When to do "Render in real-time"?

[A Tolerable Quietude]

Happy new year everyone,

Recently I noticed that one of the instruments in an audio export of a project just wasn't sounding as good as it did in the project mix--the automations weren't as smooth, the sound was thin, etc.  After various troubleshooting, I discovered that this specific instrument (iZotope's Iris 2) does a bad job rendering faster than real-time.  I solved the problem by freezing the track, with the freeze options set to "Render in real-time", then exporting the project audio.

But this has got me wondering:  Maybe there's been a bunch of less-obvious rendering problems in previous projects that I've missed?!!  Should I use "Render in real-time" all the time, just to be sure (I see it's an option in the audio export dialog, defaulted to off)?  Or is there a way I can tell definitively that a given synth or effect CAN render properly when Cakewalk speeds it up?

Thanks!

[Andres Medina]

Now I'm curious too... I have no answer, but hopefully someone has one.

[msmcleod]

There are probably only a handful of plugins that don't support high speed bounce,  but if the plugin is written properly, it should support bouncing at high speed.

Unfortunately it's a matter of trial and error to find out which ones don't behave - some crash, some give unexpected results.

[David Baay]

15 hours ago, Eric S. said:

But this has got me wondering:  Maybe there's been a bunch of less-obvious rendering problems in previous projects that I've missed?!!

The primary use for offline/real-time rendering is to include audio from external hardware FX or synths while bouncing. In line with what Mark said, I have encountered very few issues with fast bouncing of VSTs and they were never subtle. Some could be resolved by raising the buffer size or setting a non-zero value for BounceBufSizeMsec in the Config File to override the real-time value which is the default for offline rendering. I've had this set to 20 (milliseconds) for years, and have not had a problem rendering Iris 2, but I've only used it in a couple projects.

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=INI_Files.6.html

Also, since you mention automation, there is a setting for how fine a resolution is used to process parameter automation that may have  bearing:

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=NewFeatures.033.html

 

[A Tolerable Quietude]

Thanks for the replies!  The effects were very noticeable in this case, and specifically the automation was much chunkier than the 50 millisecond default.  I'm reassured that I'll probably hear problems if they crop up again.

I can also make a habit of raising the buffer size for renders, and experiment with a BounceBufSizeMsec value in my config file.  I tend to keep my buffer size as low as I can possibly get away with, since I hate latency more than I hate the occasional late/dropped buffer ;)