Is Offline Bouncing Reliable ?

[TC]

Is Offline Bouncing Reliable ?

 

I keep getting some clips even if I have a plain audio file with no plugins enabled. The same applies to export track as audio file. When I do it in Realtime everything works fine. I saw some others also complaining about offline bouncing, but couldn't find any answer. Is this a Logic bug or I am doing something wrong ?

Clip

[editbrain]

to make post with reading anything but the headline (subject)

 

i would say if you took time to write the song, why not listen to it when you capture it?

 

there are certain thing i have found the seem to like to run in realtime.

[camillo jr]

Are you making sure that you've run the end of the song out for 2 or 3 seconds before you do any bounce, online or offline? That will clear Logic's buffer and usually get rid of the infamous Logic blip of reverb sydrome. And it's not just verbs that get stuck in the buffer. The fish fillets and some other plugs will hold on to stuff too so you might hear some odd bit of vocal popping out from nowhere.

 

Some times deleting fade files in the audio window helps with the blips too. Other than that, I don't get the kind of spikes you're seeing with offline bounce.

[TC]

The peaks occur randomly on the hole song not just on the beginning, so I don't think it has to do with the buffer. And beside that there is no plugin enabled.

 

It happens more often with stereo files rather then mono ones.

 

I mainly use bounces to "consolidate" audio tracks. Since "Export track as audio file" give me the same problem I have to do it one by one in realtime.

 

I'll try to delete the fade files....

[Colinc]

i know it probubly doesn't help to hear this, but I offline bounce everything without that issue, and have been from Logic 5 all the way to 7.1.1... which leads me to think it might be a problem internally with your audio processing or RAM.

 

Have you noticed the same/similar problem on more than one project? can you isolate at what point it happens (i.e. only when you add an instance of the Space Designer? or some outboard gear?).

[TC]

I know that's not for everybody, but I read here at Logic Pro Help that some others were experiencing some problems with offline bouncing. (It was not clear to me if is exactly the same problem described here)

 

It occurred in more than a dozen different projects. I started to notice that in Logic 7.2 or 7.2.1. But before that I haven't done a lot of bouncing to be convincted that is a version problem.

 

Yes, maybe it could be my system. Maybe not. I'm not an expert but I think since offline bounce doesn't use external clock it leaves me the CPU and the RAM as suspicious. But before I check that I'd like to hear if anyone else had the same problem.

[Colinc]

yea its a tough one to diagnose... wish I had an answer for you, maybe someone will chime in with a solution... good luck!

[DaniGordon]

The clicks also occurs just playing the song?

 

I had a problem once with random clicks with an M-Audio interface.

Gave it away to a friend (telling him the problem, of course) and bought a MOTU 828 mkII.

 

This looks like a non Logic problem.

 

Good luck.

[bharat]

Hi,I had the same prob. last year as i went on to find out that my audio configuration of LOGIC with MOTU was mismatch.[it got changed by mistake as i was doing some experiments!!] Once I changed them to 16 bit/44.1khz at both places,the problem of clicks was gone in off line bouncing.During that time i used to do real time bouncing without problem of clicks all the time!!!!

See if this works for u.

[TC]

Thank you all for the replies.

 

My Motu is set correctly to the same sample rate as Logic.

 

Clicks occur after Offline Bouncing then they are perfect audible when you play the audio file.

 

I notice that clips won't occur when bouncing virtual instruments. Only with audio files that were recorded in my studio.

 

I just bought a new AD converter (Benchmark ADC-1) even then peaks continue happening.

[Simon R.]

I had small clicks, agressive bursts of white noise and other artifacts with offline bouncing in Logic. I have also done 100% succesful bounces. I haven't really found any logic as to when what happens. I can get perfect bounces with a ton of plugins, and ones with errors in them when just bouncing a single audio track... So usually I will only do offline bounces for quick mix previews.

[TC]

I had small clicks, agressive bursts of white noise and other artifacts with offline bouncing in Logic. I have also done 100% succesful bounces. I haven't really found any logic as to when what happens. I can get perfect bounces with a ton of plugins, and ones with errors in them when just bouncing a single audio track... So usually I will only do offline bounces for quick mix previews.

 

That's seem very familiar. You just described, now in good English, my problem.

 

I read a lot on the forum trying to find more similar cases. I happened to find something about bouncing not being sample accurate and not being the best way to export audio tracks. The Glue tool and merging would be better choices. Maybe that's the solution for my problem.

[sound609]

I'm pulling my hair out with this same problem.

 

But for me it's even worse because it's happening with Realtime (as well as Offline) bounces. If I bounce in Realtime and listen to the track as it's bouncing it sounds perfect, but when I play the resulting .wav, or .mp3, or .m4p I get random clicks/pops at various times in the file.

 

Playing the last couple empty bars at the end of the song cleared up the issue with artifacts at the beginning of the songs but it seems like no matter what I do I just can't get a bounce without at least one really annoying pop somewhere in the song. This is happening on every project I've worked on so far.

 

I've disabled plugins but that makes no difference. I've tried bouncing to different drives but it makes no difference. I've tried everything that was suggested in this thread as well as other related threads, but no go.

