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From: Mike on 31 Jul 2008 10:38

I'm wondering if anyone can help me out here.

I'm in the middle of a project and on one of the songs I heard some
timing "issues" between the drums & acoustic guitar. Went up to
You-Tube, watched the tutorials on AudioSnap and set about using it to
correct the problem. I probably even went overboard with it, using it
to "align" phrasing on harmony vocals, and even an errant tom hit on
the drum tracks. The results were nothing short of phenomenal...

....until I went to export.

I noted while using AudioSnap, that some extreme timing changes would
result in what I would characterize as digital artifacts in the clip.
For example, trying to pull an extreme mis-timing on a harmony vox, in
line with the lead vox, caused an odd echo-like effect to happen. I
was able to successfully use V-Vocal's time function for that
particular problem and, as I said before, the end result was sweet.

But then on Export>Audio>What You Hear:
1. The export progress bar at the bottom of the screen would complete
and start over nearly 20 times. At first I thought SPE6 had crashed,
so I escaped out of the export (no file was generated), restarted
SPE6, same result. So I rebooted the computer, same problem.
2. I decided to let this apparent multiple-export run it's course and,
after about 15 minutes of watching it "restart" the export, it finally
finished, and there was a single WAV file sitting in my export folder.
3. I played back the exported file and it was just full of the
afore-mentioned digital artifacts, which of course is totally
unacceptable. On playback of the song directly from the SPE6 project,
I'm hearing no artifacts.

All of this happened late last night, so I haven't had a chance to
really research the issue, figuring I'd post here first. I should
mention that this is the only song from the current sessions (8 songs)
where I've used AudioSnap, and none of the other exports have given me
any trouble, so logical deduction, it must have something to do with
AudioSnap.

What I may try to do is to freeze all of the tracks where AudioSnap
was used, and then try the export again, but I was wondering if anyone
else had encountered this problem and possibly found a solution or
work-around.

I'm also wondering, assuming this is a bug in SPE6, if it's corrected
in SPE7, which would move up the time-table for installing the
upgrade, but only after the other 7 songs are complete (I'm tight with
Murphy, and he don't like me much).

I'm not above considering it a user-error, either. We did not use a
click track for the basic tracking (acoustic track was overdubbed,
played as a scratch track with an electric guitar straight into the
DAW from a Line6 POD Pro preamp). However, using the kick drum as a
guide (the song is the old John Prine, "Angel from Montgomery," so
pretty straightforward 4/4 time), I did set up a M:B:T grid before
making the adjustments to the acoustic guitar & vox tracks. I'm
wondering if this is part of the problem. Also, as a software engineer
by trade, my configuration management is reasonably tight, so I can
easily retreat to the version prior to deploying audio-snap.

FWIW, I've been using Cakewalk since it was a Twelve-Tone product (and
only a midi sequencer, using it to play back keyboard & drum parts,
triggered from a midi-striped track on my old 8-track deck), usually
upgrading to every new version around the time of its availability,
but not always /installing/ the upgrade right away. For example, I
/have/ SPE7, but I didn't want to get hung up on any new features (or
bugs) during this project, so I have yet to install it.

Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

BTW, been here before (it's been awhile, though), know the drill about
fake/real email addresses. The address is real, just remove NO-PLONK
and please don't plonk me. TIA.

Mike
From: Max Arwood on 31 Jul 2008 12:31
Audio snap can take forever to export the audio. Freezing tracks is a good
idea if you are going to mix bounce / remix / bounce etc.

