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RealBand
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I've experienced this problem about 3 times since 2015 came out.

It doesn't always happen, and I haven't figured out what's different when it happens... but here are the symptoms:


1) I have a track that has been cut and pasted all over the place and I want to CONSOLIDATE AUDIO REGION

2) I highlight the track (usually using CTRL-A) then EDIT > TRACK > CONSOLIDATE AUDIO REGION

3) if the track consolidates, no problem (usually the case)

4) but sometimes after doing that, the track is still not consolidated. When this happens, RB sometimes puts a consolidated copy of the track way out in the far reaches of the track.. a couple of thousand bars away

This uses up a lot of memory and usually locks me up.



Telltale symptoms:

1) At the end of the song, the measure markers at the top of the screen become very small... I suppose because it's trying to accommodate the data that's wayyyy out there.

2) At the end of the song, it doesn't stop playing because RB knows there's still unplayed data on the track. When using Jukebox, I need the songs to stop so the next song can start, so this problem really messes me up.

3) When I save the file it is about 5 times larger than usual.



Even if I have enough memory to scroll out 2,000 bars, find the audio and delete it... once RB thinks there's data there, I can't restore the bar markers at the end of the song to the normal width. Also, the song continues playing after the end of the song. This suggests to me there's even more data stored out there that I can't get to.

Since retiring, I've been using RB for extended periods every day... maybe if I shut it down after a certain period it wouldn't happen. But it does happen. If it has happened to me 3 times (maybe more) in a month, it's probably happening to others too.

Anybody else seeing this? Or have a fix for it once it happens?

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I don't know if this is significant.. but the most recent track that caused it was developed as follows: (might be useful in terms of recreating the error on somebody else's machine)


After tempo mapping the studio version of a song, I applied a real drum to the tempo, then compared the accents to the original song.

In places where I needed a specific snare hit, I cut and pasted the same audio snippet in many places and dragged it to the right location. This produced a highly segmented track.

When I tried to consolidate the track, it worked several times in a row... but at one point, it didn't work, and the symptoms in the previous post occurred.

Somewhere along the way I also changed the time sig from 4/4 to 2/4 which caused some other interesting anomalies I won't go into here. But its conceivable that changed some variables which caused subsequent operations to behave differently.

However, it has also happened on projects in which there was no change in time signature.



I first noticed this whole problem by accident when the consolidate audio dialog came up. Instead of showing a region of 1:1:0 to 122:3:119 or whatever, the length of the region was huge.. more like
1:1:0 to 1973:3:34

and the button that says how many bars are in the song had changed from 122 to 1973!

again, I say all this to flesh out the details so anybody testing it can approximate the same steps I took.

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I've had this happen to me in previous versions of RB, usually after doing a lot of cutting and pain and sliding sections of the track. Not always, but occasionally.


John

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Yes, I have had this experience. My solution (which may not work on very complex audio changes) is to specify an end bar number, in the Consolidated Panel, higher than that highlighted in the track. I have never needed to consolidate a part of a track and have wondered why that option is necessary. Any views???

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If you don't consolidate, sometimes other functions sometimes only operate on sections of the tracks. Also, you might find some clicks in the audio portion where the separating lines are. Consolidating smooths out the audio.


John

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RealBand
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Glad to hear I'm not the only one who has experienced this. It doesn't mean I'm not nuts, but it decreases the likelihood that this is the reason why I am.
wink

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Originally Posted By: jford
If you don't consolidate, sometimes other functions sometimes only operate on sections of the tracks. Also, you might find some clicks in the audio portion where the separating lines are. Consolidating smooths out the audio.

In my experience some free plguins will indeed grab only the first chunk, and this is more prevalent when Hard Writing an effect (not so much realtime where the plugin is streaming). I think they look for the closest start/end point, find that 'chunk' and process only that.
I also like to consolidate occasionally because I know how drives work. If your drive is jumping from here over to there (to grab the next chunk) and then back over beside the original here ,, then all the way around .. then ..
It's a lot more work than it needs to be.
Consolidating puts that track into one continuous 'chunk' so the drive can read larger chunks.

Multiply that jumping around by 22 tracks and it can make a difference in performance. Especially when you consider the drive is really the slowest part of the system already. Besides the user.
Another helpful tip is to Save the project. Then, no matter where the chunks are from editing, the program tries to interweave all tracks to read the most efficient way possible. The 'chunk' markers are still there, but like Consolidate, the data is rewritten in a more efficient orderly fashion (as space allows). Save often. For many reasons smile


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Pat,

It happened to me a LOT with 2014 and I could never figure out a consistent pattern of why. Saving after every edit/change I make to a track seemed to keep it from happening so much but all that saving seems a bit excessive.

Josie

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Originally Posted By: Sundance
Pat,

It happened to me a LOT with 2014 and I could never figure out a consistent pattern of why. Saving after every edit/change I make to a track seemed to keep it from happening so much but all that saving seems a bit excessive.

Josie

thanks Josie... I feel a little bit less crazy every time somebody else has experienced the same problems I have

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