One track's file is a dfferent length.

[dbarrow]

I have SAW 5.5 and SAC 4.0b. The other night I made a live recording of 12 tracks or so. When I was dumping the tracks into another program to mix, I noticed that track 1 was slightly longer and greater in file size than the other tracks, which were all the same size. What would cause this and how do I correct it and/or prevent this happening in the future? I had to slice this track in several places and adjust the timing/sync to conform to the other tracks, since it didn't line up and wasn't in sync.

This was on my notebook setup, running an Intel i7 processor, RME Fireface USB, Focusrite OctoPre Dynamic units as additional I/O.

[Dave Labrecque]

I have SAW 5.5 and SAC 4.0b. The other night I made a live recording of 12 tracks or so. When I was dumping the tracks into another program to mix, I noticed that track 1 was slightly longer and greater in file size than the other tracks, which were all the same size. What would cause this and how do I correct it and/or prevent this happening in the future? I had to slice this track in several places and adjust the timing/sync to conform to the other tracks, since it didn't line up and wasn't in sync.

This was on my notebook setup, running an Intel i7 processor, RME Fireface USB, Focusrite OctoPre Dynamic units as additional I/O.

My guess is something funky with the OctoPre driver. Is that consistent with then tracking behavior?

[UpTilDawn]

I have SAW 5.5 and SAC 4.0b. The other night I made a live recording of 12 tracks or so. When I was dumping the tracks into another program to mix, I noticed that track 1 was slightly longer and greater in file size than the other tracks, which were all the same size. What would cause this and how do I correct it and/or prevent this happening in the future? I had to slice this track in several places and adjust the timing/sync to conform to the other tracks, since it didn't line up and wasn't in sync.

This was on my notebook setup, running an Intel i7 processor, RME Fireface USB, Focusrite OctoPre Dynamic units as additional I/O.

It's possible, too, that you might have left something major running, such as wireless network, which can and often does stomp on the recording process without you necessarily noticing during the performance.

A couple weeks ago, I was recording with a usb link from a Behringer x32 and had more than half the tracks of a 8-track recording drop about half a second, without any audible sign in the headphones. In this case, no tracks came out physically different in length, but I could imagine it happening.

[dbarrow]

Yes, I may have had WiFi on. I normally shut it off, but I was in a hurry and I'm not sure. I'm running Windows 8.1 and I also need to look at all the stuff I shutdown in the scheduler, services, etc. Sometime this gets turned back on after an update.

[Naturally Digital]

I have SAW 5.5 and SAC 4.0b. The other night I made a live recording of 12 tracks or so. When I was dumping the tracks into another program to mix, I noticed that track 1 was slightly longer and greater in file size than the other tracks, which were all the same size. What would cause this and how do I correct it and/or prevent this happening in the future? I had to slice this track in several places and adjust the timing/sync to conform to the other tracks, since it didn't line up and wasn't in sync.

This was on my notebook setup, running an Intel i7 processor, RME Fireface USB, Focusrite OctoPre Dynamic units as additional I/O.

Were you running any plugins in SAC? Where were your record points tapped from?

Sure seems odd. Sounds almost like track 1 was at 48khz while the others were at 44.1, although we know that would be just about impossible.

It's also weird that only 1 track/stream would get stepped on. You'd expect something like that to glitch all the tracks...

If you load the session and record, is it at all repeatable?

[dbarrow]

Last night I made a recording, using SAC/SAW on my notebook computer again. I got the same longer file for track 1 as before. I did notice something, though. Asi I was stopping and shutting down SAW, a message popped up saying "forcing engine shutdown" or some such. It was only for a second, but it made me wonder if perhaps I had closed out of SAC first, causing this, or just didn't close the SAW session before shutting down. I honestly don 't remember the order of what I shut down first SAC or SAW. Would shutting down SAC first confuse SAW, because the "engine" in SAC went away as the recording input source? This recording was three live sets of the same band. After sets 1 and 2 I checked the file sizes and they were all the same, so whatever happened was upon closing out the session after set 3.

[Bob L]

Make sure to stop the SAW recording and save the SAW session before closing either SAC or SAW.

Bob L

[dbarrow]

I will make sure to do that. I must have been tired and shut down SAC first. In terms of rescuing the longer file, did SAW add on to the end or the beginning of track 1? I have to mix these in a different program, so I guess I can slide the track over. In SAW, it looks like all the files are the same length. I can zoom way in at the end and they are all aligned, but when looking at the files sizes, track 1 is slightly larger.

[Bob L]

You can use the export Tracks to Soundfiles option in the Process Mixdown menu... this will re-write all new files perfectly aligned to the regions on the multitrack for the other program.

Bob L

[dbarrow]

The track is actually offset one or more places in the edl, although zooming in at either end shows everything lined up. Exporting will just export an out-of-sync file. I will make damn sure I close the session and SAW before shutting down SAC next time. I am not totally sure this was the cause, but it makes sense.