DP10.11 - Pausing multiple times during offline bounce

[mikehalloran]

I'm wondering if any iZotope plug-ins could be causing this, as I am indeed observing this behaviour when using those plugs inside iZotope's RX app.

The solution for me was to close all Izotope windows before bouncing. Why was having the GUIs open making such an impact? Don't know and, once the problem was solved, I declared victory and moved on.

[Killahurts]

DP is struggling with something......probably a plugin.

I don't think so Gabe. I'm having even worse problems bouncing:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=67368

My new Mac Pro does this, when my old (2010) does not. I thought it might be because of using two different MADI interfaces, RME on the old one, MOTU on the new machine, or because the old MP is High Sierra and the new MP is Catalina.

Since I posted in that thread, I have never been able to bounce my one hour radio show, gotta pull the project over to the old computer. FYI, the show is about 6 mono and stereo files, with no plugins/processing and all volumes at unity.

I can bounce a five minute song, loaded with stuff. The other day I bounced a 20 minute file, and it did work, but paused a lot and took a long time, like your case.

For me, it seems like it has to do with length. I have tried to bounce from internal busses as well, no change. I'm going to do a hardware test, and if it does what I think, Catalina will be the only explanation left, at least in my case.

[Gabe S.]

DP is struggling with something......probably a plugin.

I don't think so Gabe. I'm having even worse problems bouncing:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=67368

My new Mac Pro does this, when my old (2010) does not. I thought it might be because of using two different MADI interfaces, RME on the old one, MOTU on the new machine, or because the old MP is High Sierra and the new MP is Catalina.

Since I posted in that thread, I have never been able to bounce my one hour radio show, gotta pull the project over to the old computer. FYI, the show is about 6 mono and stereo files, with no plugins/processing and all volumes at unity.

I can bounce a five minute song, loaded with stuff. The other day I bounced a 20 minute file, and it did work, but paused a lot and took a long time, like your case.

For me, it seems like it has to do with length. I have tried to bounce from internal busses as well, no change. I'm going to do a hardware test, and if it does what I think, Catalina will be the only explanation left, at least in my case.

(I don't know how I missed this response......anyway....)

I was getting the pausing on my 2010 Mac Pro with OS10.11.6 in DP9. For me, it started in DP 9, but DP8 would bounce flawlessly. And my bounces are maximum 4 minute music tracks. Most are 3 minutes or less.

I don't know.....something is up. MOTU alluded to the fact that they had heard of it, but had never been able to duplicate it......doesn't give me much hope. Which leads me to my next post----->

[Gabe S.]

I said I would report back after mastering and bouncing the album in ProTools. It turns out I had enough material to make two albums. So, I mastered both in ProTools. And it went 100% flawlessly. Not one hiccup across 52 compositions, which ended up as 104 release versions and over 200 stems. And then, I didn't like my mastering on 15 compositions (my fault), so I had to fully bounce those versions and stems out a second time, so that takes it probably closer to 400 bounces---all at 8.1x realtime. So, ProTools really came through for me on these tracks. If I had to deal with DP pausing across 400 bounces.......I'd have given up on the music business and opened a flower shop or something........

This made me wonder-----what else am I missing? The one DAW I have refused to even consider at all has been Logic. It was never very logical as far as I was concerned. All the old environment nonsense seemed ridiculous. DP was always so straightforward for me. It just made sense. And I have used the heck out of it to run my business over the last 14 years (plus all the years using it prior to the business). But with this new computer, things have just not been working very well with DP. I have reported that DP struggles with my Metric Halo ULN-8 on the new computer. I'm having bouncing issues......And quite honestly, I'm not really feeling like the power of the 28core Mac Pro is being utilized properly by DP. The CPU meter bounces around quite severely on the 28core in my big template. DP doesn't really feel that much more capable on the new machine than my 2010 Mac Pro......It's a bit snappier, but it's not acting like a machine with 3x the horsepower of my 2010 Mac Pro, which to me seems completely ridiculous. So, I've been feeling left out in the cold to be honest. I've made a huge investment in this latest computer, and that's before any additional drives and other peripheral stuff. I think it's fair for me to demand good performance.

And then a few days ago........Logic 10.5 came out. Sigh....... a few months ago, I had bought a copy of Logic for my daughter who was learning about making music at school. I didn't install it on my 28core because I wasn't interested in Logic. But I gotta tell ya----10.5 came out and the feature additions are impressive. And with all the struggles I've had with DP since I got the new Mac Pro, I was......curious.

