Difficult bounce to track

[Starship Krupa]

Here's a brain-twister I've been wrestling with the past couple of evenings.

I have a song with 2 tracks of vocoder vocals. I'm using Meldaproduction MVocoder. MVocoder works as a straightforward sidechain effect, where you insert it on the carrier track and send the modulator to its sidechain input and voila, vocoded whatever.

I've set it up using 2 different synths as carriers, each with an instance of MVocoder. The modulator is a single audio track with the modulating voice. I have sends going from the audio track to both of the MVocoder sidechain inputs.

This plays back just fine. However, I would like to do some further fancier processing tricks on these vocals like echo throws and reverse delays/reverbs and backward audio. Things that can really only be done using an audio file as the source, not a synth output. Solution (I thought): just bounce those synths and do the fancy throws and reverse whatnots on the resulting audio tracks. Right? No. I can't get the darn things to render out properly.

I've tried selecting the synth output track and bouncing it. Silence. I've tried bouncing both the modulator (voice) track and the synth track. Silence. I've tried turning my formerly split instrument track into a simple instrument track and bouncing that. Silence. I've tried freezing the instrument track, going to the Audio folder, copying the resulting audio file to a new file. Silence (it had no level when "frozen," either).

While I'm doing this, I have both the modulator and carrier tracks soloed.

Am I doing something wrong? Is Cakewalk not able to handle this scenario? I'm kind of disturbed by the idea that sidechain effects may not be working correctly in a bounce/freeze situation, what with the kick drum-to-bass sidechaining that goes on in the world.

How do I work this?

[Xoo]

Realtime bounce with IM enabled?

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

I've had similar issues with trying to bounce stereo and mono tracks to a single stereo or mono track. Did you try going through a bus track, then to a new track? It's not a practical or desirable solution, but could work.

[Starship Krupa]

I've been attempting this one track at a time, but it hadn't occurred to me to try going through a bus. I'll try it, thanks!

[Starship Krupa]

Still no go on any of this.

Is Cakewalk supposed to be able to handle sidechained FX in this bounce scenario? I've never tried to bounce a synth bass track that is sidechained with a compressor from the kick drum track, but I imagine that it's a pretty common task.

[Glenn Stanton]

@Starship Krupa i use a sidechain compressor on VI bass triggered by the kick all the time. just can't see it/hear it while soloing busses. i can solo the BOTH tracks and hear it though.

you see in the graphics the kick is triggering the bass track compressor - both tracks need to be soloed for this to work or solo turned off across the board.

bass is non-frozen:

with the bass track frozen (kick -> bass sidechain):

so it looks like it's being captured correctly.

Edited February 26, 2021 by Glenn Stanton
updated info - i had it backwards :-)

[Starship Krupa]

On 2/26/2021 at 10:44 AM, Glenn Stanton said:

both tracks need to be soloed for this to work or solo turned off across the board

I've tried both requirements, my tracks play back wonderfully and are audible when I do an Export of the whole project. Still produces silence if I Bounce to Track.

The one thing I have yet to try is doing an Export while selecting only the track I want as the source. Not that it should be any different, but the results can't really get worse.

[Glenn Stanton]

@Starship Krupa if i just select the track (in this case BASS2) and bounce to track, nada.

if i select both the KICK and the BASS2 track, then open Bounce to Track(s) dialog and then DESELECT the KICK, it works!

so maybe you need to select the triggering track and the target track, then deselect the trigger in the BtT dialog... i also turn off fast bounce (in case the effects need processing time - based on help file - but experiment...)

Edited February 27, 2021 by Glenn Stanton

[Hatstand]

I know this doesn't answer your question as it would be a workaround, but what happens if you create an aux track and send to that track from the vocoder track? can you record the aux track and get the desired resultant audio?

[Starship Krupa]

6 hours ago, Hatstand said:

I know this doesn't answer your question as it would be a workaround, but what happens if you create an aux track and send to that track from the vocoder track? can you record the aux track and get the desired resultant audio?

What happens is that it works a treat! You, sir, are one steely-eyed Cakewalk man.

I wouldn't call this a "workaround" so much as "a better tool for the job." I have nothing invested in getting Bounce to Track to do what I want, I just want tracks with my vocoder vocals printed.