WL11 Render Issue

WaveLab
63

I recently made a test montage of stereo pink noise clips arranged as faux album tracks that have no space between them. If you play the montage from start to finish there are no disruptions.

You can download it HERE.

Then I added track markers and normal things I do when mastering an EP or album.

Then I can add various Clip Effects to the clips and make sure that they are actually processing the audio on renders, that there is no missing or corrupt audio at the start, end, or anywhere within the rendered audio.

For me, that’s the main thing. It’s also good to know if settings are retained when you close and reopen the Audio Montage, and if the GUI appears correct.

Sometimes the way certain plugins interact in a chain can be a factor too. For example, at one point, DMG Limitless was adding a short fade in to renders, but if you put nearly any other plugin before it, the problem went away.

I don’t use the master section for any plugin processing but if you do, it’s important to test plugins in the master section as well as in the Audio Motnage, and vise versa.

It’s also good to be aware if you’re testing and ultimately using the VST3 or VST2 version because I’ve seen cases where the VST3 version has a bug but the VST2 version does not, or vise versa.

Basically, just some simple (in my opinion) testing can go along way vs. just rendering files and sending them off without checking and listening to them and assuming the processing was applied, and applied correctly. This is especially true in mastering when we’re sometimes making EXTREMELY subtle changes that could be hard to detect on rendering or notice that they didn’t render.

Awhile back I was lobbying for a “null test track”. Kind of like a reference track but instead, a track that you could add to your audio montage, put your rendered audio on it, have it be reverse polarity by default, have it skip the Montage Output and Master Section and just reveal on playback and/or a new render if there are any differences between your master montage live playback vs. what got rendered.

It would be a nice feature.

1 Like
64

SOLVED :I have to let you know that once again I experienced a single random and obviously incorrect render.

There was a gain stage in the plugin chain and the rendered file looked and sounded like it only rendered that first plugin. The other three plugins … DMG EQ, Sonnox Limiter and Voxengo Limiter seem to have been ignored.

This was mystifying because I had been using this identical chain in other projects that day and over the days prior. Every render perfect.

The plugins were all VST 3 and DYN was not checked in preferences.

The plugs were inserted in the Output section of the montage (so no clip complexity). It was a simple single (one track) render. The montage was 32 bit float 96 kHz.

I was thinking that ‘something’ is causing one or more plugins to incorrectly report their ‘state’ to WL or WL is incorrectly reading that ‘state message’. Possible?

The PC is a relatively powerful machine, purpose built for mastering only i7 32 gig of ram with RME HDSPe AIO card sending AES only.

I’m on the latest version of WL Pro 11.0.30 build 114 and the latest build of Windoze 10 Pro.

WL 11 is super stable and otherwise works perfectly. I cannot recall one single crash in 11. Rock solid.

I have been a WL user since at least version 5 (full on since WL 6) and have never seen this behavior before.

I have checked and double checked all render settings. But, as I said, everything was working perfectly prior to this … even the session immediately before rendered perfectly with the same set of plugins to the same destination drive.

This behavior is rare and completely random and I cannot reproduce it. It is therefore not useful to suggest removing plugs one at a time etc. because the next time you render … like the time before … it will almost certainly be OK.

While it could be plug in related, it’s challenging to understand why it works correctly 99.9% of the time. It might be something I am doing, but I cannot think what that might be.

Maybe there is something going on in my system that I have not yet identified.

Potentially, the incorrect render issue could be very easy to ‘miss’ in a project where you are, for example, making subtle revision changes.

I can say that I am pretty sure it has only been happening since the update to 11.0.30.

These identical plugins continue to work 100% OK in WL 9.5

Any thoughts?

65

Hi!

Just guessing here…
Can this have something to do with buffert in plugins order
I mean one or more plugin can’t wait and override timing wise
other plugins thereby missing out in render !?

regards S-EH

66

Thank you for that thought.

My understanding is that the plugin processing is ‘linear’. So step 3 cannot be processed until the result of steps 1 and 2 are known and so on. Timeout should not therefore be an issue? It has been a while since I read Pohlmann’s Principals of Digital Audio though so I could be wrong.

I was thinking that ‘something’ is causing one or more plugins to incorrectly report their ‘state’ to WL or WL is incorrectly reading that state message.

Why does the same plugin chain render correctly almost 100% of the time though.

67

I can’t imagine a reason for this.
When this happens, if you do the operation again, without modifying anything, does it work this time?
What is the output file format?

To verify this assumption, can you ensure that, by redoing the render and muting the other plugins, and to a file comparison?

68

Try erasing this file:
\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\WaveLab Pro 11\Preferences\PluginSettings.dat
and restart WaveLab.

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69

I have no idea either … I have closed and re-opened WL and it works 100% perfect.

The output file format is the same as that being rendered: 32 f 96 pre and 32 f 96 post.

When this happens, it is not always the first plug. I have had it only render say, two plugs. I have verified that in the past.

I will delete the preferences… I did not think of that.

Thank you for your thoughts.

70

OK … so I deleted PluginSettings.dat

This has definitely done something.

Before making my post I created a montage in 9.5. I then rendered that. I closed 9.5 and opened 11. Imported the montage and rendered that.

The renders did not null as they should. That’s when I decided to post.

I have just tried the same exercise and the files now null.

All I can think of is that somehow the .dat file has become corrupted.

Thank you for this insight.

As always I appreciate the thought.

2 Likes
71

hey @PG1
it sounds like the solution to my problem in this other Thread was the same but instead of deleting this .dat file I simply changed my preferences choices and voilá the bug was gone! :wink:

Nice move! o/

1 Like