Working with different clip levels makes Reason slow

[Karel]

Hopefully someone on this forum can tell me what I do wrong.
Usually when recording an audio track - in my case guitar or vocals - I record something like five consecutive tracks to give me the possibility to choose the the best parts which I subsequently (copy & paste) combine in one track. Often I have to change clip levels her and there, but then things become often very complicated bringing down the speed of saving and working in my song to unbearable slowness (each new saving might take to more than two minutes!). I must do something terribly wrong but I don't no what. Today I had a changed from a HDD to a Samsung 860 EVO 500GB to be sure I have the right hard disk. My PC is super fast but I still encounter the same problems with my saved songfile - which is not much more than a guitar track, a vocal track and some midi instruments.
How come?

[antic604]

How big is the song file? After comping, are you cleaning up the takes you've discarded? What does your problem have to do with clip levels?

[WillyOD]

I think Reason has to re-save the entire file if you add waveforms to it (especially Save as... can take a long time).

Make sure your "Scratch disk" is set to your SSD.

[guitfnky]

I record something like five consecutive tracks to give me the possibility to choose the the best parts which I subsequently (copy & paste) combine in one track.

if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re duplicating multiple tracks, and then manually combining them (comping) them together. depending on what you’ve got going on for effects in each of the tracks, the CPU hit could be significant (if you’re using a lot of effects, or they’re very CPU-intensive). if you’re doing this same thing for multiple parts before doing your manual comping—say, a set of 5 guitar takes, a set of 5 vocal takes, and a set of 5 bass takes—all requiring multiple tracks, that will eat up DSP even faster.

there’s a comping feature already built into Reason that lets you use a single audio track (and thus only one set of effects) to fade between sections of multiple takes within that track. and it lets you set volumes individually for each of the takes. you might want to check this out: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.soundo ... ason%3famp

it’s a pretty smart implementation, and should be a lot quicker workflow than doing things manually, once you’re familiar with how it works. and should lower your CPU usage some.

hope this helps!

[EdGrip]

I've noticed, when using the comp editor to adjust the levels of different clips using the little per-take mini faders, that Reason can be very slow to respond and/or refuses input for a second or two. Weird that a little task like comping and level-setting 6 or 7 rows of simple audio is such heavy work for Reason.

[Karel]

How big is the song file? After comping, are you cleaning up the takes you've discarded? What does your problem have to do with clip levels?

The original songfile with alle the tracks still included and hardly any work done with them is 1,61GB but it does not has any problem being changed or saved. Problems arose when I composed one vocal track out of the a five recorded (not using the comp editor I must admit) and deleted the original vocal tracks and saved the song in a seperate file of 814MB. Then working on the one remaining vocal track things started to slow down by almost every change I made until the whole thing almost completely got stuck. Whether it has to do with cliplevels I don't know but I had the impression.

[Karel]

I think Reason has to re-save the entire file if you add waveforms to it (especially Save as... can take a long time).

Make sure your "Scratch disk" is set to your SSD.

Could you give me a hint how to set my scratch disk (looked it up on the internet to know what it means) to my SSD.

[Karel]

there’s a comping feature already built into Reason that lets you use a single audio track (and thus only one set of effects) to fade between sections of multiple takes within that track. and it lets you set volumes individually for each of the takes. you might want to check this out: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.soundo ... ason%3famp

it’s a pretty smart implementation, and should be a lot quicker workflow than doing things manually, once you’re familiar with how it works. and should lower your CPU usage some.

hope this helps!

Thanks for pointing me at the article! I downloaded it and will read it carefully.

[antic604]

How big is the song file? After comping, are you cleaning up the takes you've discarded? What does your problem have to do with clip levels?

The original songfile with alle the tracks still included and hardly any work done with them is 1,61GB but it does not has any problem being changed or saved. Problems arose when I composed one vocal track out of the a five recorded (not using the comp editor I must admit) and deleted the original vocal tracks and saved the song in a seperate file of 814MB. Then working on the one remaining vocal track things started to slow down by almost every change I made until the whole thing almost completely got stuck. Whether it has to do with cliplevels I don't know but I had the impression.

Have you tried "Optimise and Save" option from File menu? Maybe that can help?

[Karel]

Just to give you an idea of the song wich caused me (this time) so much trouble, here it is on youtube. Only guitars, vocals, and some midi strings (Stringwerk), base (Reason) and brushes (Art of Brushes). Simple...

Sorry I did not succeed in uploading the WAV-file.

[selig]

How big is the song file? After comping, are you cleaning up the takes you've discarded? What does your problem have to do with clip levels?

The original songfile with alle the tracks still included and hardly any work done with them is 1,61GB but it does not has any problem being changed or saved. Problems arose when I composed one vocal track out of the a five recorded (not using the comp editor I must admit) and deleted the original vocal tracks and saved the song in a seperate file of 814MB. Then working on the one remaining vocal track things started to slow down by almost every change I made until the whole thing almost completely got stuck. Whether it has to do with cliplevels I don't know but I had the impression.

