Mixdown Question (Wrecking my brain over this!)

[TylerWildman]

Hi guys.

I'm currently working on a track for a label so I want to get the track done before I take a short break from music and upgrade my software.

I'm currently on FL Studio 11 which is 32-bit and so are all of my plugins at the minute so I only have access to a portion of what my computer is capable of. At this point it isn't becoming too difficult to get a track about 3/4 done before it starts stuttering and glitching with all tracks in play so I'm trying to find the best way to bounce my stems for a mixdown as it's damn near impossible to do anything accurately whilst it's running like this.

My options so far that I'm aware of are:

1. Arm each channel to record with the FX turned off, then when they've rendered to the playlist as WAVs, re-route them to the respective channels and switch the effects back on so I can still control them for the mix down.

2. Similar method but split the mixer tracks in the render window and import them all from fresh (keeping some effect FX for the stem but not ones that affect the mix like reverb if that makes any sense?).

3. Give up music forever because I'm fucking clueless.

I'm running a few hefty-ish plugins, the main two hoggers appear to be Spire and Omnisphere.

Any ideas would be massively appreciated, and I'm interested to know what you guys do when bouncing stems.

[FarleyCZ]

It's been ages since I tried FL, but isn't there a plain simple freeze function somewhere?

[Andres Walters]

The first lightening the load, but the second gives you more control. Attempts to balance both and try to turn off the level of the effects Mix, sometimes we leave them to 100% in the entire song, when it is not necessary, and that can consume Cpu. I hope to have written this well and hope have helped, sorry for my English. 

[Midge]

yeh the best thing you can do is export to Audio as much as you can.
any sounds in there that don't have much automation just export to audio then delete them out the project.

if you have your full arrangement down - consider exporting whole stems. Running plugins like omnisphere you are gonna hit walls on any DAW or computer, especially stacking synths and FX plugins. Any CPU heavy instrument - get it exported and delete it out of there (use a save as incase u need to go back in and edit it)

Also with FL make sure you have the best buffer settings and also enable your smart disable ( Tools > macros > switch smart disable)  - turning it on basically turns off any plugins not being used during playback. - but once your project is condensed this is still futile.

The aim here is to export as much as you can and delete stuff out - I often find I have 7 or 8 revisions of projects all saved at different times incase I need to revisit an older project and say...change a note in my melody or something  (this isn't possible working with audio but if you keep older project files with the melody still in there you can go back in...change the note then export the audio again). make sure you delete everything that isn't being used -eg samples you put in there. Also change your computer settings from your control panel to high performance mode and also /ctrl,alt, delete -  open the task manager and close down any processes you aren't using. Often computers automatically open shit but keep them running in the background - for example my computer runs a screenrecorder in the background, dropbox, bullguard and some other shit -  I shut them all down completely from the task manager - that gives you a little more CPU. Ensure all internet windows are closed and if its a laptop that you are using it plugged in.

Don't get discouraged - every producer faces these issues man. Literally every track I do by the final mixdown I am changing something then exporting the full track to see if the change was right because playback is just impossible - just gotta keep at it. The fact is a lot of third party plugins  - like omnisphere, Izotope etc all chew up your CPU - even the best computers and laptops will feel thr brunt if projects are too plugin heavy.

[Gabe D]

Im an ableton user so Im not sure if this will work in FL. Seems like it should in my head though. And this will be limited by your CPU limitations.

Try to copy and paste the channel/track you need to bounce into a free and clear FL project with the effects on them. Then render it as a WAV. Then do this for each one you need to bounce. It will take some time, but it should work.


Edit: What Midge said. ^^^

[Arktopolis]

Not really answering your question (I'm actually struggling with the same problem myself), but I just want to note that upgrading to 64-bit won't help much if your CPU is the bottleneck. The main advantage is to be able to use more than 4GB of memory. Not to say you shouldn't upgrade, just don't expect it to solve all problems!

[Midge]

another thing I forgot to mention is in your audio settings ensure you are working in 6-point hermite in your mixer resampling settings.

go options - audio - mixer - resampling -- change that to 6. 
When it comes to Exporting files you want to change your resampling to 512 within the export window but actually working in 512 within your audio settings will slow the fuck out of your computer.

[Slizz]

I would suggest bouncing to audio and keeping effects plugins live. Midi is usually the culprit when it comes to CPU problems. Also if you think a glitchy CPU is frustrating just wait until you want to take some delay off a track and realize that its not possible without bouncing the audio again.

[Kinesthetics]

One other feature of FL Studio that will help with your problem is the Smart Disable Macro, which automatically shuts off any plugins when they aren't processing audio. Go to the top-left menu and hit Tools > Macros > Switch smart disable for all plugins.

Doing this gives back a huge chunk of CPU in large projects, but it does have a couple of drawbacks: you will sometimes have trouble with tempo-synced plugins or ones that draw a small latency, such as Xfer's LFO Tool, or look-ahead compressors and limiters; and you will still have the computer choke when playing back big sections with a lot going on. It will all return to normal upon rendering, though, so don't stress.

Using a combination of rendering parts down, and the Smart Disable macro, makes life a little easier with heavy FL projects. Another tip you could try is a process-killing utility designed for gaming. Sounds strange, but Razer's GameBooster works just as well with FL Studio as it does with any game - just set it to launch with FL and it'll free up a lot of processing power for your music.

[TylerWildman]

Muchas gracias guys, I took a day off yesterday but I'm going to take some of your suggestions on board tonight and see what's what. Thanks again for the input!