Playback is slower

[tdehan]

I am guessing this issue pertains to my most previous post.  

For a number of years my band has  been performing live, playing midi files in BCW from one of my MS Surfaces through a Yamaha MU100 sound module as a backing track.  All has worked great!  However, I've been wanting to start using a number of my VST instruments in the backing track that sound much better as well as some additional vocal harmony .wav tracks.  So, as I mentioned in my recent post, I've started using my PreSonus digital interface along with my MS Surface.  I discovered that the stuttering I was experiencing as mentioned in my previous post was due to the effects on some of the tracks, I removed the effects the stuttering went away.

Last evening was the first live performance my band did with the backing tracks which mostly consists of .mid tracks played through the PreSonus digital interface from my MS Surface.   I creatted a set list of 26 tunes played through BCW through the PreSonus. The sound was really good!  However, I noticed right away that each and every tune played back slightly slower then it was supposed to even thought the BPM was correct.   I am wondering if increasing the buffer size would help this?

Or, converting all the midi tracks within each tune to .wav tracks.  Would that help that issue?  

I like the idea of having control in a live situation over each track within a tune but then also wondering if I export each project to just one .wav file per tune would be better?  The issue I see with that is that incase I want to adjust a track or two within a tune I wouldn't be able to do that live.

 

[Bristol_Jonesey]

Sounds like a sample rate mismatch to me. 

[John Vere]

Yes, as Jonesy said the Sample rate, But I think they also then play out of key?  Bottom line, don't use technology for music playback without being a 100% bonified  1st Class Nerd computer geek. Better to hire a drunk drummer and  2 fingered bass player. 

 

Edited July 2, 2023 by JohnnyV

[Larioso]

But difference is rather major between suddenly running a project at 44k instead of 48k.

- it happend to me in Sonar 4.x or something with an interface I had

- if there were a windows sound beeping at 44k interface changed to 44k suddenly

 

So turn off windows sounds completely not to have that happend.

[tdehan]

16 hours ago, JohnnyV said:

Yes, as Jonesy said the Sample rate, But I think they also then play out of key?  Bottom line, don't use technology for music playback without being a 100% bonified  1st Class Nerd computer geek. Better to hire a drunk drummer and  2 fingered bass player. 

 

They do not play out of key.

[tdehan]

18 hours ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

Sounds like a sample rate mismatch to me. 

Can you please elaborate?

[John Vere]

What he is implying is sometimes your system is set for as 44.1Mhz and you try and play a 48 MHz project in Cakewalk and it will play slow/ fast? But it’s been a long time since that happened to me and I seem to remember that it was also out of key Like playing a 45 record at 33 on a turntable.  
Did you take note of what the Tempo in the Transport was reading?  

Edited July 2, 2023 by JohnnyV

[tdehan]

8 minutes ago, JohnnyV said:

What he is implying is sometimes your system is set for as 44.1Mhz and you try and play a 48 MHz project in Cakewalk and it will play slow/ fast? But it’s been a long time since that happened to me and I seem to remember that it was also out of key Like playing a 45 record at 33 on a turntable.  
Did you take note of what the Tempo in the Transport was reading?  

I'm not clear what you mean by "Did you take note of what the Tempo in the Transport was reading?".

[John Vere]

I mean while the song was playing did you look at the projects tempo reading in the transport module? Did it show the correct tempo? 
 

Here is a possible solution to creating bulletproof projects for live performance. 
First I recommend using 48 as your global sample rate for both system and Cakewalk. Better quality and compatible with both music and movies.  
Audio is bulletproof so very easy way to create 100% audio projects is this. 

Working with backup projects. 

Open the project and now export it as Tracks through entire mix. Use 48/ 32 for best quality no dithering is needed. 
This will create a clean audio track for each track of the song including any midi instruments and effects used.  
Now create a new project using an appropriate template and drag the audio into it. You now have a clean project with all the instruments.  

Edited July 2, 2023 by JohnnyV

[tdehan]

1 hour ago, JohnnyV said:

I mean while the song was playing did you look at the projects tempo reading in the transport module? Did it show the correct tempo? 
 

Here is a possible solution to creating bulletproof projects for live performance. 
First I recommend using 48 as your global sample rate for both system and Cakewalk. Better quality and compatible with both music and movies.  
Audio is bulletproof so very easy way to create 100% audio projects is this. 

Working with backup projects. 

Open the project and now export it as Tracks through entire mix. Use 48/ 32 for best quality no dithering is needed. 
This will create a clean audio track for each track of the song including any midi instruments and effects used.  
Now create a new project using an appropriate template and drag the audio into it. You now have a clean project with all the instruments.  

Yes, I stated that in my original post above: "The sound was really good!  However, I noticed right away that each and every tune played back slightly slower then it was supposed to even though the BPM was correct".

Are you saying to export each MIDI track one at a time to audio tracks?  Isn't that what FREEZE is supposed to do?

[Base 57]

It is very unlikely that the tempo actually changed. What changed was your perception of the tempo. The tempo seemed correct during practice, but in a performance environment your perception of the tempo was that it was too slow.

Changing the buffer size will not affect tempo.

Cakewalk will not allow a sample rate change if there is audio in the project. If there is no audio, then changing the sample rate will not affect the tempo.

 

[John Vere]

My recommendation is bulletproof and only for the final project used for playback. That project will have minimal CPU as well as load super fast if you use Cakewalks playlist. 

Freezing instruments is a temporary fix for CPU needed and the projects will still have to load all the instruments and effects.  More things to go wrong so not bulletproof.