I’ve done some pretty deep searching on this issue, and wasn’t able to find an answer, so hopefully some of you may have an answer.
When I do an export mixdown, I’ve noticed that anytime I have an instance of Spector, Mystic, or Prologue loaded up, there will be many instances in the final wav file in which the sounds will crackle, pop, or otherwise cause unwanted and very noticeable artifacts in the recording. All other instruments sound fine. It’s just Spector, Mystic, or Prologue acting up, and it’s only during the export. Local playback in the project sounds fine, and these artifacts don’t show.
To help give a clearer example of what’s going on, here’s a short audio segment which includes:
- 4 Drum Tracks (2 Groove Agent, 2 HALion Sonic SE)
- 2 FM8 Tracks (Synth Strings, Subbass)
- 1 Spector Track (Harpsicord-ish Thingy)
Link (Safe for Ears): https://dl.dropbox.com/u/52284231/WIP/Spector.mp3
As you can hear, there’s 2-3 times in that short segment that the audio from the Spector track peaks.
What I’ve tried so far to eliminate the issue:
- Host the VST in the rack instead of an instrument track.
- Audio mixdown via FLAC instead of WAV (Much less noticeable, but doesn’t sound as crisp as WAV obviously).
- Audio mixdown of just the Spector track. No success.
- Freezing the Spector track. No success.
System Specs:
Intel i7 2600k @ 4.5GHz
8GB RAM
1TB 7600rpm HDD
Windows 7 (64bit)
Cubase 6.5.3 (64bit)
Lastly (I’m sure somebody’s going to ask it), I’ve used Spector, Mystic, and Prologue for awhile, and enjoy having 1 or 2 instances in a lot of my projects. I have Massive, FM8, Absynth, Razor, Padshop, and Retrologue. All very good synths without this kind of issue. Some may wonder why I still use the older steinberg VSTs, and my answer is quite simply, I’m comfortable with creating sounds in them, and they have a unique flavor to the sound I’ve not been able to fully recreate in other synths. I’d like to see if there’s a way to solve this issue instead of abandoning them if able.