I am experiencing an audio pop every time I switch from one song to another in VST Live 3.
For example, I have an active Track or Stack for guitar or vocals. My intention is to let the instruments continue sounding at the end of one song while the next song is start. During this transition, the musicians should hear the count-in click and then start the next song. While the crowd just feel the transition.
However, whenever VST Live changes to the next song, I hear a noticeable audio pop. This happens consistently, even when the same Track or Stack remains active during the transition.
Is this a known bug, or is there a specific setting related to song changes, audio engine resets, Tracks, or Stacks that could prevent this?
Layers will keep held notes (or sustain pedal) during a Song transition, also reverbs etc in Group Channels, these are global (independent from Song projects).
You may create a Global Part (Parts Menu) and add layers and Stacks there. These will not be affected by Song changes. Tracks etc (“local” to a Song) however will be interrupted because transport is stopped.
There is no Song to Song transition in VST Live yet. This is very complicated, as a Song in VST Live is like an entire project in a “regular” DAW, where changing projects takes much longer and interrupts current audio as well.
Thanks for the explanation. I can definitely understand that implementing a true Song-to-Song transition must be quite complex, especially considering that each Song works almost like a complete DAW project.
One alternative that could already help in this situation would be an option where, upon reaching the final marker of the current Song, the metronome automatically switches to the pre-count of the next Song.
Another possibility could be a special marker, such as “Pre-count Next Song.” When the playhead reaches this marker, VST Live would start the pre-count for the next Song and then trigger the Song change at the correct moment.
This would allow the entire band to continue playing during the transition, which could help mask or at least make the audio pop much less noticeable to the audience.
I’m not sure how technically feasible this would be—just a few suggestions!
One of the very main problems is that each project has its own tempo and time signature map. Switching those is a challenge. Also there is no way to tell how long switching of (Song-)projects takes; if you use the preload function, switching is usually quite fast, but for instance multiple video tracks need to be loacted and prefetched, which can take a significant amount of time, also some plugins take much time even though with preload, that’s usually no problem. Hear you say “I don’t need video”, but we have to expect everything.
What could be an option would be to create an “artificial” “offline” metronome count-in task which is started when Songs are to be switched. That might work, but only if the switch makes it in time and is finished when count-in has finished.
But of course, it would be better if we could manage to run 2 Songs at the same time - which may be quite demanding not only for us, but also for the users’ system, but that is the price to pay then.
I see! I liked the suggestion of an “offline” metronome.
One last idea, haha:
A Medley/Mashup button.
It could open a window where you select two or more songs, and VST Live would create a new song with all of them arranged consecutively—almost like the Arranger Track in Cubase. You could also set an offset or transition time between each song.
This could be a scalable feature, starting with simply placing complete songs in sequence, but eventually allowing users to create more detailed arrangements using individual song parts.
Of all the options we have discussed here, I think this one makes the most sense when considering the way VST Live’s database is structured.
Thanks for all the prompt aswers, you guys are awesome!
That is true, but only when the Layer is routed to the Song channel. Will chek if that can be avoided, but it’s kinda tricky to keep a Song channel active when the Song was already “killed”.
… and this applies when routed to ANY Song Group.
I usually route Layers to their own mixer out - only found this issue when setting up a dummy song to explore VSTi audio cutting out/in at song change. Well you live and learn
After some experimentation can confirm that the audio glitch happens for me when I have the same VSTi in 2 Songs. In this particular case it’s Korg Collection EP-1 and each song has a different program selected.
Strangely the glitch is more noticable depending on the programs selected in the VSTis so doesn’t always occur. Then again I can come back to the same songs later and there is no glitch. Good luck finding that gremlin.
Probably, that is more of an issue with the plugin. Switching presets is a big deal for most of them. But you may test that by checking if it works better after applying “File/Preload”.
