Bounced audio won't play

[Doug Ring]

Hi folks,

Here's an oldie but goodie. I remember reading about this before it happened to me, but I can't find the discussion about it.

I recorded 10 songs using five audio tracks, set up a mix with some plug-ins, and bounced the 5 tracks to SD11, twin-mono files for each song. Then I imported the new stereo song mixes back into the session. Next, I normalized all 10 songs using Audiosuite.

At this stage I noticed a warning message saying the normalized files had zero samples and were only about 300kB. Further, the stereo song files were the right size at around 30-40 MB, yet absolutely refused to make any sound whether I auditioned them from the region bin or placed them on a track. Infuriatingly, the level meter showed audio, but they were inaudible.

I managed to get them to play by importing them into a brand new session. The normalized files had to be deleted, however. Anyone else experienced this, or know what's causing it, please?

[Doug Ring]

Anybody help me with this, please?

[DigiTechSupt]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Doug Ring:
Then I imported the new stereo song mixes back into the session. Next, I normalized all 10 songs using Audiosuite.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

-Did you audition the files before normalizing? Did everything sound accurate?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>At this stage I noticed a warning message saying the normalized files had zero samples and were only about 300kB.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

-What was the exact error message? Was there a number associated with the error? How long did the normalization process take?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Further, the stereo song files were the right size at around 30-40 MB, yet absolutely refused to make any sound whether I auditioned them from the region bin or placed them on a track. Infuriatingly, the level meter showed audio, but they were inaudible.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

-Is it possible that the outputs of the tracks had changed?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>I managed to get them to play by importing them into a brand new session. The normalized files had to be deleted, however. Anyone else experienced this, or know what's causing it, please?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

-Is this happening consistently or only this one time? Based on the conclusion, it appears that a corrupt session was to blame.

Brent

[Doug Ring]

Hi Brent, thanks for the reply.

To answer your questions in order:

No, I didn't audtion the bounced files before normalising. This hasn't happened before so I didn't think I would need to. But once the normalisation process failed, I tried to audition the song files, and that's when the problem appeared.

If I remember rightly, there wasn't an error message with a number; it was the Import Files dialog which said the files couldn't be added as they had zero samples. When I used Get Info on them from the Audio Files folder, they showed up as much smaller than audio files. Normalization took the expected length of time.

The track allocations remained unaltered. The original material in the session played back normally - it was only the bounced files that refused to play in the original session. As I said, though, they played back fine after being imported into a new session.

This is the first time I've had this happen. My G4 has been acting a bit odd recently, and refused to boot today until I had zapped the P-RAM, so maybe a corrupt session is indeed the cause. Things seem smoother after today's boot - would you recommend zapping the P-RAM regularly? How often should I do it? And if I get a corrupt session in future, should I import everything into a new session to be on the safe side? I take it the audio files are robust but the session is the one that gets damaged?

Thanks again for any help,

Doug.

[DigiTechSupt]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Doug Ring:
- would you recommend zapping the P-RAM regularly? How often should I do it?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Although no harm is caused by doing so, it should not be necessary to reset the PRAM with any regularity. If you find yourself having to do this, I would suggest backing up, formatting and reinstalling the Mac OS and PT LE software from scratch.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>And if I get a corrupt session in future, should I import everything into a new session to be on the safe side?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

-Yes, that is correct.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>I take it the audio files are robust but the session is the one that gets damaged?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

-Under normal circumstances, yes, this is the case. However, if the root of the problems are drive related, your audio files are just as subject to corruption.

-It is always good to own a copy of Allsoft's Disk Warrior utility and use that to keep your drives healthy.


Brent

[Doug Ring]

Thanks Brent.

I take your point about drive problems, but both my system and audio drives are only two-thirds full and six months old, so it would surprise me if they'd developed any problems. I will check out Disk Warrior though for the future.

One more question (sick of me yet [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] ?) - if you create a new session and import your audio files into it, you've then got to redo all your track, routing and plug-in assignments all over again, haven't you? But if you used "Save Session Copy In...", would that be an uncorrupted session with all your assignments intact?