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MixDown Mixup! Help! /Solved.
Here is a screen shot of a piece I am working to complete with much frustration! The first two tracks are mixed down into what I loaded into track 3. Notice around measure 61... the audio waveform spikes even tho nothing much is happening in tracks 1+2. There is a similar anomaly at measure 121. WTF!! Any ideas? I am using Waves, TB EQ, and 4Pockets EQ and Shimmer
Comments
But, does it sound wrong/bad?
If it sounds right, I wouldn’t be too concerned.
But I would still be curious as to WTF is happening.
@CracklePot, it is distorted and clipping. Also the volume, unnaturally, spikes. Been messing with this all day. One prob after another. Just another Ei EiOS day!
If both audio signals are “perfectly in phase” in that particular point then it is logic that they sum up and can produce a spike, but I can’t judge it just by the picture.
Thanks @Rodolfo. They play back fine in the DAW. And I have tried pulling down the master volume at that point. It makes no difference. Same waveform. Never had this issue before, even with more intense waveforms.
Difficult to know.. Can only guess... But only a suggestion, is to live automate where the spike is around 61, when record onto channel 3.. Bring down faders when it hits the point (old school Engineers mode).. Or, cheat by highlight 61 area, (but if sounds distorted, it has to be re done).. & bring down on Channel 3, so it’s not spiking, but I don’t know the track, I don’t what setting on EQ you are doing.. Or need compression & adust the threshold?... I’m going going to what you’ve written.. Really need to hear it..
I suggest freezing each track separately first, then mixdown the frozen audio.
You may have more luck breaking the mixdown process down into separate stages.
It may also reveal at which point the mixdown is failing, if you encounter a problem freezing a particular track.
@CracklePot, evidently there is no easy answer here. I will keep messing with it, but as @Rodolfo said, there seems to be some erratic summing going on. Your method sounds good. Thanks.
If it is severely overloaded like you say, I suspect some processing error.
Just wondering though, did you make any edits in that particular area? Clip trim, or switching takes, etc. ?
@CracklePot, nope, not in my skill book even.
It could be phase issues coupled with bad latency compensation during playback or mixdown. Could explain why it sounds good during playback and not mixdown. Trying to mixdown each track separately seems to be the next thing to try. You can also try to pan each track slightly on left and right.
I think I would try removing one effect at a time and summing. If the spike goes you’ve found your culprit.
If that doesn’t work try summing the tracks in, say, GarageBand and seeing if you still get spikes. At least that eliminates variables.
@CracklePot , @Janosax .... so I just tried mixing one audio track with 4pkts Shimmer and TB reverb.
Track 2 shows the mixdown with Shimmer compared to the original track 1. Track 3 shows the mix dialed down in Shimmer. Still with hearableaudio distortion.
Here is the mix (track 2 without Shimmer and just TB reverb. All good.
Thanks @klownshed, culprit found, tho I never had a problem with Shimmer before.
Reverse the polarity!
Sorry, couldn’t resist...
Glad you found out the problem. I was going to suggest creating a new project and bringing your clips into it fresh.
Well done klownshed!