Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

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Asensory
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Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by Asensory »

Can't figure this one out for the life of me...
I completed a project, highlighted the tracks and did a bounce (WAVE file) to disk. When the bounce reaches the last part, several tracks go silent. They do not do this when I play it back, I even bounced just the final minute or so, and yes, silent (except for one stem).

All the sounds are fine elsewhere in the project, just stop making sound, only when I bounce, either wave or mp3 (happened to both). How is this possible and how do I fix it? Can't express how frustrating this is. And that's rare, I am usually not frustrated with DP.

Any help would be great ... trying to make a deadline (ok so that's my fault but still).
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daniel.sneed
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by daniel.sneed »

Not sure this is your problem, but many here, including me, have reported bounce errors.
That is an old case, and comes from previous DP releases.
AFAICT, workaround is record in real time thru a bus.

In my case, errors have always been related to cpu hog plugins sitting in the master track.
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mikehalloran
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by mikehalloran »

If the behavior is consistent, it might not be bad RAM. My experience is that it usually is.

Try bouncing fewer tracks but include the problem ones. Do those tracks now have audio?

What's your playback buffer? Does increasing it make a difference?
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Asensory
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by Asensory »

Hmmm ... bad RAM? As in bad chips? Is there a way to test that?

I did try to bounce only the end of the track, where the problem occurs, always at the same spot I lose all instruments and audio tracks except one audio track. Same one every time. A real-time record is tedious, changing every output to a bus, then to an audio track. Will the Master track plugins still affect the mix? I'm running some sub kick and light sidechain compression from drums to the master.

I'll check the buffer and play with that. It won't work, is my guess...
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by Asensory »

I changed the buffer setting ... raised from 512 to 1024, no change.
Then mixed the whole thing down manually, and opened the stereo mix up in a new project, applied some Ozone to the mix, and bounced to a wave file, and got silence.

Seriously, wtf is going on? This is odd.
Asensory
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by Asensory »

I also (just now) installed DP 9.13, loaded the project back in and tried to bounce, same results.
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Shooshie
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by Shooshie »

First of all, if you have to change every output to a bus, you're possibly going about this the wrong way. If all your tracks are routed to Main Out, then you're missing some steps in the mix process. I route all my tracks either to a Submaster or Stems. I don't use a "Master Track," because I don't really trust them. I just use a regular aux track and name it "Submaster." You can name it Charlie or Bernadette if you want. That's not important.

It's not hard to reroute tracks. Select them all (or whichever ones you want) and go to Assign Tracks, where you can set the I/O for all tracks in one swoop.

Forgive me if you're an old pro at this. I'm presuming that you are not that familiar, if all your tracks are routed to Main Out. So read what follows with that context in mind:
For some tracks, I route them to another aux track first, or Stem. For instance, vocals get routed to a vocal stem, which I name... get ready for it... "Vocals." (Again... Charlie, Bernadette... your choice.) With that, I can tweak the entire vocal mix without changing their relative settings, or apply automation to the entire thing, including fades at the end and sometimes faders out during silent spots to eliminate noises the performers may have made while being "quiet." (breathing, etc.) So, stems are helpful to use for many reasons. Route the Stems outputs to the Submaster.

Of course, you'll need busses for this. Go to Bundles (SHIFT-U) and set up your busses with I/O names you will easily recognize and not confuse with others. When you get good at it, you'll even set them up in order so that assigning tracks or rerouting them manually becomes easy. I usually use the same name for the bus as for the track to which it will be providing input. Vocal bus goes to the Vocal track. Submaster bus goes to the Submaster. Etc.

Once everything is routed to a final Submaster, it's very easy to record that track to another. Just route the Submaster's output to your recording track's input. I call that track my "Bounce" track, but I don't want to confuse the issue; it's not bouncing, it's recording. The Record track is routed to Main Out. It does not go through the Submaster. First of all, that would create a feedback loop. Secondly, on playback it would go through the Submaster's plugins again, getting a double-dose of whatever plugins you have on that track. It goes straight out to Main Out. That stereo track is the same equivalent as your entire mix.

Once you have recorded it, you can do either of two things:
1) Drag the soundbite from that track to the Finder (this is why I call it my Bounce Track) from the Tracks window.
2) You can actually BOUNCE that track to the Finder if you want to create an MP3 or change file type, etc. Be sure the mix is turned off. That is, in the Mixing Board, duplicate your mix (bottom left corner) and save it, then create a new mix (it will be without plugins). Using this mix, you bounce that single track, and it goes through faster than real time, because there are no plugins occupying CPU times uselessly.

This has become my standard technique, rather than worrying about whether my mixes are getting completely bounced. I must say, however, that I have not had much trouble with bouncing. Then, a couple versions ago it was not bouncing fades at all. That's when I started using this method 100% of the time.

One little advantage to this method is that for each "bounce" (recording to another track), you can make a new take, thus saving various versions in a series of takes in one track.