So------(hanging head in shame)-------I installed Logic 10.5 a few days ago on my 28core. And then I set out on the task of finding out if I thought it could be usable for me. It took days for me to translate my crazy template out of DP into Logic. The tracks, routings, plugins, matching levels, replicating the settings of the MOTU MW EQ that I used all the time........ugh......it's complex moving a template over. But I got the audio part of the template done. And you know what? Logic doesn't even blink at my template. And the CPU meter shows the work being spread out nice and even over a bunch of cores. It's snappy. And------I never thought I'd say this but--------after messing around with it for a few days, I'm gonna give it a shot. Now I need to fully add all the MIDI tracks of my template, but that's the easy part. Logic 10.5 is nothing like older illogical Logic. There's some pretty cool stuff in there. And it's super snappy and responsive to use.

My current workflow has been to ReWire Kontakt sounds into my DAW from Plogue Bidule. When comparing DP to Logic in terms of latency, I'm finding Logic does have a slight bit more latency than DP. But it's not a deal killer for me. And Logic is breezing through this template so easily, I'm considering trying to load all the Kontakt samples that are loaded in Bidule directly into Logic and skipping Bidule entirely. This would eliminate any latency issues. I would not have considered doing that in DP.

Anyway, I thought I'd update everyone on my experiences. I know it seems like a bunch of DP bashing. I'm not trying to bash. But I have a job to do---like doing 400 bounces. I don't have an assistant that I can just shove tasks to and not care how they get done. I've been a loyal DP guy for a lonnnnnnng time---been using it since the 90s. I've been on this forum since 2004. But I need to make sure I'm getting the most from my investment in this computer, and I need to have an efficient workflow. Logic really has moved into the modern age, and being an in-house Apple product, it's no surprise that the audio engine is super efficient on the new computer. It's exactly what I was hoping for. So, I'm gonna give it a shot. Who knows, maybe I'll hate it. But at the moment, it's the shiny new toy, and I'm giving it a whirl.

PS. Side note---some older NI sample libraries don't authorize on the new computer---like older EW sample libraries. But the new Logic has this AWESOME auto sampler. I think I'm going to hook up this new computer digitally to my old computer and have auto sampler sample some of the patches I still want to use.

[bayswater]

Gabe, I have to conclude there is something wrong with the DP installation on your Mac.

I use DP and Logic regularly. DP 9.52 used slightly more CPU than Logic 10.4. With DP 10.11 and Logic 10.5 the difference is more noticeable but still doesn't affect just getting stuff done. I've done loads of bounces recently and not seen any big difference between the two. I've tried the "thousand track" thing Logic made a fuss about in DP, and that pushed my 2018 Mini into sweaty discomfort, but it worked.

The 2018 Mini has nothing like the resources of your Mac, so while you'll probably always find Logic 10.5 is more efficient than DP 10, something it not set up properly.

No doubt you've done the obvious with buffers, colour profile, etc. Did you do the new user thing?

[taka]

Hello--

I've suffered from this problem every once in a while, for no apparent reason, happened even with one audio track with no plug in etc etc..

I've heard many users of other apps like FCPX, Photoshop etc are having various issues including file rendering, and it has been suggested that giving Full Disk Access to the affected app(s) might help.

DP or other DAWs were not mentioned in these discussions, but I went ahead and enabled Full Disk Access to DP in Security & Privacy section of System Pref a few days ago.

Now, I have not done that many Bounce to Disk in the last 2~3 days, but so far I have not seen any "stuck bounce" problem... So fingers crossed... Maybe you can try this and see what happens?

Taka**

[mikehalloran]

Some of my old templates do this. None of my new templates created in 10.11 have this issue.

Cleaning up my templates was something I’d been planning to do for years. This was as good an excuse as any and I needed new ones for my current gigs.

[HCMarkus]

Rebuilding the DP template could help at least some with DP10 issues... I know I was having crashes when I moved from DP9.52 to 10.11 under Mojave. I "rebuilt" my template by Loading it into a blank DP10.11 file. Also, any project started in 9.52 is always load into a fresh DP10.11 project. With one exception (a project I could not get to load, so I finished it in DP9.52) I have had excellent results by following this procedure.

Taka's suggestion a few posts back sounds like it is worth following up on.

The above stated, it sounds like Gabe's issues reach back into 9.52. When a tool doesn't do the job, it is time for a new tool. Good luck getting where you need to be Gabe.

[Killahurts]

DP is struggling with something......probably a plugin.

I don't think so Gabe. I'm having even worse problems bouncing:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=67368

My new Mac Pro does this, when my old (2010) does not. I thought it might be because of using two different MADI interfaces, RME on the old one, MOTU on the new machine, or because the old MP is High Sierra and the new MP is Catalina.

Since I posted in that thread, I have never been able to bounce my one hour radio show, gotta pull the project over to the old computer. FYI, the show is about 6 mono and stereo files, with no plugins/processing and all volumes at unity.

I can bounce a five minute song, loaded with stuff. The other day I bounced a 20 minute file, and it did work, but paused a lot and took a long time, like your case.