Here's a video on comp mode if you're in "study mode" and want more material!

[EnochLight]

Could you give me a hint how to set my scratch disk (looked it up on the internet to know what it means) to my SSD.

If all you have is 1 SSD as a working drive, then your scratch disc (cache) is already on it and there's no need to make any changes. But to change it, go into Reason's Preferences, select the Advanced tab, and you'll see the Scratch disc folder path at the bottom. You can change it to wherever you want, but choose the fastest drive you have at your disposal (which is likely the SSD you're using).

Don't worry about read/writes; modern SSD will last far longer than you'll ever need to worry.

I'll also add (since working with tiny waveforms irritates the hell out of me), as a reminder it's very easy to resize waveforms while working with them:

[chrischrischris]

Hi,

I get this when Timestretching And Comping Drums. It's a real headache.

I Record Drums and then Quantize and then remove, add or move individual slice points and then cut the best sounding sections for My Songs.

When I get to to about 2 minutes into A Song Comping And Arranging with the odd Fade In Or Out Reason pretty much grinds to a halt.

The last few minutes of A Song takes AGES to complete. Often taking 30Plus Seconds to Undo Redo Move Change anything.
However, this slow down is only affecting The Drum Tracks.

Two ways around this for Me are to move The Completed Section of The Song to other tracks tempererially until I'm finished the other section.

Bounce the files to a new recording and delete unused recordings. This is not always practical because I will usually want a few weeks of Listening before I bounce anything to track,

Save and optimize song. This will often only stop the issue for another 1/2 changes and then be back.

SSD, Scratch Disk Memory CPU has no change on any of these issues.

I have been meaning to contact Props but never heard of anyone else having this issue and I'm not usually a botherer!

Maybe now is the time.

Thanks in advance

Chris

[Karel]

Thanks for all your answers, questions and suggestions. This is a great forum and I learned already a lot.

On the web I found one video on comp editing which is basic but clear for me:

I already found out that opening the comp editor mode in my multiple track vocal recordings showed a terrible complicated picture with numerous trackes and takes. Now, what I see in this video is that the guy is not working with alt tracks as I always do but records one track over the other and then goes to the comp mode which gives a much cleaner picture. Is that a better way to go than recording multiple alt tracks? I suppose so...

[EnochLight]

Now, what I see in this video is that the guy is not working with alt tracks as I always do but records one track over the other and then goes to the comp mode which gives a much cleaner picture. Is that a better way to go than recording multiple alt tracks? I suppose so...

Yes, that's exactly how Comp Mode is designed to work in Reason. To be clear, all Comp Mode is doing is automatically recording multiple alt-tracks for you (as many as you want to "take"), and keeps them neatly organized under one individual track that you are to "commit" to a "take". Simples.

[Karel]

Greatful for your confirmation. It is clear now that I have to adjust my recording method.
Karel

[Karel]

Now guys this is the suggestion I received from elsewhere. I followed the instructions AND IT WORKED! My deficient project became super fast. I am so greatful that he was able to indicate the solution to my long time problems in this repect.

What if you create a duplicate of your file by do a "SAVE AS" and add a "2" or something to the file name. Then mark all clips in the sequencer. Right click one of them, but make sure all is selected, and choose "Bounce" -> "bounce clips to new recordings". Then select all clips again, right click one of them and select "delete unused recordings". Now, save the file again. Does the file work better now?

[EnochLight]

Now guys this is the suggestion I received to from Reason Product Support. I followed Carl's instructions AND IT WORKED! My deficient project became super fast. I am so greatful that he was able to indicate the solution to my long time problems in this repect.

Carl (Propellerhead Software)
May 30, 16:17 CEST
Hello

What if you create a duplicate of your file by do a "SAVE AS" and add a "2" or something to the file name. Then mark all clips in the sequencer. Right click one of them, but make sure all is selected, and choose "Bounce" -> "bounce clips to new recordings". Then select all clips again, right click one of them and select "delete unused recordings". Now, save the file again. Does the file work better now?
Best Regards,
Carl
Product Support
Propellerhead Software

Yes, deleting unused recordings (especially after you bounce down) is a great way to improve performance. I thought this was suggested to you earlier in one of your threads, though?

[Karel]

Yes, deleting unused recordings (especially after you bounce down) is a great way to improve performance. I thought this was suggested to you earlier in one of your threads, though?

You are right in that bouncing was suggested - and I tried it in the comp editor - but it was only after I received this clear instruction that I was able to put it into practice. With immediate result. Apalogies form my ignorance.

[EnochLight]

Yes, deleting unused recordings (especially after you bounce down) is a great way to improve performance. I thought this was suggested to you earlier in one of your threads, though?

You are right in that bouncing was suggested - and I tried it in the comp editor - but it was only after I received this clear instruction from Carl that I was able to put it into practice. With immediate result. Apalogies form my ignorance.

No worries - glad you got things sorted! Strongly recommend you actual read the Comp Editor section of the Operation Manual. It's an easy read and there's lots of tips in there.