Logic Error When Bouncing Regions in Place

[nickmck]

Hey guys,

Using Logic Pro X 10.7.4 on a Mac mini M1. Mac OS Big Sur 11.6.7

I'm really at a loss here... when I bounce MIDI to audio, specifically when the MIDI note is at the very beginning of the region, the bounced audio is starting at a random point in the audio. For example, when I'm designing kicks on Serum I always place a MIDI note at the very beginning of the region which is usually at the starting point of my track (Position 1 1 1 1) and I've never had this issue.

However, Logic seems to have become desynchronized with the bounced audio and now starts the audio from a random (I say random but it's a consistent place in where the audio starts every time it's bounced) point in the waveform; this typically produces a click because the audio is not starting at a zero-crossing anymore and completely kills the initial transient of the kick drum as well. 

I've noticed that if I move the MIDI note further along (Position 1 1 2 1, or further) the intended sound design is preserved. 

This only happens with third party plugins and doesn't happen when I bounce MIDI to audio from Logic's drum synth for example. Additionally, if I reset my project sometimes it happens right away and sometimes it takes a while for the issue to start happening again. 

This is honestly so disheartening because I really enjoy using Serum and Spire, etc. but they've almost become unusable now. 

I've uninstalled and reinstalled Logic and Serum but the issue still remains. I'm wondering whether this is a bug or something that's only happening to me although I have no idea why it would only be happening to me. 

Do you guys have any idea what this could be and if not how can I get support from Apple or at least report the issue properly? I do believe I've reported this issue already through the proper avenue but I'm not sure if it's gone to the right place. 

Can any of you replicate this error? I'm so bummed. For now, I'm just using the only solution I've found which is to place the MIDI note further in the region but this whole issue is seriously slowing down my workflow. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by nickmck

[polanoid]

Does this happen with all 3rd party plug-ins or only with Serum (haven’t got that one so I could only try with e.g. Kontakt)? (EDIT: Just tried with Kontakt and bx_oberhausen and couldn't reproduce the issue)

Do you have any additional plug-ins inserted in the channel strip? Possibly ones that induce latency?

I take it that if you move the left border of the MIDI region to the left, so that it starts with, say, 1 bar of silence, the issue does not happen? Does the bounced waveform then start before the actual position of the first MIDI note?

Edited July 16, 2022 by polanoid

[nickmck]

1 hour ago, polanoid said:

Does this happen with all 3rd party plug-ins or only with Serum (haven’t got that one so I could only try with e.g. Kontakt)? (EDIT: Just tried with Kontakt and bx_oberhausen and couldn't reproduce the issue)

Do you have any additional plug-ins inserted in the channel strip? Possibly ones that induce latency?

I take it that if you move the left border of the MIDI region to the left, so that it starts with, say, 1 bar of silence, the issue does not happen? Does the bounced waveform then start before the actual position of the first MIDI note?

It happens with all 3rd party plug-ins that I've tested like Spire and Vital. Unfortunately, when testing those ones out to make kick drums the same issue happens. I do have additional plug-ins but they're mostly all Logic plug-ins like overdrive and the vintage EQs. Low latency mode does turn off the vintage EQ during MIDI playback before bouncing but it's strange because I've always used the same plug-ins and the issue just happened seemingly out of nowhere! It's almost like something is now broken on my computer or with my software but I have no idea what would create this issue. 

I'll attach a screenshot to show you. Essentially, bouncing a MIDI note at the beginning of a region chops off the initial transient of the waveform whereas bouncing it slightly over to the right preserves the entire sound. I used to be able to just bounce a kick anywhere and the whole thing was preserved like the kick in the grey region down below the green one. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by nickmck

[polanoid]

15 minutes ago, nickmck said:

the issue just happened seemingly out of nowhere

So it was not related to e.g. updating Logic or the OS?

[nickmck]

7 minutes ago, polanoid said:

So it was not related to e.g. updating Logic or the OS?

It very well may have been! Those two updates are really the only two things I can think that are causing this issue but if it were happening to everyone I feel like it would be widely noticed. I'm not sure whether to like factory reset my computer but I really wouldn't want to. 

