since the latest version of Audition now has an extra option under Ripple Delete called Gap. This is quite quick to use because you only have to click somewhere in the space and select Gap for Audition to do the Ripple Delete. This will be even quicker if you assign a keyboard shortcut to Ripple Delete/Gap. You can then use a couple of keyboard shortcuts to rapidly move through your clips and remove the Gaps. First Alt+Right cursor to move to the end of the next clip and then your new shortcut to remove the Gap.

What would be even better is if you could combine shortcuts into a macro to do it all in one go. But Audition, unfortunately, doesn't support macros. Unless anyone knows of a better way.

[JeffOYB]

Interesting that there is was a big demand for it in Premiere and they added the feature "Close Gaps." Before the fix there was a kludge for it. (Ann Ben: Deleting multiple Gaps in Premiere Pro all at once - YouTube

[ryclark]

Maybe then it would be worth you putting in a feature request for Audition.

[LeHound]

I just setup a really simple macro to remove gaps. Takes a few seconds. 

Here's a video on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLoMzBfIsOY

Basically you just set a hotkey for "Ripple Delete Gap in Selected Track" which is under Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts.  then setup a simple repeat macro that looks like this (Right Arrow, Hotkey) and after you run the macro use your zoom level to control how precise / fast you want the macro to execute it's task.