konradh
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Best Way to Freeze Soft-Synths (VIs) - ASIO Buffer
When tracking, I set the ASIO buffer in Preferences low (like 3 on the slide) so I don't have latency / delay issues. When mixing, I set it high (6 or 8) so I don't have clicks or drop-outs. So, that brings up a question. If I am going to hit the freeze button on a virtual instrument (soft synth), should the ASIO buffer be low or high? I don't want to build in latency but I also don't want to freeze in clicks or other bad things. I am thinking high is better because latency is not an issue in an offline process, but I would like confirmation from my Sonar brothers and sisters. (Someone is going to say "try it both ways" but we really don't want to freeze every time and then doing a critical evaluation for timing and audio quality.  That would be inefficient and frustrating.) Thanks!
Konrad Current album and more: http://www.themightykonrad.com/ Sonar X1d Producer. V-Studio 700. PC: Intel i7 CPU 3.07GHz, 12 GB RAM. Win 7 64-bit. RealGuitar, RealStrat, RealLPC, Ivory II, Vienna Symphonic, Hollywood Strings, Electr6ity, Acoustic Legends, FabFour, Scarbee Rick/J-Bass/P-Bass, Kontakt 5. NI Session Guitar. Boldersounds, Noisefirm. EZ Drummer 2. EZ Mix. Melodyne Assist. Guitar Rig 4. Tyros 2, JV-1080, Kurzweil PC2R, TC Helicon VoiceWorks+. Rode NT2a, EV RE20. Presonus Eureka. Rokit 6s.
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Bristol_Jonesey
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Re: Best Way to Freeze Soft-Synths (VIs) - ASIO Buffer
2014/02/07 15:09:09
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It shouldn't make any difference whatsoever.
You're not using the interface to stream audio, it's all done internally with 0's & 1's
At least that's my understanding, though hopefully someone more knowledgeable can confirm [or deny]
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CJaysMusic
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Re: Best Way to Freeze Soft-Synths (VIs) - ASIO Buffer
2014/02/07 15:10:50
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Your ASIO buffer has nothing to do with freezing tracks. You can freeze a track with any ASIO buffer setting and it will NOT effect it. Try it and you'll see.
I'm curious though, as you said you set your ASIO buffer to 3 and then change it to 6 or 8. how can your ASIO buffer be set so low?? 32 is the lowest i have ever seen, so a buffer set at 6 or 8 isnt something logical.
What exactly are you changing to 6 or 8, as this not not your ASIO buffer you are changing. I think you are changing buffers in que, and htis is not your ASAIO buffers
CJ
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thebiglongy
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Re: Best Way to Freeze Soft-Synths (VIs) - ASIO Buffer
2014/02/07 15:33:28
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Sounds like the same sort of slider you get when using WDM drivers. You get a slider with a scale going up 1-X (cant remember top number, probably 10 unless your related to spinal tap, in that case, it's probably 11)
I freeze tracks up to free up ram and cpu cycles. It's a plus in a sense that if after i've done everything, I can go back in and refine things I am not happy with. Which is where it differs with bouncing the track down, which I believe removes the ram and cpu overhead, but unless you use undo (losing any changes made post bounce) to get back to the original un-bounced an free to noodle active synth.
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Shambler
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Re: Best Way to Freeze Soft-Synths (VIs) - ASIO Buffer
2014/02/07 15:46:25
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Roland's ASIO drivers for the Quad-Capture have a similar setting with 1 (low latency) to 8 (high stability).
When freezing a soft-synth you don't freeze in any latency, after freezing it should be an audio track and have zero or near latency regardless of buffer settings.
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brundlefly
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Re: Best Way to Freeze Soft-Synths (VIs) - ASIO Buffer
2014/02/07 15:59:11
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Buffer size matters when freezing in one respect:
SONAR processes audio using that "chunk" size when freezing/bouncing/exporting. In the vast majority of cases, it doesn't matter what that size is. But there are some plugins that have issues with offline processing in very small chunks. If there is a problem, it's usually pretty catastrophic and hard to miss - like the bounce fails or the audio sounds really distorted after freezing. In that case you can just increase your buffer size and try again.
Or... you can set BounceBufSizeMsec in AUD.INI to some non-zero value and SONAR will use this value for all offline rendering. When I first ran into a problem, just setting it to 4ms when my ASIO buffer was at 2ms allowed the synth (Rapture IIRC) to bounce properly. After reading in another thread that larger sizes could improve processing speed, I raised it to 20, and it's been there ever since.
The only caveat is that Bitbridge has an issue whereby it will add an empty buffer of audio to the rendered file, causing the audio to be delayed by that amount on playback. So with Bitbridged synth, you want to bounce with the smallest possible buffer size. Or use JBridge, which doesn't have this issue.
Again, though, none of this should be an issue unless you see/hear a problem with a particular plugin.
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konradh
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Re: Best Way to Freeze Soft-Synths (VIs) - ASIO Buffer
2014/02/07 16:52:02
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Thanks, guys. In answer to CJ, when I was using numbers between 1 and 10 I was referring to the slider in the ASIO panel. I mix at 1024 samples but track at a lower value. 8 on the slider is 1024. I don't remember what 3 relates to without looking but it is probably 64 or so.
Konrad Current album and more: http://www.themightykonrad.com/ Sonar X1d Producer. V-Studio 700. PC: Intel i7 CPU 3.07GHz, 12 GB RAM. Win 7 64-bit. RealGuitar, RealStrat, RealLPC, Ivory II, Vienna Symphonic, Hollywood Strings, Electr6ity, Acoustic Legends, FabFour, Scarbee Rick/J-Bass/P-Bass, Kontakt 5. NI Session Guitar. Boldersounds, Noisefirm. EZ Drummer 2. EZ Mix. Melodyne Assist. Guitar Rig 4. Tyros 2, JV-1080, Kurzweil PC2R, TC Helicon VoiceWorks+. Rode NT2a, EV RE20. Presonus Eureka. Rokit 6s.
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CJaysMusic
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Re: Best Way to Freeze Soft-Synths (VIs) - ASIO Buffer
2014/02/07 17:05:46
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overdub
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Re: Best Way to Freeze Soft-Synths (VIs) - ASIO Buffer
2014/02/08 19:01:26
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Hopefully, no one will be confused by this thread as it relates to recording audio. If your buffers are set too low and you're not monitoring the interface (channel echo button), it's definitely possible to record pops and clicks to a track or tracks and perhaps not realize those pops and clicks were actually there. One may have to play back the entire file just to be sure. In that case, a frozen track may well not be as clean as it should be.
But once you have verified that your recorded audio track is clean, freezing it will keep it safe.
In your case, with a soft-synth, there's no audio track that's committed until it's bounced or otherwise rendered offline so nothing to worry about there.
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