Cakewalk Exporting Silence

[Darth Kenosis]

I have a few stereo instrument tracks (no MIDI) for about a 4-minute song.

When I set master In/Out to Focusrite S,  there is no sound on playback, to hear anything I have to set it to surround main or none. ( same with preview)

Also, Breverb 2 occasionally crashes and either distorts my tracks or makes them silent ( which then I have to delete and put back)

What I did was:

• I tried to normalize and mess with volume/gain which didn't work ( unless I made master -INF)
• The green lines simply don't move on the master until I turn off all FX on the buses.
• Tried to export in different formats, as well as exporting individual tracks/buses /mix /time selecting and everything is silent.
• I also tried different sample rates, dithering, and buffer sizes.
• Cakewalk is updated, and so are the drivers on the hardware.

I do not believe this is a hardware issue because my computer, interface, and sound card run things fine and have space for the tape.

Can anyone please explain why this is happening?

 

[Byron Dickens]

Your master bus is routed to nowhere and all of your tracks need to get there somehow. Everything should end up going out through your master bus.

Edited January 19 by Byron Dickens

[msmcleod]

6 hours ago, Byron Dickens said:

Your master bus is routed to nowhere and all of your tracks need to get there somehow. Everything should end up going out through your master bus.

That's half of the issue.

The other half is that the tracks are not routed to the master bus.

So:

1. Route your tracks to the master bus
2. Route your master bus to the Focusrite stereo output

[David Baay]

So if you just disable the Sonitus Compressor or the Mystique Tape Saturation plugin, which one is silencing the Master bus output?

I'm thinking maybe you have the Compressor set to monitor the sidechain input, and there's nothing there.

[Glenn Stanton]

it looks like you're using sends in lieu of directly routing things:

1) vocals being sent to master (track output) + vocal buss (send) -- maybe set the vocal output to the vocal buss, then route the vocal buss to the master buss. eliminate the vocal send.

2) same for any other tracks going to busses - drop the send, and use the direct output routing. 

3) if using a buss for shared usage (like reverbs, delays, parallel compression etc) then a send from the track (or buss) is ok.

4) all outputs eventually make it to the master either via a buss or via a direct output. sends are generally not your main routing to the master (from my master i have sends to my monitoring and print busses but all things to the master are direct outputs).

it's one of the fun things about having nearly infinite routing options ? 

Edited January 19 by Glenn Stanton

[mettelus]

15 hours ago, Darth Kenosis said:

surround main

Why are you using surround on a stereo interface? One reason you can be losing sound is because you have channels set up in surround that the interface doesn't have available.

[Byron Dickens]

8 hours ago, mettelus said:

Why are you using surround on a stereo interface? One reason you can be losing sound is because you have channels set up in surround that the interface doesn't have available.

Same reason people record their vocals as "stereo:" its better!

[mettelus]

4 hours ago, Darth Kenosis said:

The final thing that was needed to be done was to change from surround bus to stereo. 

Just to clarify this for you (I tend to send one-liners from my phone in posts), the only channels available on a stereo interface are left and right (front). Even the center channel in a surround system is a separate speaker channel, so panning anything "center" when using surround pans (those pan knobs are a quick giveaway) is telling the DAW to mono output on that channel. In a stereo environment that will output the same volume from both speakers, but in surround that is its own channel that doesn't exist for you. Unless you are mixing and playing back on a surround system, channels like center, right-rear, left-rear, bass, etc. won't be available. Stick to the channels you have available in the environment you are using, which are stereo in your case.

[John Vere]

First that output list looks wrong for Focusrite ASIO drivers. Are you using them?  
Track outs go to sub buses. 
Sub buses go to master. 
Master goes to Focusrite 1-2 

This video might clarify what most people do for setting up a typical signal flow. 