 

I saw someone mention getting clicks/pops with an M-Audio device (I use a FW 410) but I never have this problem during normal playback, only on the resulting bounces. Any 410 owners having this problem, or not?

 

I'm finally getting a handle on Logic... enough to finish a project anyway, and am thrilled with the result. But unless I can get a decent bounce I'm screwed.

 

Thanks for any replies. I'm open totally open to workaround ideas... including dancing around my pc with a rubber chicken and chanting voodoo. As long as it gets me a bounce that I can use.

------

Logic 7.2.3, MacBook Pro c2d, 3GB RAM, M-Audio Firewire 410, OS 10.4.9

[benw]

workaround to bouncing: route your song to its normal audio interface outputs, then set up the outputs of the interface as an input and play the song into garageband while recording in gb. then you have a stereo file in garageband that can be imported straight into itunes.

[editbrain]

doesn't Garageband only do 16 bit recording.

 

if you are going to do this into GB why not just record it back into logic? then open the file in the sample editor and save it out of Logic.

 

I don't get what your saying.

[sound609]

Yes, GB is only 16bit. I'm not sure about the suggested GB option. Thanks for trying though.

 

So, eb, it's possible then to route my Output 1-2 as an input onto a new stereo track and record that... then save that new track as a .wav from the Audio window?

 

I seem to recall reading on this forum that Logic does not easily send audio from one track to another...

 

So annoying that I can't just bounce the way it's meant to work.

[benw]

the gb suggestion was because i had a little fiddle trying to do the same inside logic and for some reason it sounded completely different... all metallicy.... if noone else experiences ill try again and try and get an example for ya! the lesson here is.... never trust my advice

[TC]

I couldn't find the solution yet. I have done some tests (http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=10669) and found out that Export Track as Audio gave the better results in my system. But I have to verify every single export for those random clicks

 

Have you tried Merge or Export as Audio ?

 

Digital Mixdown (Merge) also gave good results without clicks (so far....)

[editbrain]

sound609,

 

what interface are you using? i forgot.

 

i use total mix from my rme to send the outputs back to the inputs.

[TC]

I'm using the Motu 896. I just bought an AD (Benchmark ADC-1) and started to use its clock, but clicks still there...

[sound609]

eb - I just added it to my sig. It's a Firewire 410. it comes with an M-Audio mixer app that may allow me to route the outs back to an input, but I'm not 100% sure, I'll check it out shortly. I found the forum article about how to use the gate/bus to accomplish this (http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=5028) but I think I'm even more confused after reading it.

 

I think I'll also try disconnecting the 410 and seeing if I get better bounce results using the on-board audio.

 

Major - I have not tried Merging or export as audio. I thought export as audio just worked for one track at a time, maybe I'm wrong? I'm not sure how to make Merge replace the bounce function but I'll look into that as well.

 

Thanks...

[sound609]

Major - I see you have a Firewire 410 as well. Do you have the problems with that interface, or just to Motu?

[TC]

It happens even when I have no interface attached to the computer. So probably it isn't the interface. Unfortunately I don't have anymore the FW 410 to test it (Thanks to an Airplane Company that lost my case.... )

[sound609]

Well I finally got this fixed. Not sure why exactly this works, but I really don't care at this point I'm just glad I have some good bounces!

 

even though it had seemed that the pops and clicks were somewhat random, I realized that they were occurring within 2 seconds of a spot where an audio track was starting or ending... usually it would occur 1-2 seconds before an audio region began and/or right as it was ending... and since I had a number of audio tracks doing this throughout the song, it was often enough to seem random.

 

I know you're probably thinking I was using sloppily cut loops, but I made sure that the beginning and end of each sample (and anchor points) were zeroed out, and the problems were still occurring.

 

Basically all I did was create automation to minimize the volume surrounding each audio region to effectively cut off the first and last few samples of each region.

 

Here is a screenshot of an audio region that used to click 2 seconds before it started and now does not!

 

Hope this helps someone else out there...

[TC]

Nice that you solved out. Maybe you can use the Fade Tool.

 

That's not what's happening here. I get artifacts sometimes in the middle of an audio files with no starts, ends, crossfaders or whatever nearby...

[yoink]

While this is an aside to the thread, if you can't cut/split/trim at zero crossings, crossfade! (or fade)

 

Logic is very good at short quick fades for files/tracks/audio not cut and/or split at zero crossings.

[editbrain]

majorback makes a good point.

 

zoom all the way in, and use the fade tool if you have pro instead of automation. much easier on you constitution if you do.

 

adjust the curve as needed.

[stevecowley]

sound609, I had that problem with Logic 6 in OS 9 - it might be a completely different thing, but I found that it was certain plug-ins that did this, and the click was triggered the first time a region was played on that track (all subsequent regions played ok with no pre-region click). I got around it by making the whole song start a few measures in, and putting 'dummy' audio regions in the first measure to trigger the click.

 

In this situation, putting a fade on the beginning of the region won't help at all, as the click is caused by the plug-in.

 

Sorry majorback, I can't figure out what your problem might be. Good luck!