5.2 STILL CHOPPING OFF TIME AT START OF RENDERED TRACKS !!!!

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James Cater
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5.2 STILL CHOPPING OFF TIME AT START OF RENDERED TRACKS !!!!

Post by James Cater » Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:20 pm

Ableton,

I'm trying to render multiple MIXED tracks to disk.

Rendering individual songs to disk zeros the beginning of the WAV file for 1-8ms. (ie chops off the wave form)

This does not happen if a single track is added to an arrangement as a test case and the middle of the song is rendered.

I have a full set of 13 songs mixed together, and now when I try to render the tracks I get 1-8ms gaps between the songs.

I seem to remember seeing a similar bug to this several times on the forums.

Ableton cannot render a WAV file bigger than 2Gb (another shortcoming) so I have to render mixed tracks individually.
Now it's impossible to put together a 96/24 mix album without gaps.
Last edited by James Cater on Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

James Cater
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Post by James Cater » Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:26 pm

I'm not using any external VST pluggins,

There are several active Ableton effects in the set.
EQ 4's
Flangers
Phasers
Auto filters
Simple delays

James Cater
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Post by James Cater » Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:11 pm

Ok,

I think I've tracked down this bug,

It looks like it's caused by Ableton's simple delay.

I've managed to put a single song in an arrangement with a simple delay
(linked/100%wet and some delay added)

In fact the gap at the beginning is exacltly the same as the delay set.
(ie 1ms delay produces 1ms missing, 14ms = 14ms missing)

I imagine reverb effects and other plugins will suffer the same fate.

To solve this problem I suggest that Ableton could start the rendering in memory 1 bar BEFORE the render point, and then begin streaming to disk when the exact time is reached.
Last edited by James Cater on Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

longjohns
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Post by longjohns » Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:13 am

what would be the good of rendering before any audio is present?

it seems like with a 14ms delay that the first 14 ms of the rendering should be "dry". so if it's just generating silence instead of the dry first 14ms, then yes, that's a problem! but rolling back further in time doesn't seem to me to be the solution.

bensuthers
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Post by bensuthers » Tue Apr 11, 2006 4:09 am

james you should think just a little more about what you're talking about.

James Cater
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Post by James Cater » Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:11 am

Ok I'll try and explain this a little more.

If you have two tracks and they are being mixed.

1st track starts at 0 seconds
2nd track starts at 300 seconds

You have a 14ms delay set on the first track across the mix.

Ableton cannot render an entire 12 song mix at 96/24 so you are forced to render the tracks individually before mastering.

At 300 seconds you need to start the render with all the sounds in place, this will include 14ms of sound from the previous track as it was delayed by that amount.
The same would apply to any reverb trails that cross the mix boundary.

The only sensible thing to do in these instances is to start a virtual mix in memory some time BEFORE the track marker and then start rendering to disk when the time hits the requested mark.

And please hold the insults thank you.
Last edited by James Cater on Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

swpspce
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Post by swpspce » Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:58 am

James Cater wrote:Ok I'll try and explain this a little more.
And please hold the insults thank you. I design and write real time banking trading systems in C++/C# for a living. These systems are 10x the size and complexity of Ableton so I belive I am qualified to highlight design flaws in this product.
of course, whatever it is you do for a living is always more complex than what others do...apples & oranges
Apple PowerBook 12" 1Ghz 512mb Ram...ReMOTE 25, Live 4 beta 4, Kontakt, Reaktor

huffcw
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Post by huffcw » Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:45 pm

just for comparison, I believe Sonar has a similar issue (at least when I used it several years ago - so it could have been addressed by now). The answer from Cakewalk for that program was in general to always start all your productions with a 1 bar lead in of silence (so the actual song starts at the 2nd bar). This allows for everything (especially effects plugins and the bulk MIDI message that are typically present at the start of a song) to be buffered properly before the song actually starts - which is obviously very important when rendering to disk.

I am not sure if this will solve your problem, but thought I would share it just in case it might help.

Chris J
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Post by Chris J » Tue Apr 11, 2006 3:06 pm

huffcw wrote:just for comparison, I believe Sonar has a similar issue (at least when I used it several years ago - so it could have been addressed by now). The answer from Cakewalk for that program was in general to always start all your productions with a 1 bar lead in of silence (so the actual song starts at the 2nd bar). This allows for everything (especially effects plugins and the bulk MIDI message that are typically present at the start of a song) to be buffered properly before the song actually starts - which is obviously very important when rendering to disk.

I am not sure if this will solve your problem, but thought I would share it just in case it might help.
I think he means there is a gap in between songs in his rendered mix, not at the very start. So for 13 songs he's got 11 gaps
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longjohns
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Post by longjohns » Tue Apr 11, 2006 3:08 pm

i thought you were talking about rendering from the very beginning of the set, in which case there's nothing there before the audio starts.

if you're starting from somewhere in the middle (300 secs) then isn't it just a matter of telling Live to render from 299 sec yourself?

on another note, this sounds like no fun - making your mix then having to render each part individually, then edit it all back together. yuk

Chris J
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Re: 5.2 STILL CHOPPING OFF TIME AT START OF RENDERED TRACKS

Post by Chris J » Tue Apr 11, 2006 3:14 pm

James Cater wrote:I have a full set of 13 songs mixed together, and now when I try to render the tracks I get 1-8ms gaps between the songs.
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James Cater
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WORKAROUND FOUND

Post by James Cater » Tue Apr 11, 2006 4:45 pm

longjohns wrote: on another note, this sounds like no fun - making your mix then having to render each part individually, then edit it all back together. yuk
The only reason I do this is Ableton cannot master to CD. So I have to export all the song files to high resolution WAV files so I can master the songs. Mastering can involve compression, EQ, panning, bit rate reduction and dithering. Because of the extra processing I have to leave the resolution at 96/24.

If Ableton could write a file larger than 2Gb then I could render the entire CD in one file and this bug would not be a problem.

Just because there are other DAW's out there that have the same problem I don't see that as an excuse not to fix it.


I HAVE FOUND A WORKAROUND TO THIS PROBLEM....

I can use automation to ensure that the delay is always exactly 0ms at the track marker points.
Last edited by James Cater on Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

Chris J
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Post by Chris J » Tue Apr 11, 2006 5:08 pm

I don't understand : on one hand you say you export each song separately, on the other hand you say you have gaps between songs ??? WTF ?
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James Cater
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Post by James Cater » Tue Apr 11, 2006 5:45 pm

I have a continuous mix of 13 songs, I have track markers at cutover point of each track. This is generally 17 bars into the next song.

At the start of each rendered song there is a 1-14ms of silence (ie the waveform that should be there from the end of bar 16 has been removed by Ableton.)

When Ableton renders from the start of Bar 17 it failes to take account of the fact that 14ms should be copied from the end of Bar 16.

If Ableton Started rendering at Bar 16 with all the effects enabled, then by the time it got to Bar 17 the 14ms of sound from bar 16 would be in carried over into the gap.

I'm sorry if this is not clear, but it is a real issue for anyone trying to use delay in a multi track arrangement.

As noted above there is a workaround to remove any delay on the track boundaries.

Have I had any replies from Ableton Support ?

Chris J
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Post by Chris J » Tue Apr 11, 2006 6:10 pm

I still don't understand : if you want to export from bar 17 but something is missing, you export from bar 16 and remove that bar in your editor, as you're going there anyway
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