Subject:WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Posted by: dkistner

Date:10/22/2002 7:07:17 AM

Okay, it's probably something I'm doing wrong. Please straighten me out.

I've got 12 tracks (all waves, effects applied either through the busses or to individual tracks), two of which I moved up from positions 11/12 to 4/5. I've got four busses, Bus D for tracks 1-3; Bus C for (now) tracks 4-5; Bus A for tracks (now) 6-10; Bus B for (now) 11-12. I want to render out tracks 1 to 5 as separate tracks (and I've checked the separate tracks box; also save markers and tried both ways: loop region set to project/loop region output and not loop region output). Ultimately I want to render the tracks bussed to A and B to mixes after I get tracks 1-5 done.

So far, so organized. I click the solo buttons for tracks 1-5 and render to separate tracks. Tracks 1-3 render out apparently okay (Track 01, Track 02, etc.), but when I preview Track 01, it is a mixdown of tracks 1-5 (the soloed tracks, and apparently the newly positioned tracks 4 and 5). But also, when rendering, Track 04 is a rendering of track 6 from Bus A...which used to be track 4 before I moved it...and I don't know what happens from there because I've cancelled it when it got to that point. I expect the new tracks 4 and 5 would render as 11 and 12, which is where they were positioned in the track list before.

I do NOT have any of the busses muted, just the solo buttons checked in the track list. What should I do differently to get what I want? This doesn't make any sense to me.

AMD Athlon 1000gHz
Soundblaster Live! Value (soon to have my Mia, thankfully)
Working at 48,000/24 bit; original waves 44,100/16 bit
512 RAM
Acid 4.0a
Norton Antivirus disabled, but CPU usage sensor on

Project was saved prior to rendering, original project and a saved-as under a different name. I think I reopened the original project to render, but I may have done it out of the saved-as.

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:10/22/2002 12:31:41 PM

That is weird. What if you assign those tracks to the Master Bus instead of the other busses and then render to separate tracks? What happens then? Same thing?

Iacobus

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: spesimen

Date:10/22/2002 1:24:03 PM

i think this is by design. i don't really get it either, but if you solo a track, busses that use tracks which are muted still play - the 'real' track is muted but the buss goes through.

i use 'mix to seperate tracks' a lot (it's my favorite acid feature) so i just never use busses, just inserts, and that seems to work fine.

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: dkistner

Date:10/22/2002 2:28:27 PM

Okay, before I do any testing through the Master bus, let me also say that I've got this set to Microsoft Sound Mapper, not the Windows Classic Driver. Could that be part of the problem?

It will be a simple enough matter to mute busses instead of doing it in the Track list, I guess, as long as that keeps those tracks from rendering. And I suppose I COULD just render one track at a time as if it were the whole project and rename each one as I go. But it's got me darned perplexed...especially the tracks being in the OLD order thing.

Spesimen, what do you mean by "mix to separate tracks"? Where exactly is that feature, if different from Render As with the "separate tracks" box checked? If there's another way to mix out to separate tracks in 4.0, tell me where to find it. I'll try anything. I don't know where everything is in Acid yet.

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: dkistner

Date:10/22/2002 3:49:38 PM

Okay, I'm doing the Master bus test now. Weirdness! All tracks are set to Master Bus. The busses are still in the job, but nothing's routed through them. Here's what's happened so far:

I soloed the first five tracks as I did before, then tried to Render As separate tracks. I did not mute the other tracks, as I figured the solo buttons would take care of that. As tracks 1-3 rendered one after the other, the track mute button pushed in as each track finished. Looked pretty normal.

I let Track 04, that I thought was rendering out to my now-track 6 track, go on and render through, then cancelled 5. (Last time I'd cancelled 4 before it was finished.) It rendered as Track 04 but with the name of what is now my track 11 (where track 4 was positioned to begin with). When I previewed that track, it had the contents NOT of my now-track 11 (that it's named after) but of the (now) tracks 4 and 5 (what I did have on Bus C) MIXED TOGETHER.

Track 01 had the contents of tracks 1-5 mixed together. So did tracks 2 and 3!

