FX introducing an offset / desync in Pro Studio 8 and 9

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wahrer
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Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:58 am

FX introducing an offset / desync in Pro Studio 8 and 9

Post by wahrer »

I've been experiencing this issue for ages but just recently started doing some troubleshooting to confirm some of the behavior with it. Essentially, adding FX to an instrument track seems to introduce a delay or offset that entire track. I know there's been a couple threads in the past on external sites regarding compressors doing it, but from what I can tell the behavior isn't consistent making it hard to work around - for the past year or two I've just been turning off the grid snap feature after mixdown and manually lining up the audio tracks correctly during mixing. This isn't exclusive to mixing to a new audio track, though - even just playing the track in realtime, not mixed down, still has some kind of per-track delay. Freezing the track doesn't appear to fix it, nor does changing between Wave / WaveRT / ASIO or modifying the bitrate, buffers, etc.

Image

In this example I just mixed down a drum track. The behavior is consistent in both Mixcraft Pro Studio 8 and 9:

Example 1 (blue): Mixing instrument track down to audio with NO FX at all does not have any type of desync

Example 2 (yellow): Mixing down with either all FX disabled (but not removed), or FX that don't appear to affect performance, still introduces an offset roughly equal to (1/64th note / 3) - this offset is consistent

Example 3 (red): Mixing down with select VSTs, ex. the built-in Broadcast Multiband Compressor, introduces a more significant and seemingly randomized offset anywhere from the one seen in Example 2 to an entire 1/32nd note

The examples in red were mixed down using Acoustica Studio Drums and just the Broadcast Multiband Compressor and no changes to anything between mixdowns. Is this a known issue? From what I could tell it only started happening as recently as Pro Studio 8 or Mixcraft 7 - I've been using Mixcraft since version 3 or so and didn't have any issues like this up through 6 or 7.
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Acoustica Greg
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Re: FX introducing an offset / desync in Pro Studio 8 and 9

Post by Acoustica Greg »

Hi,

Try mixing down to a wav file that has the same sample rate you're using in Mixcraft's Sound Device preferences. See the first suggestion in this pinned post: https://forums.acoustica.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24566

Greg
Mixcraft - The Musician's DAW
Check out our tutorial videos on YouTube: Mixcraft 10 University 101
wahrer
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:58 am

Re: FX introducing an offset / desync in Pro Studio 8 and 9

Post by wahrer »

Hey Greg,

I was actually hopeful this had fixed it at first after the first track or two had negligible offset just by chance, but I just tested it a bunch and while it appears to have slightly cut down on the offset introduced, there's still a bit of randomness to it:

Image

FX enabled incl. Broadcast Multiband Compressor (red) and FX enabled but no BMC (yellow): both appear to work the same now. Random offset introduced but rarely there might be one with next-to-none (see track 58).

All FX disabled but NOT removed (blue-green): Still introduces a random amount of offset, which is what makes me think it isn't performance-related (you can have as many instrument VSTs added to the stack as you want and it appears unaffected as long as no FX are present)

All FX completely removed from instrument track (light blue): virtually no offset

I have the recording file format option set to lossless .WAV with equal bitrate to my sound card and Mixcraft's sample rate (although mixing to a new audio track has them as 32-bit tracks which I imagine cannot be changed). Likewise, Windows' audio enhancements are disabled.
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Acoustica Greg
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Re: FX introducing an offset / desync in Pro Studio 8 and 9

Post by Acoustica Greg »

Hi,

The problem only shows up in mixed-down files? Try it one more time, and if the same thing happens, quit Mixcraft and send us your mixcraft-log.txt file.

To find the mixcraft-log file, highlight the following line and press Ctrl+C to copy it:

Code: Select all

%appdata%\Acoustica\Mixcraft\
Press the Windows Key+R to pop up the Run box in Windows. Click in the Run box and press Ctrl+V to paste in the line from above. Finally, click OK to go to the location of the mixcraft-log.txt file. Submit an Acoustica Support Request and attach the log file along with a brief description of the problem.

Greg
Mixcraft - The Musician's DAW
Check out our tutorial videos on YouTube: Mixcraft 10 University 101
wahrer
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:58 am

Re: FX introducing an offset / desync in Pro Studio 8 and 9

Post by wahrer »

Yeah, it's specifically using the "Mix down to new audio track" option where it seems to occur most. Regular mixdowns exporting the entire project or the selection appear to be mostly fine. I went ahead and submitted a support request. Thanks again!
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