Opening n-Track 7 songs in n-Track 10

I’ve recently wanted to revisit some of the old songs I worked on with n-Track 7 10 years ago, but unfortunately I get varying results when opening these in n-Track 10. One I’ve tried seems to open fine, but the sound is biased to the left channel, even though most of the balance sliders are roughly central. Another one I tried yesterday is unworkable, everything seems to come from the right channel and I get some very strange “artifacts” (very loud popping noises). Also the EQ settings for most, if not all the channels look very strange, certainly not how I would have set them I’m sure.

Are n-Track songs backward-compatible?

TIA

Ian.

Ian,

song files are backward compatible but if they were created with a dated version of n-Track they may indeed sound different and you may need to adjust some settings. If they were saved with n-Track 7, another option is to try to load them with n-Track 8, if they load in a better shape, then re-save them and check if version 10 loads them in a better way.

Flavio.

Sad to say, compatibility appears to be badly broken. I have tried opening in n-Track 8 and 9, and they are fine, but saving in either of those versions still results in a song that at best, plays biased to one channel, and at worst won’t play one particular track at all without going into what sounds like “reverb overdrive”. I’m extremely disappointed at this backward step, as I really want to work on this old song and I can’t, without reverting to an older version (which I don’t seem to be able to activate anyway), I had to install a fresh version of n-Track 9 as I no longer have the PC it was originally installed on.

I see you have n-Track 9 on your account so you should be able to activate it (you can write us to support@ntrack.com if you get any error activating). Also version 10 should definitely be able to load songs saved with version 9. If you can please send the song as a sgw file or a zipped song folder to support@ntrack.com so that we can check what the issue is.

Flavio.

Thanks Flavio, it looks like all the web links for activation of n-Track 9 are broken now (presumably due to web site upgrades?) so I will email support to get it activated, and I already have an sgw saved (in case that worked better with n-Track 10, which it didn’t) so I will also attach this tomorrow.

Ian.

Ok thanks. For the v9 activation, not sure of which web links you’re referring to, if n-Track reports a network error you may have to do the cacert.pem fix mentioned in the old versions download page

Flavio.

Thanks Flavio, the cacert.pem fix has now allowed me to activate n-Track 9. I have also sent the packed song file to support, however for some reason I can’t log into the ticketing system to view the status.

Ian.

Ian,

the issue appears to be with the legacy FASoft Compressor DirectX plugin, which is on most of the tracks. The song appears to play ok if you either remove it, select a new preset or replace it with the nEfx Compressor (which is the evolution of the old Compressor).
Please let me know if you’re able to work on the song in this way.

Flavio.

Hi Flavio

That’s fine, I can just change to the nEfx compressor (or some other) in n-Track 9, save and it will open correctly in n-Track 10? I’m not precious about that particular plugin, I will be generally remixing the song anyway, so as long as I have something that I can work with without having to start from scratch I’m happy.

Many thanks for the help

Ian.

Yes but even loading the song directly with version 10 and replacing the Compressor worked for us.

Flavio.

Hi Flavio

Thanks, that works. However, as I mentioned in the original post, the EQ settings do not seem to have been preserved correctly - I must say I find the new interface confusing, with the green and blue lines. Is there documentation on this, it’s not clear to me what these mean? Is there a way to go back to the original simpler interface? All the EQ curves in my song now appear a lot more “depressed” than in n-Track 9, and everything certainly sounds “duller” than it did, even with the compressor turned off in both versions.

Ian.

For the song you sent the EQ shape that appears in v9 and v10 seems identical. There are some differences with v7, which are caused by the fact that the algorithm for the EQ has changed and the parameters (i.e. cutoff frequency etc.) are interpreted in a slightly different way.
The user guide has a topic and a video tutorial on the EQ, although that mostly covers the dynamic eq aspect, which was the new feature at the time the tutorial was made.

Flavio.


These curves look very different to me? (Top one is n-Track 9, bottom one n-Track 10)

Ian.

This changed when we added the dynamic bands and other features in the EQ in v9.1.5. Earlier the handles for the high and low shelve bands were placed far from the cutoff frequency, while now they are nearer the actual cutoff frequency. So the main thing to adjust is to move the low shelve band left and the high shelve right. In the screenshot you’ve sent you can’t see the 1st and 3rd band because they are out of range, to see them set the EQ range to 30 dB in the eq right click menu (Scale → EQ submenu).
I’ve attached two screenshots showing the difference for the a shelve band.

Flavio.

Ah ok thanks, I thought it might be something to do with the way the visualisation has changed. I think I still preferred the old user interface though.

And finally, I know it’s not strictly a compatibility issue, but while editing the song in n-Track 10 last night this button appeared:
Symbol
I can’t figure out what it’s supposed to do (and there’s no tooltip for it to give me a clue), but when it is pressed it causes massive feedback, so I’d like to get rid of it (which I also can’t figure out how to do).

Ian.

That’s the monitor live input button.
The button has no tooltip but has what we call a ‘quick tip’, in the lower toolbar, if quick tips are visible (Help → Quick Tips).

Flavio.

Thanks Flavio, how do I remove it?

Unfortunately the monitor live input button cannot be removed. It should appear though if the track is not armed for recording.

Flavio.

I don’t understand why it doesn’t appear on a song I created from scratch in n-Track 10 though?