Max Arwood

"Mike" <adapts72572(a)NO-PLONKmypacks.net> wrote in message
news:ovg394l8o4h8tbqi59vug6l7g69m63ujkp(a)4ax.com...
>
> I'm wondering if anyone can help me out here.
>
> I'm in the middle of a project and on one of the songs I heard some
> timing "issues" between the drums & acoustic guitar. Went up to
> You-Tube, watched the tutorials on AudioSnap and set about using it to
> correct the problem. I probably even went overboard with it, using it
> to "align" phrasing on harmony vocals, and even an errant tom hit on
> the drum tracks. The results were nothing short of phenomenal...
>
> ...until I went to export.
>
> I noted while using AudioSnap, that some extreme timing changes would
> result in what I would characterize as digital artifacts in the clip.
> For example, trying to pull an extreme mis-timing on a harmony vox, in
> line with the lead vox, caused an odd echo-like effect to happen. I
> was able to successfully use V-Vocal's time function for that
> particular problem and, as I said before, the end result was sweet.
>
> But then on Export>Audio>What You Hear:
> 1. The export progress bar at the bottom of the screen would complete
> and start over nearly 20 times. At first I thought SPE6 had crashed,
> so I escaped out of the export (no file was generated), restarted
> SPE6, same result. So I rebooted the computer, same problem.
> 2. I decided to let this apparent multiple-export run it's course and,
> after about 15 minutes of watching it "restart" the export, it finally
> finished, and there was a single WAV file sitting in my export folder.
> 3. I played back the exported file and it was just full of the
> afore-mentioned digital artifacts, which of course is totally
> unacceptable. On playback of the song directly from the SPE6 project,
> I'm hearing no artifacts.
>
> All of this happened late last night, so I haven't had a chance to
> really research the issue, figuring I'd post here first. I should
> mention that this is the only song from the current sessions (8 songs)
> where I've used AudioSnap, and none of the other exports have given me
> any trouble, so logical deduction, it must have something to do with
> AudioSnap.
>
> What I may try to do is to freeze all of the tracks where AudioSnap
> was used, and then try the export again, but I was wondering if anyone
> else had encountered this problem and possibly found a solution or
> work-around.
>
> I'm also wondering, assuming this is a bug in SPE6, if it's corrected
> in SPE7, which would move up the time-table for installing the
> upgrade, but only after the other 7 songs are complete (I'm tight with
> Murphy, and he don't like me much).
>
> I'm not above considering it a user-error, either. We did not use a
> click track for the basic tracking (acoustic track was overdubbed,
> played as a scratch track with an electric guitar straight into the
> DAW from a Line6 POD Pro preamp). However, using the kick drum as a
> guide (the song is the old John Prine, "Angel from Montgomery," so
> pretty straightforward 4/4 time), I did set up a M:B:T grid before
> making the adjustments to the acoustic guitar & vox tracks. I'm
> wondering if this is part of the problem. Also, as a software engineer
> by trade, my configuration management is reasonably tight, so I can
> easily retreat to the version prior to deploying audio-snap.
>
> FWIW, I've been using Cakewalk since it was a Twelve-Tone product (and
> only a midi sequencer, using it to play back keyboard & drum parts,
> triggered from a midi-striped track on my old 8-track deck), usually
> upgrading to every new version around the time of its availability,
> but not always /installing/ the upgrade right away. For example, I
> /have/ SPE7, but I didn't want to get hung up on any new features (or
> bugs) during this project, so I have yet to install it.
>
> Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
>
> BTW, been here before (it's been awhile, though), know the drill about
> fake/real email addresses. The address is real, just remove NO-PLONK
> and please don't plonk me. TIA.
>
> Mike


From: Mike on 1 Aug 2008 09:16
Thanks, Max. Still haven't had a chance to try that (my PAYING job has
taken priority), but plan to when I get back down to the studio.

After this project is complete, I'll install v7 and retreat to this
version of the song and see if any improvements were made in the
upgrade.

I'll post results of all when round-tuit is acquired.

Mike

On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:31:08 -0500, "Max Arwood"
<marwoodNOSPAM(a)hnb.com> wrote:

