Could anyone confirm if this is normal ( see image )? What I’m showing are the peak volumes after playing a test loop, not dynamic gains. I’m trying to track down another problem and in the process I need to understand this. A quick search didn’t throw up any mentions.
Single track playing assigned only → To group → Stereo out
All other tracks muted of course. Pre-gain, phase, channel eq disabled on both group and original track. All inserts, channel strip fx, everything disabled, no sends etc… Everything is disabled. All faders at 0.0. No automation, all automation delete and locked for good measure ( not using anyway at this stage of project ).
I just need to know if this is normal for a gain INCREASE on the bus before I investigate any further. ( My main issue is that at least 1 track seems to change volume on exporting a mixdown, so I am trying to develop a consistent test to find out why ).
Create a new empty track testgenerator plugin as an insert and route to a new group track and see if it happens there without all the other stuff you have going on.
actually the EQ is on the Group, not the track. The EQ section was Disabled. I’m a bit confused with the EQ to be honest! I have now disabled what I thought was the main EQ individually also. So it is now definitiely off. The gain increase of ca. 5db is still there. Thank you for chiming in, it’s exactly this sort of what am I not seeing that I should be seeing that I need help with… ( also the EQ was doing pretty heavy cuts and should have reduced the volume, not increased if it was having an effect )
Even though the EQ is cutting if you are looking at peak values they could still be higher.
Since it is still off without the EQ the other questions I have are what your metering is set to: input, pre- or post-fader or post-panner.
In addition to that, I see that it is an instrument track, right? Is there any kind of panning going on, say going from stereo to panned center (narrowed)?
Thanks for the ideas. The problem, whatever it is is on the Group not the instrument, I just created another NULL Group and re-mapped the instrument track to the other Group and it is fine. I will check the pan settings etc… for the Group track. I will try to check the metering, but the volume difference is audible, it’s quieter when I mapped it to another test group.
This would not be normal.
Thanks for the good screenshots.
The easiest explanation would be that there is a hidden track routed to the group, so that levels add up.
yes, I suspect I have a ‘bug’ baked into my project… which is the reason for the original investigation, this Vocal track comes out ca. 3-5db louder ( my guestimate from listening ) when ever I print a mix… has already made me look a fool when sending out a demo to someone without checking it properly 1st…
The problem was visible on the group, that does not mean the cause is on the group. It is possible to end up in situations where metering makes it seem like the problem is in one place but it actually is somewhere else. I don’t work with instruments much so that’s why I asked if it was possible that you somehow took a stereo output and narrowed it to phantom center into the stereo group, which would bring up the peak levels.
Double-check panning on the source track, not the group.
Also, the metering options are found when you right-click on the meter and go down the menu for the metering options, in case you don’t normally do that and didn’t know where it was.
This really reads like it could be a panning problem. Usually those end up being 3 or 6dB differences. Either that or there is some doubling up of tracks going on somewhere.
just a little update. I manually removed my inserts which were all disabled anyway. Problem fixed… I will now go back and check each insert effect to see if it was related to a particular plugin. Although is that even possible? or it must have be a screw-up in the hosting?
so I understand the problem now although I doubt there is a solution which could give me confidence to stick with using Cubase in the long term. To put it simply when I have an insert fx disabled on a certain track and do an “Export Mixdown” at least 1 of the disabled inserts is re-activated and effects the audio channel, but the insert still appears as if it has been deactivated. After the export mixdown it continues to process the audio until it is manually de-activated again ( switch on / switch off ). That is obviously a nightmare scenario. I suppose the work around is not to keep deactivated insert fx hanging around and to remove them before using Export Audio… if they are really needed ( I often find them useful ) then make a duplicate of the track and disable it in case one needs to come back there again… but then I think it becomes too much effort, projects are difficult to manage already. And the 2nd option would be for Steinberg to get their sh*t together and start writing some robust software, these types of flaky bugs are not acceptable, it’s just amateurish. I won’t name and shame the specific plug-in where I can show this happening, but it is from one of the bigger names, I’m presuming it must be host problem and that there is no way this could be a failure on the plugin side? If I’m wrong about that then someone can explain to me and I will contact the plug-in vendor.
It is possible it is the plugin vendor. I had a bunch of problems with iZotope’s RX plugins (and others) exactly with bypass automation. I ended up taking them all out of the realtime path and only use them with DOP now (I’m Nuendo/post).
So I think you should create reproduction steps the rest of us can follow so we can help you confirm the problem, and then once it’s confirmed I would recommend you contact the company and have them investigate.
glad you found the problem!
PS: You should actually name the plugin so other people can avoid problems during export. You owe them nothing. They owe you a working predictable software.
These are the settings, is there anywhere else I need to look? All of the groups and channels are unselected, but that wouldn’t fit in the screenshot if I expanded the view of those sections. So it’s just simple straight to Stereo Out.
I’m sort of cautious about blaming any one plug-in because I would have to spend days of testing to determine if this is just happening with this plug-in… or whether it just happens to happen for some other reason, if you see my point. But because it is interesting I will show the setup anyway. What happens in the testing as far as I got is that the circled plug-in which is Bettermaker BM60 (reverb) becomes enabled. I determined that because it causes exactly the same observable change in the peak volume as occurs in mixdown, and subsequently manually disabling fx causes the volume to return to where it was meant to be, of course I can also hear the fx too, although that wasn’t obvious before ( a short fattening reverb ). For that reason I didn’t carry on to test the others as it would get a bit complicated because of consider combinations etc… for me it’s enough to demonstrate the problem.
EDIT: just a note, I am sharing a screenshot from the original project to show the problem in it’s original context.
Have you at least confirmed the plug in question is or isn’t doing this in a different project or on a different track?? Obviously if the plug does it everywhere then the plug is the problem.
you are right, I just tested it on another track and bang… same problem occurs. To be honest that freaks me out, it just isn’t something I would have expected. but now we know. EDIT: also confirmed by testing in a different project with no connected history to the other one.
for what it’s worth I’ll write up a bug to Steinberg though, because they should know the reason why, for me it’s still the responsibility of the DAW to stop that happening, also isn’t it likely that the plugin guys would use a framework that behaves the same for all of their products… so very surprising.