This might help you sort out the drivers 

https://youtu.be/opDwsC4_llg?si=ocZA6axh-a-HA8DU

 

[Darth Kenosis]

8 minutes ago, Byron Dickens said:

Your master bus is routed to nowhere and all of your tracks need to get there somehow. Everything should end up going out through your master bus.

It has to be listen to it. If  I route it with FX on, it outputs nothing.  When I export it (doesn't matter what it's outputting to) it gives me a silent file. 

I tried to listen to that on multiple devices to make sure its not a hardware issue and there are no soundwaves when i drag the file to the DAW.

After the export for some reason, everything goes quiet and I have to move things around again ,delete plugins and reset them.

I also try to restart the audio engine which doesn't help.

Here is an example of output to hardware and you can see the rhythm section does have audio routed to the master but  is silent on playback -

 

Also  master does work with plugins for playback  (sometimes)

This doesn't work ^ however if I disable all plugins I can get master to export and doesn't corrupt anything on the output

This did give me a file with sound (short clip attached) but with no effects because I had to disable them:

[Darth Kenosis]

5 hours ago, msmcleod said:

That's half of the issue.

The other half is that the tracks are not routed to the master bus.

So:

1. Route your tracks to the master bus
2. Route your master bus to the Focusrite stereo output

Ok, I routed all of the outputs to master, and now I hear nothing at all unless I disable all the FX.

I can export the master, which does have sound but only with plugins disabled

[Darth Kenosis]

56 minutes ago, David Baay said:

So if you just disable the Sonitus Compressor or the Mystique Tape Saturation plugin, which one is silencing the Master bus output?

I'm thinking maybe you have the Compressor set to monitor the sidechain input, and there's nothing there.

I disabled the sidechain and tried turning different plugins on and off, but still nothing.

I only get the output all of them are off, also the sidechain seems to not affect whether the sound works or not.

ex. of the audio working (but with no effects)-

 

Here is an example of what happens if I turn off every send, sidechain, and plugin but 1 (this happens with master, and the rhythm/vocal buses) - 

Still no sound. ( and I turned off all input echos too) 

To fix this and hear again I had to delete and put back the plugins.

* update I just successfully managed to export the master somehow after redoing the plugins but I still do not understand what is causing this issue and it's annoying because this isn't the only project this is happening on. I also don't understand what occasionally causes reverb to become distorted after exporting. 

[Darth Kenosis]

9 minutes ago, Darth Kenosis said:

I disabled the sidechain and tried turning different plugins on and off, but still nothing.

I only get the output all of them are off, also the sidechain seems to not affect whether the sound works or not.

ex. of the audio working (but with no effects)-

 

Here is an example of what happens if I turn off every send, sidechain, and plugin but 1 (this happens with master, and the rhythm/vocal buses) - 

Still no sound. ( and I turned off all input echos too) 

To fix this and hear again I had to delete and put back the plugins.

* update I just successfully managed to export the master somehow after redoing the plugins but I still do not understand what is causing this issue and it's annoying because this isn't the only project this is happening on. I also don't understand what occasionally causes reverb to become distorted after exporting. 

It may have worked with setting output to master,  but the second a send gets turned on the whole thing goes silent.

Then I have to turn the send off again and redo the plugins to get it working again.

So I am unable to use sends or surround

[Darth Kenosis]

Ok, I was not aware of surround working that way, I was wondering why I couldn't find a surround main bus; so I turned it off as you recommended.

 

I turned off all of the sends and am routing it now to master.

 

I still do not have any sound unless I turn off FX on the master

[Darth Kenosis]

2 hours ago, Darth Kenosis said:

Ok, I was not aware of surround working that way, I was wondering why I couldn't find a surround main bus; so I turned it off as you recommended.

 

I turned off all of the sends and am routing it now to master.

 

I still do not have any sound unless I turn off FX on the master

Thanks to all of your comments I managed to get a master rendered correctly.

The final thing that was needed to be done was to change from surround bus to stereo. 

Now the sidechains and plugins are working on the master!

THANK YOU