For me, it seems like it has to do with length. I have tried to bounce from internal busses as well, no change. I'm going to do a hardware test, and if it does what I think, Catalina will be the only explanation left, at least in my case.

(I don't know how I missed this response......anyway....)

I was getting the pausing on my 2010 Mac Pro with OS10.11.6 in DP9. For me, it started in DP 9, but DP8 would bounce flawlessly. And my bounces are maximum 4 minute music tracks. Most are 3 minutes or less.

I don't know.....something is up. MOTU alluded to the fact that they had heard of it, but had never been able to duplicate it......doesn't give me much hope. Which leads me to my next post----->

I finally removed or disabled enough idiotic security to get my (11 year-old) RME MADI card to work in the PCIe slot of the new Mac Pro. I never had a single issue bouncing again, and I'm doing it 4X faster than on the old machine. It was the MOTU M64 MADI interface all along. The M64 is a USB 2.0 interface, which I never felt good about, having come from a PCI based solution.. my instincts were correct. I don't trust Thunderbolt stuff either.. anything that hangs off the machine with a wire. I always get concerned with the way it's handling the clock, etc.

I saw you're giving Logic a try, good luck with that! Let us know your experiences.
If you do make it back to DP at some point, try hooking in a different interface, to see if it makes a difference in the bounce issue.

[Gabe S.]

I saw you're giving Logic a try, good luck with that! Let us know your experiences.
If you do make it back to DP at some point, try hooking in a different interface, to see if it makes a difference in the bounce issue.

Yup, I got my whole ridiculous orchestral template in Logic now. As always, there's good and not as good. And I'm still totally a noob on Logic.

Good:
-Logic only loads what it needs. So, if you have tons of VIs and aux pathways loaded up with DSP plugins that are not being used in a huge template, it doesn't load them. This has allowed me to completely skip using Plogue Bidule and go inside Logic with EVERYTHING. And the load time for the session is shorter than my DP session that had no samples and got the samples in via Bidule/ReWire.
-As a result of loading everything in Logic, All latency is GONE. I can't tell you how nice that is. So nice.
-Logic is "snappy".
-I have lots of 3rd party plugins, but I gotta tell ya, some of these Logic built-in plugins are darn nice.
-I was having issues with DP and my ULN-8. Logic does not have these problems. (neither does ProTools.....or any other audio software outside of DP......)
-No problems bouncing.
-Named MIDI regions is pretty awesome. Always missed that in DP.
-Some MIDI editing stuff is pretty cool.
-I haven't dug into the AutoSampler yet, but I'm looking forward to it!

Not as good:
-Logic's MIDI behavior with a multi-timbral VI is idiotic. If you load up a Kontakt with 8 MIDI channels, the volume sliders on all 8 channels are not CC7 volume sliders. They all control the same stereo audio output and move together, regardless of which one you grab. There is no on-screen MIDI volume fader/slider on multitimbral VIs. This makes NO sense to me. Ultimately, you can control CC7, but only by using an external controller with a CC7 fader or you draw it in on the MIDI editing page.
-If you already created a Kontakt and then later, you want to add one more MIDI channel to it-------you can't. Why? No idea.....you just can't. You need to load up another Kontakt. So, basically in Logic, every time you create a VI, you need to create more MIDI channels than you currently need because you can't add them later.
-Ultimately, it seems like they want you to create a new VI instance for every MIDI channel. And it seems like they prefer that you use audio volume versus MIDI volume. I know spreading things around on different VI instances helps spread the CPU workload to various cores, but that's a bit ridiculous.
-No way to search for AU plugins......gotta just navigate.....hope you know where it is.....blah.

Anyway, regardless of what I've been throwing at Logic, it never hesitates or gives the appearance that it's struggling.

I have tons more to learn. Just getting going. But it's usable. No doubt about that. Looking forward to digging in further.

[bayswater]

Gabe, there are solutions to all the Logic problems you mentioned, but this is not the place to review them; there are loads of Logic lists. There are specific instructions with many multi-timbral VIs on how to make them work properly in Logic. Eli Kranzberg also covers this in his Groove 3 series on Logic. One hint; once you get a multi-VI working, save a template -- you won't remember what you did.

[mdoolin]

I've been plagued with this problem for years. I'm on a 2013 6-core Mac Pro, maxed out on memory and drive space, with projects on an external drive. DP has paused during bounces to one degree or another since I bought that Mac new. It came to a head just now when I needed to swap channels on a stereo track. I set the project format to the same as the track before dragging it into my template. I deleted all plugins except Trim, which was doing the swap. When I bounced, it would move along for 5 seconds or so, and then pause for 30 or 40 seconds, lather rinse repeat. This is after I gave DP full disc access in security preferences.
One stereo track, no format conversions, no plugins other than MOTU's Trim, and it took 45 minutes to bounce.
So I recreated my template from scratch, and my bundles too. And that fixed it. I bounced an hour long stereo 48/16 track and it took about 9 minutes and didn't pause once.

