Punch Guard Works With Freezing Tracks, Too!

[buzzsmith]

Maybe I'm late to the party, but yesterday I was rendering many tracks and, even though I'm careful to set the ranges, I noticed that I had inadvertently cut off the 4 string tracks just a little bit too early. Missed the releases.

Without really thinking, I grabbed the end of one and pulled rightward and, to my surprise, it revealed an extra second or so of the freeze which was plenty to accommodate the finish.

Pretty cool!

Buzzy

[Babz]

It is cool, if that's what you need. But Punch Guard has also created unintended problems for users, like if you are creating stems to send out to someone else for mixing. This extra preroll audio at the beginning can create problems and confusion for someone trying to line up all tracks at the beginning of the sequence in another DAW.

There is a Punch Guard preference setting to avoid this. Under Preferences -> Play and Record -> Audio Options, there is a Punch Guard setting. By default it is set to "Always record pre-roll". This is what has led to problems for some users freezing tracks to create stems.

If you don't want pre-roll when freezing, change this setting to: "Only record pre-roll when punching in". This means that it will only record pre-roll when you are actually doing manual or automatic punch in recording on the fly, and will prevent the unwanted pre-roll audio when freezing tracks. In Buzzy's case the extra audio turned out to be a good thing. But not knowing it is there is more likely to cause problems.

Just a tip which could save you confusion some day!

Best,
Babz

[buzzsmith]

Good point, Babz.

Whenever I trade files I always merge/consolidate starting at my 0:00:00.

So, I don't think that there is any preroll.

Guess I need to check that.

Buzzy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dan Worley]

It is cool, if that's what you need. But Punch Guard has also created unintended problems for users, like if you are creating stems to send out to someone else for mixing. This extra preroll audio at the beginning can create problems and confusion for someone trying to line up all tracks at the beginning of the sequence in another DAW.

There is a Punch Guard preference setting to avoid this. Under Preferences -> Play and Record -> Audio Options, there is a Punch Guard setting. By default it is set to "Always record pre-roll". This is what has led to problems for some users freezing tracks to create stems.

If you don't want pre-roll when freezing, change this setting to: "Only record pre-roll when punching in". This means that it will only record pre-roll when you are actually doing manual or automatic punch in recording on the fly, and will prevent the unwanted pre-roll audio when freezing tracks. In Buzzy's case the extra audio turned out to be a good thing. But not knowing it is there is more likely to cause problems.

Just a tip which could save you confusion some day!

Best,
Babz

And even without Punch Guard on (or set to zero pre/post), Freeze always adds a little something extra on the end of the soundbite (107, 157 ticks). You can see it when you expand the soundbite. Of course, this isn't as critical as the start of the soundbite, but it still bugs me. I need things to be precise. So if you Freeze, merge after.

Bouncing and Merge work fine.

[Shooshie]

Wow. This is all great information, most of which I did not know. Thanks all.

Shooshie

[bayswater]

And even without Punch Guard on (or set to zero pre/post), Freeze always adds a little something extra on the end of the soundbite (107, 157 ticks).

Isn't that there to make sure any tails from plugins are not cut off?

[Dan Worley]

And even without Punch Guard on (or set to zero pre/post), Freeze always adds a little something extra on the end of the soundbite (107, 157 ticks).

Isn't that there to make sure any tails from plugins are not cut off?

I don't know. I doubt it. I hope not. It wouldn't make sense to me. I don't see any reason for it. Why would you need 117 ticks for a tail? A tail of what? How would DP know how long or short the tail was supposed to be? What if you selected a measure of silence at the end, why would it add to that?

No, my feeling is Freeze is just imprecise right now. You can do the same Freeze four different times and you can get four different results. One time it will add 117 ticks, the next time 147, or 101 or 155. It's anarchy.

Sometimes you can get the same results choosing Freeze from the menu, but a different result by using the key command.

I thought maybe since the key command uses the Control key, and it toggles the Grid on/off, that maybe the grid had something to do with all this. But I can't make any sense out of the numbers, they seem arbitrary, as far as I can tell.

The main thing (for me) is that I want DP to be precise, all the time.

Damn-it.

Good thing this is at the end of the soundbite and not the beginning, and if anyone is bothered by it (like me), merging gets rid of the extra.

[bayswater]

And even without Punch Guard on (or set to zero pre/post), Freeze always adds a little something extra on the end of the soundbite (107, 157 ticks).

Isn't that there to make sure any tails from plugins are not cut off?

I don't know. I doubt it. I hope not. It wouldn't make sense to me. I don't see any reason for it. Why would you need 117 ticks for a tail? A tail of what? How would DP know how long or short the tail was supposed to be? What if you selected a measure of silence at the end, why would it add to that?

No, my feeling is Freeze is just imprecise right now. You can do the same Freeze four different times and you can get four different results. One time it will add 117 ticks, the next time 147, or 101 or 155. It's anarchy.

You're probably right. I supposed the differences would represent the time it takes for the wet signal from plugins to go to zero. But if you get it when you freeze or bounce silence, then it makes no sense, and is anarchy.

[Dan Worley]

Just to be clear, merging and bouncing work perfectly in regards to this. It's only Freeze that has this inconsistency, and it really isn't a big deal (unless you have to deliver spot-on durations and use the Freeze file), just imperfect.