[triplets]

So if you move the midi region to bar 2 or 3 it bounces correctly?

[nickmck]

45 minutes ago, triplets said:

So if you move the midi region to bar 2 or 3 it bounces correctly?

Correct sir. I hope the screenshot illustrates what I mean well enough. It's really strange because this has never been an issue before, using the same plug-ins as far as I can recall. Even when I used more 3rd party plugins like Trash 2, it used to bounce correctly but now I'm forced to move the MIDI region forward and use the snipping tool to make sure it's correct and usable. It's just a big workflow disruptor and generally unusual. Even more unusual is how this issue seems to resolve sometimes when starting a new project but will randomly start doing it again after some time. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by nickmck

[nickmck]

11 hours ago, triplets said:

So if you move the midi region to bar 2 or 3 it bounces correctly?

But if you notice, I actually didn't move it a full bar; I moved the MIDI note to a further tick to the right within Bar 1. If I was to place a region exactly at Bar 2, with the MIDI note starting exactly at bar 2, and try to bounce it from there... it still doesn't work! It's almost like Logic needs time within a bounced region to bounce correctly, it seemingly begins to randomly be unable to bounce a MIDI note that's at the beginning of a region. Again, this issue doesn't always happen from the beginning of a session but as time goes on in a new project, it's almost guaranteed to become a problem now. 

[triplets]

8 hours ago, nickmck said:

I moved the MIDI note to a further tick to the right within Bar 1.

You moved the midi note to the next 16th note, but Logic bounced it correctly according to the screenshot. Unless I'm not seeing that right?

[nickmck]

6 hours ago, triplets said:

You moved the midi note to the next 16th note, but Logic bounced it correctly according to the screenshot. Unless I'm not seeing that right?

I only moved it because I had to. I usually wouldn't have to move it a 16th note to the right. If I have the MIDI note at the very beginning of a region, it cuts the initial section of the waveform off which almost always introduces a click because the waveform is no longer starting at the zero-crossing it was intended to start at. I updated to Monterey to see if that would help but it didn't so I factory reset my Mac but nothing has worked and it's still an issue. 

Interestingly, all of these issues disappear when using Logic's electronic drum kits; even the weird phase shifting the vintage EQs have been introducing (again, cutting off the initial transient of waveforms which it never did before) doesn't appear when using Logic's own sounds and they bounce perfectly fine no matter where the MIDI note is in the region. I'm about to download Logic and Serum on my wife's computer to see if I can replicate the issue. If it persists, it has to be a bug. As far as I know, none of my third party plugins are bouncing properly but all of Logic's native sounds bounce properly no matter where the MIDI note is. 

Edited July 17, 2022 by nickmck

[triplets]

Could be a bug related to Serum. Strange Logic issues always happen with 3rd party stuff. It's part of the experience 😉

[nickmck]

1 hour ago, triplets said:

Could be a bug related to Serum. Strange Logic issues always happen with 3rd party stuff. It's part of the experience 😉

I actually nailed the issue down a little further! This is what I've come to learn so far: 

- Seems to strictly be a 'bounce track in place' issue.

- Issue does not happen when bouncing native Logic sounds no matter what other Logic plugins are in the chain. Bouncing in place always works as intended with native Logic sounds even if the bounce in place error has occurred with third party plugins during the session. 

- Logic will (seemingly at random) have errors with the bounce in place feature. Those errors then remain for the rest of the session. However, I have noticed that using the Vintage EQ collection and then bouncing the MIDI seemingly induces this issue. Again, once the bounce in place issue happens once, it remains the entire session for the third party plugins. 

- Using the 'bounce project or section' function instead for bouncing MIDI from third party plugins, no matter what other plugins are in the chain, fixes this issue entirely. All plugins then behave as they should and bounce properly even for my third party plugins.

- This definitely seems like a Logic induced error.

I attached another screenshot to show you the difference between bounce project or section vs bounce in place. As you can see, on the left (when using bounce project or section) the full transient is preserved and starts at the zero-crossing where it should. The image on the right is the same exact MIDI bounced but bounced with the bounce in place feature. 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2022 by nickmck