The downside: it's easy to forget to turn off that track, or accidentally turn it on, and you will start wondering why your mix has gotten louder, and why changing your plugin settings has minimal effect. You've got your real mix playing with the bounced version, so it's all louder, and plugins don't affect your bounce track, so you end up with a mess! Be sure to turn off the bounced track, and disable its output when not in use.

Shooshie
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Asensory
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by Asensory »

First an update. I bounced the final mix that I opened in DP 9.13 by clicking on the audio track and going to bounce in the file menu. I noticed that the track time was off, and later saw that I'd copied an extra take of the track and appended it on to the original .. and probably some other mistakes while in my frustrated state.

I did, actually, "bounce" the wave file by dragging to the desktop, then back into DP after opening up version 9.13 for the first time. Anyway, a restart later and careful attention as I resumed progress, and I was able to successfully bounce the track, again to wave, with the Ozone settings I wanted to add.

Now to the interesting part, process. First off, thanks again to all to chimed in, and thanks Shoosie for the words of advice, always appreciated even if you're going over stuff I know. God knows there's a lot I don't know.

My original process was to record a number of tracks, almost all are instrument tracks with one -or-another plugin. Then, in the interest of CPU strain, mix them down to a stem (audio track), grouping several instruments together in each stem. I'd have several generations saved, but it was still just too cumbersome to go back and change anything.

Currently I record the instrument tracks, and freeze them as I go, then turn off the plugin, de-select it in the tracks, mix and sequence windows to alleviate clutter, and keep going until I finish. I would get to the end where everything is mixed, automation all done (on the audio track rather than the instrument track unless I'm automating the plugin), mix is finished, etc. Then create a master track and apply any final mastering plugin(s). Then highlight the whole enchilada and bounce to disk.

If I want to side-chain the mix to make room for kick drums, etc, I can create an aux track, send all the instruments to it, and apply mastering plugs to the master track.

It sounds like your method would be to instantiate the instrument, and add an audio track and an aux track for each. There might be some instances where I would group instruments together into a stem, say, all drum-related instruments, all pads, all fx, etc. But I still need an audio track for each individual track. At the end of the day, that's a lot of tracks, 4 for each instrument (MIDI, INST, AUX and AUDIO). Having separate audio track allows me to handle any latency or delay issues inherent to some plugins, and add fx plugins to them rather than to the instrument itself. Seems better to separate those out like that.

One good thing about your method is that it looks like I can record the "sub-Bernadette, err, master" track down to audio, then save a mix. Then, apply mastering plugs into the audio track. I have to embrace Mix Mode, something I have yet to get into.

Lots to digest here, will have fun doing it during my next project.

Thanks.
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by Shooshie »

Asensory, I'm glad to know that you know what you're doing! I could have asked first, but I usually just go ahead and post it, because it's faster than asking, and because someone else who doesn't know may be reading. Of course, I warned you to read it in that context, figuring there was a good possibility that I had misjudged you, based only on one little assumption.

Anyway, It's always instructive to see how others do things, even if you pick up only one little thing in the process. Sometimes one little thing can change everything. Mix mode, for example. Man, I can't tell you how many times a day I switch in and out of mixes to go from a full-freight mix with plugins and latency to a bare, plate-reverb only mix for all kinds of operations. Just getting rid of latency can make a huge difference when editing, comping, etc., because especially with noise-reducing plugins and other look-ahead devices, your total latency can build up to over a two seconds. That seems like a tiny amount, but to an engineer starting and stopping all the time, 2 seconds will guarantee hair loss in 10 minutes!

I don't have a fixed method. Rather, I know a lot of methods, and use what is expedient at the moment... or what occurs to me first. Sometimes my methods don't make sense to anyone but me, but if I could make someone else see all that I'm seeing, they'd probably think it is inspired. (and it is!)

Shooshie
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by mikehalloran »

'You keep mentioning Ozone. What version, which tools and how are you using it?
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Asensory
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by Asensory »

mikehalloran wrote:'You keep mentioning Ozone. What version, which tools and how are you using it?
Ozone 7 ... a variety of the tools, usually some EQ, maximizer, sometimes some of the others. There's a preset (I know I know) called "Electronic Clarity" that does work well for that genre. Ozone is a tool that I still need to get educated on. I'm sure I am missing tons of functionality and optimization.
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by Asensory »

OH, and Shooshie,

You mentioned that you do not trust master faders, can you talk a little about that?
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Shooshie
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by Shooshie »

Asensory wrote:OH, and Shooshie,

You mentioned that you do not trust master faders, can you talk a little about that?
Not really. That problem is so old I don't remember it. I just know that at some point I settled on not using master faders and just using aux tracks. There was something; maybe someone else remembers it. In any case, it's probably fixed now. No cause for alarm.

Shooshie
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Re: Bounce to Disk Anomaly. ??????????

Post by Timeline »

I remember that old issue Shooshie. Have not had drops for quite some time in BTD from the Master Fader. Certainly is easier to use the system without workarounds. Lets hope its just a machine CPU issue and not software. I have updated to a 12 core 3.46ghz speed and allot of ram. I think this could be whats keeping me from seeing the old issues if not repaired. Best of luck with the issue.
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