Glitching behaviour when mastering on a 'PRE-MASTER' bus WITHIN the project....

Mudchild · 03-22-2023, 06:37 AM

M1, Monterey, runs like a dream...

BUT

I've taken to grouping all my tracks into a 'PRE-MASTER' folder track. Everything is summed there. I put all my Ozones and whatnot on this Pre-Master, and master there.

The reason for the PRE-MASTER approach is that this folder track sends the whole mix to a couple of other monitoring-only tracks with things like SPAN on, a reference track plugin, and plugins that simulate different listening environments. There's some routing going on here (all after the Pre-Master but before the actual Master) to enable me to compare different signals for listening and reference purposes, frequency comparison etc.

On Reaper's actual Master, you can't do sends back to any other tracks back in the project, hence the above approach.

However doing it this way greatly impacts performance in some way - but NOT apparently the CPU.

Things run fine until I start putting a few Fab Filter Pro L2's in the project, oversampling at 16x, and then also run Ozone on the Pre-Master. Suddenly I'm in absolute glitch world, unlistenable, unworkable. However my CPU is absolutely fine, in fact it's sipping pina coladas on the beach, relaxed as hell. no problem there - whether buffers are set high or low - the M1 is still in easy street.

Take the L2's out - glitching stops. Keep the L2's but take Ozone out - glitching stops. Keep them together, it's glitch armageddon.

Now, if I get rid of the whole pre-master approach and put all my Ozones and stuff back on the main Master, with my tracks and groups going straight to that, the whole glitch issue disappears completely. All is fine - BUT I've lost my little SPAN/reference monitoring setup.

In summary - Reaper clearly has a much harder time running Ozone on a 'Pre-Master' group track within the project, compared to running Ozone on the actual Master. For me the problem is not manifesting unless I have some Pro L2's multi-sampling at 16X within the project. The combo of the oversampled L2's, Ozone on the Pre-Master, and routing from there to the actual Master seems to push Reaper over some threshold. The higher the L2 oversampling, the worse it is.

But it's not CPU - that's not even breaking a sweat.

Just trying to understand this really. is there some setting I can apply to the Pre-Master track to make it behave like the official Master?

Would love to hear perspectives on this.

Judders · 03-22-2023, 07:21 AM

You might still be maxing out a single core, even if the others are barely used.

A couple of questions:

Why not use monitoring fx for your metering and environment simulation plugins?

If you use sends to a pre-master track, rather than a folder, does that help?

ScuzzyEye · 03-22-2023, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mudchild

Now, if I get rid of the whole pre-master approach and put all my Ozones and stuff back on the main Master, with my tracks and groups going straight to that, the whole glitch issue disappears completely. All is fine - BUT I've lost my little SPAN/reference monitoring setup.

If you're looking for a place to put SPAN and other metering tools, have a look at Monitor FX section. It's not as good for holding reference tracks that sync with the song, because the Monitor FX chain is global, saved in Reaper, not per song.

As for everything else. Welcome to this thread: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=227950

Mudchild · 03-22-2023, 08:14 AM

Ah thanks both. Clearly I'm far from alone. Monitor FX doesn't quite cut it for me due to needing a few tracks interacting in my 'listening chain' - but for now, disabling PDC for the whole Pre-Master group solves the problem. I'll keep tabs on that other thread though for sure

Stella645 · 03-23-2023, 08:00 AM

Using a pre master for the bus FX is usually better for performance than the master due to the fact that anticipative FX doesn't work on the master.

Might be an interesting test to remove the routing of this track to the alt monitoring sends and see if it behaves differently.

Bruceqld · 03-23-2023, 08:50 AM

As an experiment, try doing the same thing but setting the routing to a pre master bus rather than using a folder track.

fricia · 03-23-2023, 09:27 AM

Sounds familiar! Take a look at this thread, where people are having similar issues: https://forums.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=227950

Reaper seem to not like high latency plugins on folders. Though it seems weird to me that the issue goes away, when you use the Master track...

EDIT: Only just saw that the thread was already linked to above. Sorry for repeating what has already been said.