I think this is the correct sub-forum for a question on mixing "large" songs

YellowDwarf

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I think this is the correct sub-forum for a question on mixing "large" songs

Hi all,

I have a couple of projects on the go in Sonar X3, pretty good DAW with an i5 and 16 gigs under Windows 10. I'm wondering how to approach an issue that I run into from time to time. This never happens with a 3 minute, simple rock song with a few audio tracks.

By the way, I've been around the block, and have read about and done all the system optimizing possible. I could move to an i7, but don't have the $$.

These are a couple of long running, complicated mixes with alot of VSTi's and effects. I'm still recording as I mix and I think that is the main problem. But I need to do so to keep the creative juices flowing, so to speak.

What happens to me in this kind of situation is that as I mix and add/edit tracks, the CPU usage grows (I have enough memory) to the point where the song ends up clicking and crackling because the CPU is overpowered by all the virtual stuff. So I bounce tracks to audio and "archive" or disable synths to get the CPU back down to <50%. It becomes a constant back and forth and screws up my creative time.

I guess I have 2 options:

1 - record and complete the song before mixing
2 - keep doing what I do now with fewer VSTs

Anybody will to share their techniques for when you get a project that's bigger than your DAW chew?

Thanks,
Timbo
 
I use Sonar X3 studio on an older laptop(5-6 years old) with Windows Home(7 or 8)....never had one problem with songs of any length and never used "too many" VST plugins to present a problem. However, some plugin, if I have them opened and viewing, will cause a slight crackle every now and then but it never transfers on mixdown. I think you probably have a setup issue. Are you using the ASIO drivers?
 
Interesting. I use a Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 interface.

Imagine 30 tracks with at least one VST, plus 2 or 3 VSTis and I could have 50-75 VSTs loaded. That's a lot of processing.
 
Obviously, at SOME point your computer will say NO. But I have yet to experience that with 20+ tracks with at least 1(usually 2-3) VsTs loaded per track. You may have just reached your computers threshold. Are you watching the resource meter on the top bar while all of this is happening?
 
You are doing something wrong? If it is glitching, I suspect that it's something sim plebe - buffer sizes being a key feature here, and all the sampler stuff coming in off the drives is not contiguous, and the buffers empty, and it glitches. Somewhere, and I don't know where, as I'm a Cubase user, there will be a feature allowing you to set your audio device to have a bigger buffer size, which usually cures this, at the expense of maybe a bit extra latency worst case. with your 16Gb of ram, I'd not expect your usage to cause grief. I can add more instances of Kontakt players with big libraries with very manageable increase in overhead, and I've never needed to freeze any tracks back to audio. I usually have a page full of tracks, each with all kinds of reverbs and processing. The only killer for me is when Windows occasionally disobeys me and starts thinking for itself, download and installing things.
 
I would check reverb plug in's, they take up a lot of processing power. If you have a reverb plug in on multiple tracks this could be killing you. Solutions are, use a reverb send so that only one reverb plug in is running not Multiples.

Make a copy of the track with the reverb and Render the copy with the reverb in it. Then turn off the original track. If later you need to adjust the track again, delete the rendered track with the reverb and go back to the original.

Alan.
 
I would check reverb plug in's, they take up a lot of processing power. If you have a reverb plug in on multiple tracks this could be killing you. Solutions are, use a reverb send so that only one reverb plug in is running not Multiples.

Make a copy of the track with the reverb and Render the copy with the reverb in it. Then turn off the original track. If later you need to adjust the track again, delete the rendered track with the reverb and go back to the original.

Alan.
Thanks for this - it's basically what I've been forced to do in this situation on almost every track.

Tim
 
If you are recording & mixing at the same time then you'll need to get into the habit of raising your buffers when mixing but lowering them when recording.
If it glitches during recording then you can easily bypass your Fx plugs with one click, or I think the shortcut in Sonar X3 is 'E' then switch them back on when you've done
 
Anybody will to share their techniques for when you get a project that's bigger than your DAW chew?

Thanks,
Timbo

Hi Timbo...

Freezing tracks is usually faster than bouncing them

Use global busses instead of placing tracks on every single channel. A global bus is a reverb/delay/distortion etc...that is parked on a bus which every track in the session has access to through a send.

You should be able to outsource your processing load to another machine if you have a second computer handy. Most DAWs have a way of doing this. I assume Sonar does too.

You may already be there, but you know being on a SSD hard drive is much more important than your processor....right?

Out of date plugins can be terribly taxing on a CPU. I sincerely hope this isn't the case, but if you are using cracked/pirated plugins I have zero sympathy, and quite frankly I'm glad your rig is crashing because you deserve it.
 
Thanks, most of my plugs that didn't come as part of Sonar are 32 bit and are either free or bought and paid for.

Tim
 
Make some fucking decisions! ;)

Commit some stuff. Bounce or freeze or whatever. Any plugin you haven't actually touched in a week? Bounce the thing. That's what it does. No need to recalculate it every time. Put it on tape. Save As beforehand if you really want to be safe.
 
Oddly enough, I switched to the new Bandlab version of Sonar Platinum (I was on X3) and the problems have disappeared.
 
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