Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

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TapeOpLarry
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Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by TapeOpLarry » Fri Mar 20, 2020 7:45 pm

Hey Everyone:
As you can imagine, I'm fairly used to Pro Tools by now. We recently "upgraded" from HD Native Thunderbolt to HDX PCIe card (external chassis/Mac Mini) recently, and overall it's working great and latency is finally unnoticeable. So, I'm working on a huge cassette restoration project, and after bouncing all the prepped transfers some of the mixes are totally missing one of the cassette tracks! It's obvious, as on many of these songs L ch was a guitar amp and R ch was a PA. I'm using Avid's Pro Multiband Splitter plug-in (DSP, not Native) to process the PA tracks, and I think that the DSP processing of the track split is somehow the culprit. I did one test where I converted it to Native processing and it fixed the issue. It sure sucks to end up with a diff mix printed than what you are hearing at mix down! I almost sent these off but then re-imported into a new session to double check and discovered this. Now I have to check 51 mixes out one-by-one....

Has anyone else encountered a bug like this? I can't find similar examples online.

-Larry Crane

PS: No, none of the tracks are assigned to the wrong outputs and I'm not bouncing from the wrong outputs. That's amateur hour, I know. Pro Tools is totally up to date current and all plug-ins are as well.
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Re: Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by Nick Sevilla » Sat Mar 21, 2020 11:37 am

Hi Larry,

When it comes to Pro Tools, we learned long, long ago to NOT ever use the "bounce" command. Because of hijinks like this.

"I think that the DSP processing of the track split is somehow the culprit" Yes. This is most certainly the issue. Especially since on Native, it does not do this.

This is the recommended (by AVID no less) process for mixing down to a Stereo (or any channel format):

1. Route all audio to a final Buss. In my rig, I have Buss 1-2 re-labelled "Mix Buss" so it is easy to find on the drop down list on the tracks.

2. Create a new audio track with this buss as its input.

3. Record the mix in real time into this audio track.

4. Once this is done and you have done a final check of the mix, you can export it from Pro Tools in the audio format of choice, via the "export" command.

This we have done for well over 15 years. And it saves you the pain of having a plug in mess up (you would hear it upon printing the mix, and on the double checking). Every major version of Pro Tools has necessitated that we simply stay on this method. It is far safer, and enables you to catch any issues a lot faster.

Cheers!!!
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.

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Re: Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Sun Mar 22, 2020 5:25 am

I’m with Nick on this one. I gave up on bounce to disk years ago and it never entered back into my work flow. I put all my master processing on an aux/bus track and route the mix through that to a new audio track.
People extol the virtues of offline bouncing but from my end if I’ve gotta check the bounce once it’s done then why don’t I just listen to it as it’s going down? If I hear something wrong I can stop and address it. I can also punch into mixes to make repairs and I can playlist mixes and edit the best parts together.

Not that that helps you much with your 20+ mixes that need to be redone.

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Re: Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by crow » Sun Mar 22, 2020 2:04 pm

How long has Pro Tools' bounce function been sketchy? It seems insane that Avid would officially recommend not using such a basic function. Pardon my ignorance; I am a Reaper user, Nuendo/Cubase before that, Logic before that, Nuendo/Cubase before that.

Not to get too proselytize-ey Larry, but Reaper has a ton of great rendering features that I would imagine could be super helpful for archival projects. It's a joy to give it instructions for wildcard-based automatic file naming, region matrix stem extraction, yadda yadda, put each set of instructions in a queue, and then go take a break while it renders a bajillion files and puts them all in the right place. If I were in your shoes, listening to renders in real time would be a major deal breaker. Since you're clearly invested in using Pro Tools, I would imagine you could benefit from having a small portable installation of Reaper set up for archival projects and still use PT for your main musical studio work. Reaper is a very well-behaved program :)

Sorry, I'll stop now. Carry on!

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Re: Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by TapeOpLarry » Sun Mar 22, 2020 2:39 pm

I get Nick's idea for mixing, and I have done that and of course do that with console mixing. But for projects of this scope it would add untold hours. Although in this case it would have saved hours. But generally BTD should work... it's supposed to. Been changing each session to Native only and all is going fine.
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Re: Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by TapeOpLarry » Mon Mar 23, 2020 5:27 pm

Then yesterday Pro Tools started bouncing my songs at half-speed! OMG.....
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Re: Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by crow » Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:08 am

Join us...come to the dark side....

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Re: Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by kslight » Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:18 am

TapeOpLarry wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 5:27 pm
Then yesterday Pro Tools started bouncing my songs at half-speed! OMG.....
I got an email yesterday “reminding” me my plan expires in 7 days. It will expire. They will not get a dollar more from me after 15 years.

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Re: Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by Nick Sevilla » Tue Mar 24, 2020 1:22 pm

TapeOpLarry wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 5:27 pm
Then yesterday Pro Tools started bouncing my songs at half-speed! OMG.....
Darn. Yep, it may seem as a "long way around" to not use bounce, but, well, you end up spending that time once,
not more.

I feel your pain. I used to do the AT&T computer voice prompt recordings (726 individual files), so I understand why you want to try
to make things go faster.

Remember the triangle: Fast / Good / Cheap.

You can do a generalized print, and then slice up individual mixes afterwards. Did this on a few Live albums. Just had the entire
live show on one timeline, printed the whole thing, then chopped it up to specs for time.

I also do a monthly radio show that requires chopping it up. Same thing. 1 hour into 22-23 individual files.

It becomes easier once you get a method going.
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.

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Re: Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by TapeOpLarry » Mon Mar 30, 2020 11:14 am

Couldn't do one print and cut it up as every song was it's own PT session - they needed that kind of care. Good thing is client signed off on first pass!

I FOUND OUT THE ISSUE FOR SURE:

Avid's Pro Multiband Splitter plug-in will not work in Bounce To Disk when in DSP mode. Native mode totally worked.
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Re: Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by drumsound » Mon Mar 30, 2020 12:46 pm

TapeOpLarry wrote:
Mon Mar 30, 2020 11:14 am
Couldn't do one print and cut it up as every song was it's own PT session - they needed that kind of care. Good thing is client signed off on first pass!

I FOUND OUT THE ISSUE FOR SURE:

Avid's Pro Multiband Splitter plug-in will not work in Bounce To Disk when in DSP mode. Native mode totally worked.
I hope someone at AVID knows about this.

AND DOES SOMETHING

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Re: Pro Tools HDX not Bouncing all Tracks to Disk!

Post by Nick Sevilla » Mon Mar 30, 2020 4:08 pm

crow wrote:
Sun Mar 22, 2020 2:04 pm
How long has Pro Tools' bounce function been sketchy?
Well, I stopped using it on version 6.xxx whenever the heck that was.

And they told us then, and every major version since then... NOT to use Bounce.

So... we don't. I am so used to printing to a track, I just never think twice about it.
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.

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