Issue at Mixdown (tracks seem out of sync when bounced)

Dear all,

I have recently upgrade to Cubase Artist 6 from Cubase Essential 4 and I am having a problem with a project.

I have mixed the whole song using mainly VST for a TC Powercore, Liquid Mix and Sonimus Satson. The project has audio tracks only and sounds ok when I play it (the project is set to 44.1 and 24 bits)

However, when I export the mix to audio file (mixdown) some of the tracks seem to be bounced out of sync in relation to the others (i.e. the guitars start later than they should) finishing in a horrible mess. This happens when bouncing to 44.1 16 bits or 44.1 24 real time or off line.

I have tried everything i thought of and i run out of ideas. Is anyone experiencing anything similar?

Thanks and regards.

However, when I export the mix to audio file (mixdown) some of the tracks seem to be bounced out of sync in relation to the others (i.e. the guitars start later than they should) finishing in a horrible mess. This happens when bouncing to 44.1 16 bits or 44.1 24 real time or off line.

With an all audio project, the only time I have experienced this is when some tracks are being processed through a plug-in such as Melodyne, and there are tempo changes in the song that have not yet been “learned” by Melodyne.

That’s all I can think of.
Regards,
Mike Hummel

Thank you Mike.

I’ve been wondering if the problem is Musical Mode, since some of the tracks were recorded on Cubase 4 and although the tempo of the song is 130, some of the tracks in the pool mark different bpms. That wasnt a problem in earlier versions of cubase, but maybe now it is.

I’ll try to disable “musical mode” later on and report.

Regards,

If that fails, you might also try setting their BPM to 130 and leaving them in musical mode.

[/quote]

If that fails, you might also try setting their BPM to 130 and leaving them in musical mode.[/quote]

Thanks Fizbin.

I disabled “musical mode” and that didnt help. I froze all tracks in the project and bounced it again to the same result.
I finally did what you suggested and no luck.

My guess is that it might be an issue with this particular project or one of the plugins i used. However, what puzzles me is that the project plays back nicely and the problem arises when i export the mixdown.

Any one has any ideas?

Thanks and regards.

If it were a musical mode problem, you’d hear it the same on both playback and mixdown.

The disparity there is what is unusual.

Curious, do you have the “Constrain Delay Compensation” button enabled or not enabled? I can’t imagine how this would affect it either though.

I have never seen anything like this. Are you plugs on individual audio chs, group chs, master bus…?

Remove all plugs from the project, and then try a mixdown. Assuming that works, replace each plug one by one until you find the problem.

Cheers.

In “Device Setup… > VST Audio System” what are your settings for Adjust for Record Latency (checked or not) and Record Shift?

I’ve never touched those setting, and they are set to adjust (checked) and 0 samples (no record shift).

Again, not sure how that would create a disparity between monitoring and mixdown though.

If you can’t get to the bottom of it, someone might suggest trashing your preferences.

Hi all,

Thanks again to all for the new ideas.

I have tried both disabling and enabling “Constrain Delay Compensation”. The latency options were addressed too. Nothing worked.

I exported a mixdown of a different project (with no plugins) and everything seemed to be ok.

I am using Liquid Mix and TC Powercore plugins as insert and send effects (among others, but probably those divices are the ones that could cause a latency problem). Since I have tried freezing the tracks (with no result on mixdown) and the project sounds just fine when playback, I doubt the plugins are the issue here.

However, my next step will be removing all plugins and start the mix again (sigh… I will have to take notes. I was quite happy with the smashingpumpkiness of the guitars… I hope I can achive it again).

I also have thought that it could be my V-amp2 interfiering in some way (sending a midi time code or something). I’ll unplug it next time just in case but I can’t see the logic on it.

And if everything fails, I’ll trash my preferences.

I’ll report back tonight but if any fresh ideas will be very welcome.

Cheers

Have never experienced this kind of problem but similar weird things on rare occasions where a project seemed to be broken whatever I tried.

Try this:

  1. select all channels, groups, fx channels
  2. go to file and export them into a track archive (select ‘Reference’ in the following dialogue)
  3. create a new empty project and set the tempo
  4. import your complete track archive (caution: if any FX channels were not routed to your Main Out, they will be now. Re-route if neccessary - that’s a bug or by design, I don’t know :wink: )

See what happens. There’s a good chance that will fix your problems.

Many thanks marQs.

I’ll try your suggestion before removing all plugins and trashing preferences. Lets hope it works because I am starting to spend more time trying to fix this issue than actually mixing!!.

Best regards to all.

Are you using realtime export??

Grim,

I have used both realtime export and offline export and realtime reports an error.

marQs,

Unfortunatelly I run Cubase Artist 6 and export tracks as archives is disable.

Its mixing again I think.

Thanks to all

Hi all,

I have found this topic “Cubase 6.0.3 64 and Liquid Mix 16”. It might be my liquid mix.

Yep…liquid mix & offline rendering has never worked. That’s why I asked.

So the problem that needs answering is not the sync issue but why your realtime export brings up an error message.

To give best chance of export working:
Export to wav only
Export to a different hard drive
bounce selection on any tracks with variaudio or short edits
Freeze tracks
Raise your soundcard buffers (though isn’t there something about LM only working up to 1024…can’t remember, I got rid a few years back.)

Solved!!!

I rised the soundcards buffer to the maximum. Increased LM latency settings to pretty much maximum, export in real time with visualization ticked…

And it worked!!

Thank you all. I hope this is useful for future users.

Best regards.