audio mixdown problems

D

darknailblue

New member
Hey guys! I've got me this little problem here that's causing me to go insane. I'm using Cubase SX2 to do tracking, and usually use 3 VSTis when writing a song. I have this one VSTi called the drum kit from hell by native instruments. Well the way it works is that it simulates mics on a drum kit and then whenever an instrument is triggered it playes a sample from each mic. i.e. the snare is hit and the two snare mic samples play, the overhead mic samples play and the ambience mic samples play. Well this is a lot of stuff to play at once and the drums demand a big part of the CPU's resources. I'm using right now and AMD Athlon 2000+ (1.6Ghz), 768MBs of RAM and have an 80GB hard drive. The problem is that when I go to mix down the project, the drums sometimes clip out, or cut out completely! Now I understand why this would happen during playback, but I don't know why it would happen during mixdown. Is there anyway to fix this?

~darknail
 
In the DFH control panel, try reducing the master volume. That might do it, they can clip and that might be causing the problem. Presumably you are not using the "Superior" version of DFH, which has a separate bounce funtion.
 
Well I've never had that problem, but I might have had something similar. I've made a project with one big The Grand track (piano VSTi with alot of samples) and a couple of Edirol Orchestral tracks. Waves RVerb and L1 on both of them. Export took a whopping half hour, and when I check it, the Edirol Tracks skipped a beat somewhere during the middle part of the song (cause everything to be dissaligned and useless). Tried exporting again, same thing. Tried turning off the waves plugins (have had problem with those and sudden latency in the exported files before), same thing. Then I exported the piano and the orchestral tracks seperately, then imported them into a new project, aplied the FX and exported. That worked, but it was a damn long work-around for a 1 minute piece (the Grand tracks was huge though, should probably have used something like 3 tracks for just The Grand, but I did everything in one track).

Different type of the comp crapping out, but the same cause, I would think. Try exporting as light as possible (all the FX off, 16bit 44khz) and see what happens.
 
Actually I misworded something. When I say clip out, I actually meant cut out. Like the drum track just stops. And what do u mean "superior" version of DFH? It's the 2nd edition if that's what you mean. Everything works fine, just the god damn drum tracks cuts out.

~darknailblue
 
There is a version of DFH, the most recent, that is called DFH Superior, is what I meant :) Have you tried posting on the toontracks forum?
 
Darknail,

What version/build of Cubase are you using? I know you said version 2, but there were a few updates from the first SX 2 version.

When did Native Instruments start doing DrumKit from Hell?
 
$270 for the superior??? I paid $99 for my version!!! Apparently toontrack produces DFH now. DFH 2 is the one I have and was produced by East West and used a special version of Native Instruments Kontact as the sampler. I think. So I am registered with them. I have Cubase 2.5.035? The newest 2 release.

~darknail
 
I'm sure there is a DFH2 forum on the toontrack site though, they still might be able to help. There are some pretty clued in and quick members there, I would try it. What confuses me is the problem you're having at mixdown - it's not done in real time, just as long as the CPU takes to process all the stuff, so surely it's not a processing power / RAM problem.

Did you try reducing playback levels in Kontact? Keep us informed.

By the way I've had some big sulks at toontrack over their interface (I think they are a bunch of self obsessed Scandinavian prats and their attitude to users stinks) but the drum sounds on superior are absolutely stunning. I have to admit it is worth the money. I only wish they would take some lessons from Gary Garritan on making life better for their customers.
 
Well, it MAAAAAAAY be a processing/ram problem. When I did tracking on Cakewalk Homestudio I never had a problem with it. On Cubase I do though. (It shouldn't be a problem though considering Cubase is 700 more bones than Homestudio is!!!) I'm running an amd athlon 1.6ghz (2000+) processor with 768MB of PC3200 RAM. I've been messing around with the settings on Cubase and have found this though. The DFH2 has a DFD (direct from disk) mode so that the samples are only buffered into the RAM instead of completely loaded into it. When they're triggerd, they are played mainly from the disk then. So I upped that up and found that when the buffer is up real high the samples play fine but there is error in the other VSTi's running and problems with the recorded audio playback. I also tried messing with the DMA buffer of my soundcard, and have had no successful results trying to tweak that. Lastly I also noticed, that this problem only occurs the longer a song is. ??????????????!?!?!!?!?!?!


~darknail
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top