Mixdown block out

n-Track Studio Discussion Forum
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Mixdown block out problem

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Hello all experienced users. I too have been using Ntrack seriously for years now. But I need HELP!
I have a song 5min 52sec long (Aprox) I have mixed the song down in the past and had no problems.
After installing v7x64 of ntrack and doing some tweaks on the mix I did another mixdown of the song.
All seemed to work normal but when I opened the song again to do some mastering the wave file is normal all the way to 4min 51.07sec at which point the wave completely drops to a solid block of nothing that runs about 1/3 the way up the window and goes to the end of the song.
This is the only song that does this. I tried others of type length and they are fine. I tried it in v6x64 and the song does the same problem.
I have gone back to the tracking files and the song plays fine all the way through. I have checked the volume envelopes and I can see no problem there. This is the last song of an Album I’m doing and this is very perplexing. I tried to look all over the place but I’m Having no ideas left.

Intel quad core 2 2.5 GHz
8G Ram
Presonus Firestudio Project (8 XLR Inputs)–sound interface(Sound Card)

I hope this made sense to those reading. I would apreciate any help I can get please. I’m sleeping with the manual these days and that can’t be healthy LOL.
Friguy (Now, :angry:
Fried Guy)

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I’d check the volume envelopes again, do a “show all” from the view icon and then select show pan/master/volume envelopes. Check track properties at 4min 51.07 for each track and make sure you don’t have something a miss there. Check to see if it’s a single track causing the trouble or if it’s a global problem at 4min 51.07. A screen shot my help others on the forum shed some light on the problem as well.

Hope this helps,

PACO

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Thank you for your fast reply Paco. I’ve been doing those things almost in the exact order you talked about them but I’m going to re-check it all again. I may not be seeing something. I’ll try to do a screen shot but I’ve never done one before so it may take a bit of time to learn how. The strange thing about it (well it’s all strange to me but)
it drops out so abruptly as though something comes in and just it hits a brick wall and the sound wave turns into a block at the bottom of the window from that point on. Upon listening back to the wav at that point there is no sound at all.
What would cause it to make a block of wav color at the bottom? If it was a volume envelope wouldn’t it just disappear and show nothing? (Those are my internal thoughts there LOL).
Friguy

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Arrrgh. I can’t make the screenshot work. I can get it on my clipboard but can’t get it to go into the message area. I made a snip of it too but forget it I can’t figure that out either!!! Even after trying to look it up on the net (how to capture a screenshot etc. I can’t figure out how to put it on the ntrack forum. (Searched here too to no avail. I think I better go and have a good knapp LOL.
Everything is like pulling impacted teeth today AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH! LOL.
Fresh start tomorrow! YAY!
:)
Frying Guy

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Well if anyone is wondering, I haven’t been able to find the problem yet. I’ve rechecked everything that Paco suggested as well. The thing that stups me is that the problem doesn’t show on the tracks regular playback. It plays fine in multitrack version. I’m wondering if some other soft ware got into the track mixdown comands and is blanking out the last part of the song with a digital signal (thus the big wall of signal showing on the stereo track). Well it’s all hit and miss from here anyway.
:heart-break: I’ll keep my head up
Friguy

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All computer keyboards have a screen shot button. It’s right of the f12 key. Hit it to capture a shot of the current desktop as it pastes it to the clipboard. Open a paint program and paste the image into it, save the image, give it a name, then use “image shack” to upload your pic of the name you gave it when you saved it. Here’s a link, once you have saved your image from the paint program to a.jpg. upload it and copy one of the links from imageshack, there are several to choose from, from image shack into the post and then “preview” till you find a link that works in preview, then post.

Here’s a link to imageshack.

http://imageshack.us/

PACO

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[img=http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/6820/ntrackshotwavprob.th.jpg]

I hope this works if so thank Paco! A bit of figuring but it’s here.
Friguy

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The link will take you to the screen shot of the wav file in Ntrack.
Thank you again Paco for you time and help. I appreciate it.
Friguy

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So let me see if I have this correct, this image is your mix down from your project? You load it into n-track and what I see in the image is what you get? When you select to show the whole song does the blocked portion end at the same time as your project mix or does the solid blue continue past the total length of your project.

To determine if the it’s something within the project itself do the following. Mixed down the song from 4:50 seconds till the end. If the problem lies within the project and it’s not a mix down issue itself you should end up with 1.5 seconds of your song and then solid blue. The option to set the where and when to start and mix down is in the mix down menu. Just tell it to start at 4:50 seconds.

Also what do you hear when it plays into the solid blue?

Also don’t let imageshack shrink your pictures when you post them. Also you will get several links to choose from, just copy and paste them one at a time (delete the ones that don’t work) in your forum post and then hit preview, one of them will show up in the preview.

PACO

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Thank you Paco I’m going to try doing that to see if I get the block again even from that point. I actually had said in the earlier posts (no offense) :cool: that the song only looks like this on mixdown and that it doesn’t have any sound at all when it plays the blocked blue parts. It plays and sounds fine in the original multi track version. And looks normal as well. But I’ll give that a go and thank you for your kindness and for trying to help me Paco. You are a man of fine character.
I’ll keep plugging away.
Friguy

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Hi, Friguy, Paco.

Is it just this one track? Try importing any old track and do a test mix. I’ve had individual tracks/projects that have caused chaos - often due to plugin.

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Thank you for replying. As stated in earlier text it is only this one track. I’ve loaded longer songs to make sure it went past the point and they work fine. This song worked fine in the past as well but after loading the new ntrack 7 and tweaking a bit of mix for the mixdown this one consistently does this. Even in version 6.
Still gonna try to figure it out.
Friguy

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Ok. Have you tried clean re-installs of n-T, both 6 and 7?

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I did for 7 but not 6 and that song still does it in both.
Fri

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The tests I asked you to do were to test if it’s a mix down issue or a track issue from the project. Please do this test. From your project, mix down each track by itself and then load it and look at it. Chances are one track is the issue in your project. This can be done from the mix down menu, for example select to mix down track 1 only. Then load it and look at it. Do this for each track in your project. I know this might seem at bit tedious by it’s one way to confirm your project files are in order.

Beyond this, please tell me the total size of your project, perhaps you could send the whole thing and I’ll load it up and mix it down like you did and see if I can replicate the issue and find out what’sup.

PACO

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I’m sorry Paco I didn’t understand you . Now I do. I’ll try that and I bet that will get the reason for it too.
I’ll be doing it tomorrow though as today is done for me. Great idea. The song is a 49 track song so It’s fairly large but I’m trying the track at a time and we’ll see what I find.

Thanks again.

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Sounds good, keep me posted.

PACO

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Well Paco and anyone else that was curious as to the out come today. Paco it worked!!!
It wasn’t just one track though it was two tracks.
They were tracks of a live audience I got from a open domain source (Well cut and copied etc). The strange thing though is that I have three more tracks on that song of the very same wav file that were not having an afect on the mixdown. I left the three tracks intact and they don’t have a problem but two of them did. Wow what a long hunt to find the problem but thanks to your help Paco I got in there and it’s fixed!!!
I’ll have to make sure you get a free copy of the album Paco as you really kept me buzzing on it all and in the end your suggestion saved the day.
Thanks again! :peace:
:handshake:
:peace:

Don’t you just hate people that use too many emoticons? Yea me too. LOL.
Friguy

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Nice one Paco and Friguy.