Soundtrack Pro Question

Olaf99

Olaf99

Active member
I've been working with loops in both Soundtrack Pro and (previously) in Garage Band. I have always had a problem with gaps, clicks, and/or pauses between loops when I drag them out to fit the timeline. I am currently working with some piano loops in STP and it is worse than I've ever experienced.

The dropouts/pauses happen primarily to a loop at the junction where it repeats itself. Even with loops that work within STP; when I export them and import into Final Cut Pro they have a pause, skip thingy. Like I stated earlier, I've had this problem in Garage Band as well and haven't found one post on the internet that sounds like what I've been experiencing.

Anyone have any ideas?
 
Locate the sound effect on your hard drive and open it in Quicktime. Does it still have that clicking sound? I'd guess not, and then suggest you convert the file to another format to play nice in FCP.

As far as STP is concerned, set up a few files with those gaps on the looped audio and see if when you export a mix, they are there. Also justr try to add fade outs to your audio, don't just harshly cut them off.

Good luck!
 
Thank you for your reply. I will try your first suggestion when I get back to my Mac.

As for the second suggestion I have tried this and they are still there. What is particularly annoying is that I can't add a crossfade or fade-in/out within an extended loop. i.e. when I pull the end of a single loop out in my track to for several bars STP sees it all as one piece of music. When I realized this, I deleted the track and started over by only adding one bar of the loop to several tracks; adding a crossfade between them. This helped a little but still gave an irritating skip/pause (although it was quieter).

I guess what I'm wondering is why no one else is experiencing this. Is it normal to have to add crossfades within a loop that is repeated or to have to go into FCP and delete empty sections of audio (which still don't fix the problem?)

Thanks again for your help.
 
I do little work in STP, but when I have, I've not experienced issues with clicks or pops on looping music pieces.

What piece is specifically giving you the issue? What version of STP? I can try and re-create the problem and then troubleshoot it for you.
 
arges03 said:
I do little work in STP, but when I have, I've not experienced issues with clicks or pops on looping music pieces.

What piece is specifically giving you the issue? What version of STP? I can try and re-create the problem and then troubleshoot it for you.
Click to expand...

I am going to try to remember without having it in front of me. I was definitely working in <Instruments> - <Piano> and I think it was <Gentle Piano 07>. I can't remember if that was what it was called but I had the problem with 02, and 07 if I'm remembering correctly.

Again, some of them (01-07) sounded fine until I butted them up to another track and some (02 and/or 07 I think) sounded fine until I exported and opened them up in FCP.
 
kgimedia said:
Is snapping turned off? That might be your issue. Small gaps in the timeline.
Click to expand...

This could be the problem. Last night, I zoomed in a bunch and realized there were several pieces of the end of the file that were over the clip length i.e. there was more on the end than there should have been. I went in and cleaned all that up and still had the problem though. This is because the pauses/clicks were occurring in an uncut loop that I had stretched out.

My thought is to go home tonight (9:00PM Central) and export to a different file type and see if that changes anything. I'd say it could have been due to sleep deprivation but this happened to me in Garage Band all the time.

I just know I'm missing something obvious. Snapping could be it for when I'm mixing clips and my export settings could be what's up with the other problem.

BTW I'm using STP 3
 
Olaf99 said:
I am going to try to remember without having it in front of me. I was definitely working in <Instruments> - <Piano> and I think it was <Gentle Piano 07>. I can't remember if that was what it was called but I had the problem with 02, and 07 if I'm remembering correctly.

Again, some of them (01-07) sounded fine until I butted them up to another track and some (02 and/or 07 I think) sounded fine until I exported and opened them up in FCP.
Click to expand...

Wrong! The piano tracks were Delicate Piano 07 and 02. The 07 track is the one that exported with gaps. I'm going to try to work through everything now and will let you guys know what I figure out.
 
This is driving me crazy. Delicate Piano 07 WILL NOT snap to any of the bars in my timeline and leaves either a little audio out or, a little audio at the end when I turn snapping off. I'm starting to realize why I hear a gap/skip when I mix two tracks to one another.
 
Here is the address of a low res youtube vid of what I'm experiencing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3YLaL5iaI0

I started a new project and just laid down the Delicate Piano 07 track this time (no mixing with other tracks), exported it, and inserted it into my FCP timeline. I exported an aiff, mp3, and WAVE and all had the same skips in them.

Any tips would be much appreciated.
 
I do not have any 'delicate piano' loops in my STP, so I can't recreate the problem.

After playing around a little, I noticed a few things in STP;
1. I would get similar clipping after stretching out a looped piano track
2. Leveling my audio to peak at -12 made it more bearable, almost unnoticeable.
3. There wasn't a gap, that's just the way it was looping. Adding other sounds would help ease it.
4. I could add three envelope points to dip the audio down right near the loop point to ease it further. Then I could highlight, copy, and paste those envelope points at every loop point
 
Yes, I'd agree that stretching the loop created a problem. I re-made the entire audio sequence in Garage Band and it works great. One caveat was that I could not stretch Delicate Piano 07 in GB. I had to add it over and over if I wanted it to play.

4. When you write about "envelope points" are these keyframes you're talking about? If so, I'm pretty sure I know what you're talking about and will do that.

Overall, I'm thinking about not using STP until I've finished adding all of my audio to my FCP project. I will just make each song in GB and add it to FCP and then take it to STP. Sucks but, I just wasted around 6 hours over two days trying to make this work.

arges03, Thanks for all your help!!!
 
Update: I worked within STP on my zero crossings and this worked well... until I exported it and brought it into FCP or Quicktime or Preview...

I'm just sick that I can't figure out why Garage Band is out performing my pro application using the same files. I want to use STP but right now it seems like a big waste of time.
 
DJDecay said:
There was prob an error during the bounce, if it played right in STP and then you did a SEND to FCP without "bouncing" the sound file first you got the same sound file back that you rendered the last time (with the sound gaps.)
Click to expand...

I had tried several different piano loops and all had the same problem upon export. I called Apple and started their troubleshooting process Saturday morning. I was on the phone with them off and on all weekend. One guy didn't experience the same problem on his system. Then, late yesterday afternoon, after deleting and re-installing FC Studio and re-installing Snow Leopard, I called back and got another Apple Expert. He tried to re create the music I had been working with and got the exact problem on his machine upon export.

They are sending the issue to the engineers and should be getting back to me on what they find out. I'm starting to realize this might not be something I caused afterall. The guy yesterday thought it might be a problem with Quicktime as it has a hand in nearly every audio application on a Mac. (according to the service tech)
 
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