Reaper rendering issue - MIDI VSTi sounds being "cut off"

Armistice

Son of Yoda
Hi

My VSTi is SSD4, but I don't think it matters.

(1) Happens to long sounds - so in a drum VSTi that's crashes and rides.
(2) Happens to every instance of crash and ride - takes about a second, which with rides you don't really notice if you're continually hitting it - very noticeable on crashes as they tend to be once every now and then
(3) Does not correlate to the length/ending of the MIDI note in the MIDI editor - this has never mattered with drums.
(4) Does not correlate with the end of a MIDI item (ie. the couple of bars that I program at a time)
(5) Happens during "standard" Offline / Full speed render only
(6) Does not happen during Offline 1x render
(7) Does not happen during normal playback, ONLY in rendering
(8) Is not a resource issue - my PC is sitting on 0% CPU when rendering and 20% memory or less
(9) Is a recent issue - never had it before last week - or at least never noticed it - I haven't been hugely active so maybe it's there for longer than I think
(10) I have the current version of Reaper. It was the same 2 versions ago as I just upgraded to the latest this morning to see if that would fix it, but it didn't.
(11) Happens on both the current songs I'm working on, so isn't a corruption in a single song
(12) Is not a formal "choke" event applied accidentally

All this says to me it's a specific render setting somewhere but I don't really know where to look. Any clues? Obviously I can render slowly, but that's really annoying and as I've been doing EXACTLY the same thing with the same software for years without experiencing this issue, Reaper, mate, it ain't me, it's YOU!

All theories investigated.:confused:

Thanks in advance. :D
 
In the render dialog box, check 'tail' and enter, say, 1000ms.

I don't know if this is the problem, but it's worth a try
 
Didn't even know there was such a box! So much for my powers of observation.:mad:

Will give it a try tonight and report back. Thanks geck. ;)
 
No "tail" option in the Render box that I see.

Armi - try stem rending just the SSD tracks and see if it still happens.
 
No "tail" option in the Render box that I see.

Armi - try stem rending just the SSD tracks and see if it still happens.

My googling generally, points me to the Cockos forum which indicates that it might be under Preferences, rather than on the actual dialogue. I'll have a dig later to see what I can find. Nowhere near my recording PC right now so can't check.

It does highlight that I know zero about the various rendering options, so I'll try to work them out as well as part of the process.... offline, online... no idea. I've always just used the default.

Problem rendering finished track - HELP!! [Archive] - Cockos Confederated Forums

(I'm just plonking this here not because it's the same thing but because I want to be able to find it and reread it properly later, seeing I'm actually furtively typing this at a conference just at the moment.:D
 
No "tail" option in the Render box that I see.

Armi - try stem rending just the SSD tracks and see if it still happens.

See under. However, I''m not sure that this is the problem. This just makes sure that if an effect (e.g. reverb) carries over past the end of the render selection, it doesn't get cut off.

reaper-tail-box.jpg
 
That's different from my view. On that line, I have the selection box 'master mix', 'time selection, 'region', then start, finish, length. Running V5.0.
 
How odd!

I'm Reaper 5.35. I use the R4 theme as a default, but I switched to the R5 theme in case it had something t do with that. I still get the 'tail' option.

However, if you go to options/preferences/ rendering, the tail options are there as well.
 
IIRC, the tail settings in Preferences affect the "right click render" actions that happen inside the project itself - Apply Track FX, Render, Freeze, etc. The tail settings in the render dialog apply to renders that use the dialog. None of that should have anything to do with what the OP is describing, but I honestly can't imagine what could be causing it, and it isn't going to hurt anything to try it out.

I agree that it's worth trying to Apply FX or render the drum track in the project itself. That's not a bad idea anyway for a number of reasons, but I'm curious to know if those "right click renders" will show the same problem.

Some plugins don't deal gracefully with offline renders. Reaper tells them that it's offline, but sometimes they either don't get the message or don't know what to do about it. Actually, now that I think about it, there are a couple Preference settings regarding informing plugins of offline state that you might try. There's a couple guys over on the Reaper forum that suggest always rendering anything MIDI/VSTi related in realtime just to be safe. I usually don't have problems, except...

I can tell you that both EZDrummer and SuperiorDrummer have a problem dealing with queued renders. Each time a new render comes up in the queue, Reaper loads the project - even if it's the same project as the last - and that causes EZD to start loading its samples all over again, but EZD doesn't really tell Reaper that it needs a couple seconds, so Reaper just takes off rendering, and you'll end up with a mix where there are no drums at the beginning, and they gradually join in one kit piece at a time until EZD catches up. It doesn't really sound like this is what's happening either, just an example of one way that plugins can fail at the offline thing.
 
I had a similar problem in Cubase many years ago. A volume automation envelope was set to zero right after a crash hit. Hard to find because the automation controllers are on hidden tracks. Seeing that it was Cubase, I don't know if relates to Reaper, but worth investigating.
 
What we have here gentlemen, is a step backwards in Reaper's ability to handle SSD4 from version 4.x to 5.x. I can get around it by rendering in real time, which is a slight PITA but I can live with it if I have to. Hopefully in some future release they'll get back to where they were. I'll try some of the other different rendering options to see if that makes it any quicker, but I'm not hopeful.

It's every hit, every song, so a global issue. They flag this themselves if you read some of the "notes" in the various associated render tickboxes and dialogues.

Presumably they changed something to improve something somewhere else and this is the downside.

Thanks for your comments.
 
tl;dr...and that's just the OP. ;)

Something quick to try before you dig in deeper is this. Pre-render your drums before you render the full mix. I noticed a difference when I started doing that. Something just sounds a little more refined about the drums. It's especially noticeable in the cymbals.
 
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