>Audio snap can take forever to export the audio. Freezing tracks is a good
>idea if you are going to mix bounce / remix / bounce etc.
>
>Max Arwood
>
>"Mike" <adapts72572(a)NO-PLONKmypacks.net> wrote in message
>news:ovg394l8o4h8tbqi59vug6l7g69m63ujkp(a)4ax.com...
>>
>> I'm wondering if anyone can help me out here.
>>
>> I'm in the middle of a project and on one of the songs I heard some
>> timing "issues" between the drums & acoustic guitar. Went up to
>> You-Tube, watched the tutorials on AudioSnap and set about using it to
>> correct the problem. I probably even went overboard with it, using it
>> to "align" phrasing on harmony vocals, and even an errant tom hit on
>> the drum tracks. The results were nothing short of phenomenal...
>>
>> ...until I went to export.
>>
>> I noted while using AudioSnap, that some extreme timing changes would
>> result in what I would characterize as digital artifacts in the clip.
>> For example, trying to pull an extreme mis-timing on a harmony vox, in
>> line with the lead vox, caused an odd echo-like effect to happen. I
>> was able to successfully use V-Vocal's time function for that
>> particular problem and, as I said before, the end result was sweet.
>>
>> But then on Export>Audio>What You Hear:
>> 1. The export progress bar at the bottom of the screen would complete
>> and start over nearly 20 times. At first I thought SPE6 had crashed,
>> so I escaped out of the export (no file was generated), restarted
>> SPE6, same result. So I rebooted the computer, same problem.
>> 2. I decided to let this apparent multiple-export run it's course and,
>> after about 15 minutes of watching it "restart" the export, it finally
>> finished, and there was a single WAV file sitting in my export folder.
>> 3. I played back the exported file and it was just full of the
>> afore-mentioned digital artifacts, which of course is totally
>> unacceptable. On playback of the song directly from the SPE6 project,
>> I'm hearing no artifacts.
>>
>> All of this happened late last night, so I haven't had a chance to
>> really research the issue, figuring I'd post here first. I should
>> mention that this is the only song from the current sessions (8 songs)
>> where I've used AudioSnap, and none of the other exports have given me
>> any trouble, so logical deduction, it must have something to do with
>> AudioSnap.
>>
>> What I may try to do is to freeze all of the tracks where AudioSnap
>> was used, and then try the export again, but I was wondering if anyone
>> else had encountered this problem and possibly found a solution or
>> work-around.
>>
>> I'm also wondering, assuming this is a bug in SPE6, if it's corrected
>> in SPE7, which would move up the time-table for installing the
>> upgrade, but only after the other 7 songs are complete (I'm tight with
>> Murphy, and he don't like me much).
>>
>> I'm not above considering it a user-error, either. We did not use a
>> click track for the basic tracking (acoustic track was overdubbed,
>> played as a scratch track with an electric guitar straight into the
>> DAW from a Line6 POD Pro preamp). However, using the kick drum as a
>> guide (the song is the old John Prine, "Angel from Montgomery," so
>> pretty straightforward 4/4 time), I did set up a M:B:T grid before
>> making the adjustments to the acoustic guitar & vox tracks. I'm
>> wondering if this is part of the problem. Also, as a software engineer
>> by trade, my configuration management is reasonably tight, so I can
>> easily retreat to the version prior to deploying audio-snap.
>>
>> FWIW, I've been using Cakewalk since it was a Twelve-Tone product (and
>> only a midi sequencer, using it to play back keyboard & drum parts,
>> triggered from a midi-striped track on my old 8-track deck), usually
>> upgrading to every new version around the time of its availability,
>> but not always /installing/ the upgrade right away. For example, I
>> /have/ SPE7, but I didn't want to get hung up on any new features (or
>> bugs) during this project, so I have yet to install it.
>>
>> Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
>>
>> BTW, been here before (it's been awhile, though), know the drill about
>> fake/real email addresses. The address is real, just remove NO-PLONK
>> and please don't plonk me. TIA.
>>
>> Mike
>
From: Mike on 5 Aug 2008 09:32

OK, so here's the deal.

I started with trying to freeze tracks. First to freeze (I wish you
could select a group of track and have it sequentially freeze each one
while I go off and get a beer...) was one of the drum overhead mic
tracks.

I mentioned in my original post that I corrected an errant tom-hit
using Audio-Snap, and it was necessary to perform the operation in 3
places:

1. The tom mic track itself--each tom on my house kit is mic'ed
separately (SM57's) and, using the Sonitus Gate and some judiciously
applied track-muting, I'm getting virtually complete isolation of
each.
2. & 3. The left & right drum overhead mic tracks (R0de NT5 pair).

Without doing the latter, I ended up with an odd-sounding echo, as the
errant tom hit was late of the beat it should have been on, and still
audible in the overheads in spite of a 400Hz roll-of in those tracks
(I'm really only interested in capturing cymbals & snare nuances with
the overheads, so rolling off at 400Hz helps keep the "mud" and
potential phase issues to a minimum).

So I freeze that first overhead mic track. Then I soloed the frozen
track. As soon as the play-head hit the spot of the Audio-Snap edit,
that frozen track launched into an Alvin & the Chipmunks effect,
playback SOUNDING like it was sped up by a factor of 3. Alarmed at
this result, I un-soloed the track & played the whole
project--everything else was in proper time, except that 5-second spot
on the frozen track and ONLY on that track. Sounded bizarre, to say
the least.

I promptly unfroze the track, and all was right again with the world.

Then I set about soloing each of the tracks to which I had applied
Audio-Snap edits and, indeed, the artifacts I heard on the exported
file were still there in the project in a number of spots. Not sure
why I wasn't hearing them in Sonar when this whole thing started, but
I certainly can hear them now, solo or no.

So, the moral of the story is...

1. The tyranny of the click is not so bad after all
2. Loose-cannon Audio-Snap will make you have a bad day
3. V-Vocal's time-stretch function can do some pretty impressive
things, but again, judiciously applied

Thanks again, Max.

