Problems Bouncing to Disk

[play4theworld]

I have been working on recording and mixing a demo for my band.

Still not done with it, but when I try to bounce a file of what I have to show everybody (rather impatient people) I get all kinds of trouble.

Most of the time it will bounce like it should, count down through the song, convert etc.... But when I go to listen to the file, windows media gives me an error and it won't play. Tried iTunes and QuickTime so I ruled out window media player as the problem.

I've tried converting to everything except mp3 and in lots of quality variations.

Any ideas?

Thanks In advance!

[mjslakeridge]

Before you bounce, do you first mix the tracks down to a stereo audio track? Then you should solo the stereo track and send it to the master bus. Bouncing looks at whatever is being routed to the master bus. I usually also insert a stereo aux track between the stereo audio track and the master bus to enable compression, final eq, etc. You probably know this but to make the bounced track capable of recording to a cd, it must be 44.1K, 16 bit.
As you are bouncing, do you actually hear the song being played through your speakers/headphones? You should. If not, something is not routed properly. Try mp3, that is what I generally do before the final, final mix, so the file is small enough to be emailed out.

[play4theworld]

I actually don't have a master set up. If I mix down to a stereo track, doesn't that bypass all my automation, plugins, etc.?

And I can hear the track playing, sometimes it bugs out though.

Sometimes the countdown will freeze up but you can still hear the track and at the end it converts like normal. Usually it does that or works like normal

One time it really wacked out and it sounded really distorted and down tuned.

[mjslakeridge]

You definitely need a master track to do bounce to disk. As for mixing down to a stereo track, all of your automation, plugins, etc. on the individual instrument tracks will be used in creation of the stereo mix. You can do mix after mix until you get the one you like. I don't know how you are able to hear any audio at all from your speakers/headphones without a master track. Where is the output of each of the audio tracks currently routed to?

[play4theworld]

I'm away from my computer but I think they are just routed to the main outputs of my mbox.

I am kind of rusty with my Pro Tools skills, been doing mostly live sound.

How do you mix down to stereo again?

[mjslakeridge]

To mix down to a stereo track, first create a stereo audio track. Then set the output of each audio track to an unused stereo bus. Set the input of the new stereo audio track to the same stereo bus. Unless something has changed since version 7.4, you still need to set up a master track to do bounce to disk. Try doing that, and route the output of the new stereo audio track to the master track so you can monitor what you are mixing. I call my master track "Ctrl Room" and use it to adjust the level of what I hear through my speakers.

[play4theworld]

Tried that and it still gives me an error when i try to play the file.

If I open it up in adobe audition i can see the waveforms. My audio outputs are all messed up though.

Here is a picture of my busses.

[play4theworld]

So apparently it is something actually wrong with the output file. Some type of bug I guess.

If I open it up in something like Wavelab I can play it and save it again through that software with no problem!

Thanks for all the help!

[graveleye]

Originally Posted by mjslakeridge

You definitely need a master track to do bounce to disk. As for mixing down to a stereo track, all of your automation, plugins, etc. on the individual instrument tracks will be used in creation of the stereo mix. You can do mix after mix until you get the one you like. I don't know how you are able to hear any audio at all from your speakers/headphones without a master track. Where is the output of each of the audio tracks currently routed to?

are you talking about a master fader? You don't need that to bounce or hear anything in PT. I usually use a master fader, but there have been times I have bounced sessions without them and it works fine. Also, you can certainly hear your tracks and what you are tracking without it. I am working on a series of songs right now - we're using drum tracks to practice to in pre-production. No master fader on any of the sesssions and they sound and perform fine. When I am ready to start mixing I'll add a master fader, but I never use one while tracking, which I believe is where OP is in his session.

play4 - are you sure you're bouncing your track at 16bit 44.1 stereo interleaved?

[play4theworld]

Yes I am.

It could be something outside of protools causing a conflict. I've had poblems with .wav files from my Zoom recorder not playing and giving me very similar problems.