[Gabe S.]

I've been plagued with this problem for years. I'm on a 2013 6-core Mac Pro, maxed out on memory and drive space, with projects on an external drive. DP has paused during bounces to one degree or another since I bought that Mac new. It came to a head just now when I needed to swap channels on a stereo track. I set the project format to the same as the track before dragging it into my template. I deleted all plugins except Trim, which was doing the swap. When I bounced, it would move along for 5 seconds or so, and then pause for 30 or 40 seconds, lather rinse repeat. This is after I gave DP full disc access in security preferences.
One stereo track, no format conversions, no plugins other than MOTU's Trim, and it took 45 minutes to bounce.
So I recreated my template from scratch, and my bundles too. And that fixed it. I bounced an hour long stereo 48/16 track and it took about 9 minutes and didn't pause once.

Thanks for your feedback. Glad you had some success on this, but it’s just unacceptable that this has dragged on for years.

I tried all kinds of things. Couldn’t get past it.

For me, the bounce feature just HAS to work. It is central to my workflow for finishing albums efficiently and on time. These pausing problems are DEADLY to my workflow. As an example, when I am finishing an album, every library music album usually has around 60 tracks/versions plus around 120 stem tracks. I’ve been working on 5 albums concurrently lately. That’s 900 bounces. I simply cannot be fiddling around with three pauses per bounce. My pauses would be like 2 minutes each. A bounce would take 7 minutes instead of 30 seconds. That’s far slower than if I just recorded the stuff out real-time! It would take me days/weeks to get through something that should take hours. And I went through the official channels and MOTU said they never heard of it.....I’d send them videos of it happening....heard nothing in return.....I’m running a business.....After dealing with it for years [YEARS!!!], it was a deal breaker. For me, keeping DP8 around for bouncing was no longer a workaround. Had to move on to something else.

For mastering and finishing work, I moved to Pro Tools. I know Pro Tools very well because I used it in the post world for many years. It’s totally stable. Cranks my bounces out that include a bunch of plugins with 100% reliability at around 7x real-time. It has never failed a bounce and I’ve done thousands of bounces with it now. It’s plain and simple for me: I just need tools that work. I’m not a platform fanboy.

DP8 never had this problem. It started with DP9 and continued with DP10. When I had the problem starting with 9, I would keep 8 around just for bouncing. But with DP10 and the new Mac Pro 28-core, it got more complicated to go back to DP8. Come on, this is just not a professional workflow.

So, these days it’s Pro Tools for mixing/mastering work, and Logic for music writing. (I still have DP on my computer in case I need to go back to an old session.) Moving to Pro Tools was no problem at all—back to a familiar tool. Logic was more of a mind job for me, but I feel like It’s better at using my 28 cores. My days of latency with external PCs or Plogue Bidule on the Mac are over. Zero latency with everything loaded in Logic. And even with huge templates, Logic only loads tracks that are active, so it’s fine. Bottom line—-I just need tools that work for me and my workflow. These are the tools that are working for me at the moment.

Hope your solution keeps working for you!

[mdoolin]

I tried another bounce this morning using my new template, and got another pause. So while I think I'm on to something, I haven't quite nailed it down yet.
But then (and this only applies to my very simple case of bouncing a single stereo track with the channels reversed) I decided to try the absolute minimum case. I ran DP and created a new, blank project, and added one stereo track (no master, no aux, nothing but one stereo track). I set the project to the same format as the file, dragged it in, and inserted the Trim plugin to swap the channels.
When I bounced it, it took about 20 seconds to bounce an hour long file! Instead of 9 minutes with my template! So that's how I'm going to do that from now on.
I realize that doesn't help you. And I fully agree, this is a major bug in DP and is completely unacceptable. I'm waiting for the new M1 Mac Pro to come out and then thinking about switching to Logic Pro.

[Gabe S.]

Yeah.......that’s a lot of workaround tomfoolery to get a bounce done. You should be able to work with a template and do a bounce. It used to be possible in DP8!!

For MOTU to just fall silent on the topic after I’ve been actively talking to tech support, submitting tech forms and sending them videos of it occurring is just embarrassing. Maybe they don’t consider it a high priority problem. But If you do lots of bouncing like I do, the problem is a workflow killer.

I have the perspective of knowing how MOTU acts when they want to solve a problem. One time, after an MacOS update, DP refused to launch. I called them and their tech support was all over it. They were sending me special diagnostic software to install and generate reports. They were sending me test drivers. And within 48 hours, they solved it. I was so impressed!! Then, there’s this situation——that has dragged on for years......

The switch to Logic wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. It’s different, but it’s fine. The Logic community is enormous. There are so many resources out there.