I then muted ALL the busses (that none of the tracks are routed through) and re-rendered the first five tracks. At this point, given the weirdness, I was amazed that Acid stopped rendering when it got to the last soloed track! Track 05 was named for track 12, where the original track 5 was positioned, but it had the correct content...the one violin line that's now in track 5. But track 4 has the mixed contents of tracks 4 and 5. Track 3 has mostly the contents of track 5, but in places pulls in tracks 3 and 4 in some random non-synced way. Track 2 has tracks 2, 3, 4, 5 in a different non-synced way. Track 1 is the only one that has track 1 content, but it also has all the other track content, too, and the track 1 content is not right. At least if I can trust Preview to be reading what's in the files!

The first moral of this story is never, ever, ever move a track in the track list! Or maybe it's never, ever, ever try to color a track something other than the default. I've got tracks 1-3 recolored to blue; tracks 4-5 to bs green; 6-10 regular green; and 11-12 burgundy. Maybe it's the bs green screwing everything up. I don't like it much myself.

I think the second moral of this story is not to try to use a screwdriver when you need a hammer. Even a brick would be better than a screwdriver.

I can't blame this on my motherboard, because I just had it replaced, and I've reinstalled this program so many times that I dadgum it refuse to do it again.

I asked about my sound mapper setting. But this wouldn't be a factor if I'm just doing waves, would it?

I'm going to do one other test. Okay, if I use the mute button on all the tracks I don't want to mix down, the tracks render like they're supposed to. Tracks 4 and 5 are still named after the now-11 and 12, but at least I know the content is all right. A little flicker of hope...but I'm too wasted to try another test to see if I can now get the busses to work (and they have to) by using the mute method. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe I'll start on a different learning curve. <Sigh.>

If any of you out there have a few hours to kill, I sure would be interested if you can replicate this behavior on your system. (I'll bet SoFo would be, too.) Load up some tracks, assign them to busses, move a few tracks around, re-color them, and then try to render some of them to separate tracks. Does it work for you?

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: spesimen

Date:10/22/2002 6:24:19 PM

actually i think you discovered the moral, which is, don't use solo to pick which tracks you want, hehe!!!

i ran into a similar issue - as near as i can tell, it 'solos' each track in turn to do the mixdown, so if it's already solo'd on other channels they may also get mixed with that particular track. muting is fine.

then there's the buss issue..the way it works now, if you solo a channel, other channels routed to a bus will still play and those busses will still render - i think the pre/post fader thing might help that somehow but it didn't really seem to work for me when i tried it. (this is back in the day of 3.0). like i said, now i just avoid using busses altogether, but you've piqued my curiousity so i'll try it out some tonight.

i'm pretty sure the coloring and moving tracks doesn't have anything to do with it though, it's the soloing causing unexpected behavior. also you're correct that the soundmapper or driver choice doesn't matter at all in this case since rendering is just going right to the disk. all math!!

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: TeeCee

Date:10/22/2002 7:28:54 PM

I'm betting this is a bug. I would send an email to SF seeing as they haven't jumped into this discussion.

TeeCee

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: dkistner

Date:10/23/2002 9:14:11 AM

Spesimen, you're right about the "solo" button moral. But it's a strange, counterintuitive way to have programmed Acid to behave, nonetheless...and it also creates more work, in that you have to unsolo what you've soloed, then mute all the tracks (AND busses) that you don't want included before mixing down. At the least, there ought to be more error-handling or SOMETHING to clue in users that, when it comes to rendering, "solo" doesn't solo and causes extremely bizarre mixdown behaviors...without them having to discover it in a forum somewhere. If nothing else, they should make Acid present a cautionary message (and a "cancel rendering" option) if a person tries to mix down selected tracks using an active solo (rather than mute) approach.

But the moving/renaming tracks/getting-the-wrong name thing is clearly a bug. TeeCee, I'll email SoFo and alert them to this in case they've missed this discussion.

