Mixcraft 4 freezes during mixdown

rick d · Joined: 18 Feb 2007 Posts: 65

Whenever I try to mixdown files in MC4 - Doesn't matter the file type either, the rendering process will get at exactly 95% and just stall there. WTF? The program then freezes, the screen will turn white and unresponsive.

I have been letting it sit there for several minutes to see what it would do, but nothing. I've had this problem since way back in the MC3 days and nothing's changed yet. I still have MC2 and I never get that problem with rendering.

Even when I try to save files as MIDI in MC4, the program will freeze, but it will do it at the beginning of the process.

I've used 2 separate PCs - One faster than the other - and still had the same issues. MC is an integral part of my studio, but due to this issue I'm glad I only purchased the 60 day liscence instead of the full.

BTW, I am using the latest version of MC4. Every version of it that I've used gave me the same issue, and as stated before, it's been that way since MC3.

Acoustica Eric · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 4:53 pm Post subject: re

What is most likely happening is that about 95% of the way through the song you have a VST effect on something that is crashing Mixcraft. Find that effect, turn it off and then try rendering.
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Acoustica Dan · Joined: 22 Jun 2007 Posts: 167

Hi there,

A few questions --

1) first, does this happen regardless of the format you're saving (MP3, WAV)?

2) Are you using the latest version of Mixcraft 4.5 (build 118)?

3) Finally, try this: Go to File->Preferences, select the General tab, and uncheck the box that says 'Play Exported Files After They're Created'. I'm wondering if the freeze is occuring when Mixcraft launches your music player.

Let us know!

Thanks,
Dan

rick d · Joined: 18 Feb 2007 Posts: 65

No it's not that at all. It is doing this in all of my projects that have a lot of tracks (10 is the most I use though). I was thinking that maybe all of the effects are what's doing it, but even with all of the effects turned off, it still does it. Strangely, I don't have that problem at all with MC2, because no matter how many tracks I used with it and how many effects I had per track, it would still render straight through.

My current PC isn't that powerful; I use this one as my more capable PC is down, but even when that one was working, I still had the same problems.

To Dan, the answers to the first 2 questions you asked were stated in my initial post. To the last question though, I turned that setting off when I setup the program, so it's not part of the problem.

I'm pretty much lost Sad

Acoustica Eric · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 7:44 pm Post subject: re

Hmm ok, can you answer Dan's questions? I would also be curious to see what your task manager says for cpu and PF usage.
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rick d · Joined: 18 Feb 2007 Posts: 65

Acoustica Greg · Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 3641 Location: California

Hi,

In Mixcraft, click on the File menu and select Preferences. In the Sound Device preferences, what do you have selected: Wave, ASIO or WaveRT?

If you're not using Wave, try switching to Wave and then see if you can mix down.

Greg

rick d · Joined: 18 Feb 2007 Posts: 65

Acoustica Eric · Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 6:21 am Post subject: re

Ok, I can see a huge issue from your system specs.
Notice a couple things.
1) You should set the advanced setting for best performance for programs, not background services.
2) You only have 512MB of ram and 64 of those megabytes are being used by your onboard video. Added to this (and this is the kicker) your task manager says your PF usage is at 726, that means you have used up ALL of your system ram and the computer is now paging, which means it is writing to the hard drive for extra memory. This absolutely will cause crashes and system slow downs to the point that programs and even windows will appear frozen.

For an optimal audio editing computer, you need to up your ram and get a separate video card ( it will have it's own memory and won't use system memory).

A couple gigs of ram are fairly cheap and will increase your system performance substantially

EDIT: The "currently down" machine has much more realistic specs to do what you want to do. But I would still suggest getting away from onboard video.

EDIT2: PM me here on the board, I would like to have a look at this project you are working on if you are ok with that.
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rick d · Joined: 18 Feb 2007 Posts: 65