Mike


On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:16:34 -0400, Mike
<adapts72572(a)FUGGEDABODITmypacks.net> wrote:

>Thanks, Max. Still haven't had a chance to try that (my PAYING job has
>taken priority), but plan to when I get back down to the studio.
>
>After this project is complete, I'll install v7 and retreat to this
>version of the song and see if any improvements were made in the
>upgrade.
>
>I'll post results of all when round-tuit is acquired.
>
>Mike
>
>On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:31:08 -0500, "Max Arwood"
><marwoodNOSPAM(a)hnb.com> wrote:
>
>>Audio snap can take forever to export the audio. Freezing tracks is a good
>>idea if you are going to mix bounce / remix / bounce etc.
>>
>>Max Arwood
>>
>>"Mike" <adapts72572(a)NO-PLONKmypacks.net> wrote in message
>>news:ovg394l8o4h8tbqi59vug6l7g69m63ujkp(a)4ax.com...
>>>
>>> I'm wondering if anyone can help me out here.
>>>
>>> I'm in the middle of a project and on one of the songs I heard some
>>> timing "issues" between the drums & acoustic guitar. Went up to
>>> You-Tube, watched the tutorials on AudioSnap and set about using it to
>>> correct the problem. I probably even went overboard with it, using it
>>> to "align" phrasing on harmony vocals, and even an errant tom hit on
>>> the drum tracks. The results were nothing short of phenomenal...
>>>
>>> ...until I went to export.
>>>
>>> I noted while using AudioSnap, that some extreme timing changes would
>>> result in what I would characterize as digital artifacts in the clip.
>>> For example, trying to pull an extreme mis-timing on a harmony vox, in
>>> line with the lead vox, caused an odd echo-like effect to happen. I
>>> was able to successfully use V-Vocal's time function for that
>>> particular problem and, as I said before, the end result was sweet.
>>>
>>> But then on Export>Audio>What You Hear:
>>> 1. The export progress bar at the bottom of the screen would complete
>>> and start over nearly 20 times. At first I thought SPE6 had crashed,
>>> so I escaped out of the export (no file was generated), restarted
>>> SPE6, same result. So I rebooted the computer, same problem.
>>> 2. I decided to let this apparent multiple-export run it's course and,
>>> after about 15 minutes of watching it "restart" the export, it finally
>>> finished, and there was a single WAV file sitting in my export folder.
>>> 3. I played back the exported file and it was just full of the
>>> afore-mentioned digital artifacts, which of course is totally
>>> unacceptable. On playback of the song directly from the SPE6 project,
>>> I'm hearing no artifacts.
>>>
>>> All of this happened late last night, so I haven't had a chance to
>>> really research the issue, figuring I'd post here first. I should
>>> mention that this is the only song from the current sessions (8 songs)
>>> where I've used AudioSnap, and none of the other exports have given me
>>> any trouble, so logical deduction, it must have something to do with
>>> AudioSnap.
>>>
>>> What I may try to do is to freeze all of the tracks where AudioSnap
>>> was used, and then try the export again, but I was wondering if anyone
>>> else had encountered this problem and possibly found a solution or
>>> work-around.
>>>
>>> I'm also wondering, assuming this is a bug in SPE6, if it's corrected
>>> in SPE7, which would move up the time-table for installing the
>>> upgrade, but only after the other 7 songs are complete (I'm tight with
>>> Murphy, and he don't like me much).
>>>
>>> I'm not above considering it a user-error, either. We did not use a
>>> click track for the basic tracking (acoustic track was overdubbed,
>>> played as a scratch track with an electric guitar straight into the
>>> DAW from a Line6 POD Pro preamp). However, using the kick drum as a
>>> guide (the song is the old John Prine, "Angel from Montgomery," so
>>> pretty straightforward 4/4 time), I did set up a M:B:T grid before
>>> making the adjustments to the acoustic guitar & vox tracks. I'm
>>> wondering if this is part of the problem. Also, as a software engineer
>>> by trade, my configuration management is reasonably tight, so I can
>>> easily retreat to the version prior to deploying audio-snap.
>>>
>>> FWIW, I've been using Cakewalk since it was a Twelve-Tone product (and
>>> only a midi sequencer, using it to play back keyboard & drum parts,
>>> triggered from a midi-striped track on my old 8-track deck), usually
>>> upgrading to every new version around the time of its availability,
>>> but not always /installing/ the upgrade right away. For example, I
>>> /have/ SPE7, but I didn't want to get hung up on any new features (or
>>> bugs) during this project, so I have yet to install it.
>>>
>>> Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>> BTW, been here before (it's been awhile, though), know the drill about
>>> fake/real email addresses. The address is real, just remove NO-PLONK
>>> and please don't plonk me. TIA.
>>>
>>> Mike
>>
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