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: SonicJG

Date:10/23/2002 2:25:18 PM

Hi there--just caught this thread, and yes, this one's a bug--it looks like when a track is solo'ed to be rendered, it's not being unsolo'ed before the next render. We may or may not be able to pick this one off for the 4.0b update, but if not 4.0b, it'll be fixed for 4.0c. Your workaround of muting tracks that you don't want rendered is probably the best, given the situation.

Sorry about that,
Joel

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: SonicJG

Date:10/23/2002 3:00:45 PM

Good news. It'll be fixed in 4.0b.

Joel

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: spesimen

Date:10/23/2002 5:45:43 PM

does that fix include the busses rendering issue or just the soloing (or moving/renaming) issue?

i was under the impression the buss issue was due to the fact that a real mixing board works that way or something. (soloing a track doesn't kill sends from other tracks that are aren't solo'd or somesuch, even though on a daw this is probably not intuitive)

is that right? now i'm sorta confused.

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: dkistner

Date:10/24/2002 6:21:48 AM

Joel, this IS good news! Thanks for letting us know what's going on with this and, best of all, that you're on it.

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: SonicJG

Date:10/24/2002 11:05:45 AM

Actually, this bug was occurring irrespective of bus routing. It was dependent only on having the solo flag set on tracks. I just verified in today's build that it's fixed for the case presented by Diane and also for a standard case where there is no bus routing.

Joel

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: dkistner

Date:10/25/2002 5:23:30 AM

Joel, one thing I didn't mention, that perhaps you've also checked with the "solo" bug. I finally rendered my tracks out using the MUTE (not solo) approach with the "save project markers" box checked. When I pulled the rendered tracks into a new project, there were no markers.

Is it a misunderstanding on my part that the markers I'd set in the original project (e.g. "2 Begin Chorus") would transfer to the rendered tracks and automatically be set for the new project? Or is a "project marker" something different from the region/time markers?

Somebody enlighten me if I'm misunderstanding how saving project markers works. But if it's supposed to work like I think it's supposed to work, then it may be part of this bug.

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: SonicJG

Date:10/25/2002 4:52:57 PM

Only "standard" (M) markers will be saved. Tempo/Key/TimeSig markers are not.

Is that what you're seeing? That's what I'm seeing with build 237.

Thanks,
Joel

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: dkistner

Date:10/26/2002 7:33:17 AM

My standard M markers were not saved. I may not have entered them with M from the keyboard, however. I'll test this again later today and let you know if it still is not working.

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: dkistner

Date:10/26/2002 2:35:16 PM

Nope. No markers. Is there something you have to do to make markers that were rendered out using Save Project Markets with Media File checked display when added to a new project?

I thought at first maybe it was because I forgot to disable my virus checker, but I did it both ways and nothing either time.

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: SonicJG

Date:10/28/2002 10:52:12 AM

So, when opening the rendered files in Sound Forge, you don't see markers???

Joel

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: dkistner

Date:10/29/2002 4:23:39 PM

I don't have Sound Forge. When opening them in ACID (say, for a different project using those tracks) I don't see markers.

But, guess what? If I render the entire file (even to separate tracks), with NO tracks muted, I get markers! Is that the way it's supposed to work? It's just when I try to mute some tracks and output others that I don't get markers. Weird.

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: SonicJG

Date:10/29/2002 4:54:14 PM

I'm completely not reproducing what you're seeing then. If you look at the rendered tracks' track properties dialog or the chopper view, do you see the markers there?

Joel

Subject:RE: WEIRD problem rendering to separate tracks - HELP!

Reply by: dkistner

Date:10/30/2002 6:26:32 AM

Joel, of course I rendered the good ones over the ones I'd done using mute, so I'll have to reconstruct this again. Slammed right now, but I'll try to get back to a test this weekend.

But a quick question: When you save the markers with individually rendered tracks, shouldn't they display at the top of the new project's arrange page (sorry if I'm using the wrong word; the right-hand side where you see your markers and regions), or do they only display in the Chopper? I haven't used Chopper much yet, I confess. If the answer is "just in Chopper," then this "bug" is my not knowing how it's supposed to work!