Having trouble with popping sounds when automating Pre-delay on Reeverb 2 plugin
Hey everyone - new here.
I'm currently working on mixing a song where I swap some minor pre-delay (Fruity Reeverb 2) in at the busier parts of the song, but as the knob for pre-delay turns, it creates popping in the song. I located this problem after turning off the automation clip for pre-delay in the Playlist view. In my case the Pre-Delay was going from 0% (0ms) up to ~10% (100ms). With an instant spike in the automation clip, the pop is loud and noticeable, but with a gradual rampup, it's just a series of softer pops, still noticeable. It's bad either way.
To reproduce this yourself, load any of your songs where you have a Fruity reeverb on a mixer track with lots of instruments routed to it (such as a Master track), put in a Reeverb 2 in that track, right-click the "Pre-delay" knob and "Create automation clip." It should default with a 0% flatline automation clip for the whole song in the Playlist view. Pick any point in the automation clip where lots of instruments/sounds are playing at the same time, and spike it to ~10%. Playback your song around where that spike happens, notice the popping. It does not seem to happen if you isolate individual instruments with a pre-delay knob automation. It seems to only happen when automating a large group of instruments.
Is there any way to prevent this from happening?
Not sure if this is a problem, but I'm using Reeverb 2 on the Master track in the Mixer (for all I know this is a mixing/mastering sin). Having no issues with automating the Wet knob for multiple instruments, just the Pre-Delay knob.
I've tried tweaking audio settings, changing drivers to ASIO, increasing sample size, none of which has helped. I'm at a loss on how to stop this from happening other than tediously creating pre-delay automations for each of 5-10 instruments at this point in the song.
Thanks for your time. Please let me know if you need any clarification. But please keep in mind I'm a complete newbie with FL studio and this subreddit. Be gentle.
Thanks again.
Posted Mar 5, 2017, 4:06 PM UTC
Because automating pre-delay (much like automating "size") is not a good idea; many parameters respond shittily to real time tweaking, like flushing buffers, crackling, cutting out & ...doing god only knows what. So don't do it.
In this case tho, verb's doing exactly what you ask it to do:
(0ms) "Start playing the signal you processed right now!"
(crank to 100ms) "Lol no, not yet, stupid! Stop! Wait 100ms, then start!"
The verb responds by doing just that: it cuts the wet signal (click!); plays 100ms of silence, then fades in the processed signal again.
It does. To hear exactly what's going on, turn the dry signal down to zero, wet to 100%, hit a note, and tweak the knob (with a mouse pointer, or link it to your mod wheel).
...and already automating reverb pre-delay?
Alright, so you're saying I have to pick between either no pre-delay ever or put pre-delay at the start of the song and never change it during the song?
Are there any tricks to get around this, besides a mid-song volume break... Do I have any other options in this case? I thought it would have been an interesting change mid-song with alternating reverb effects instead of being stuck with the same effects for the entire song.
...and finding out it may not even be possible. TIL.
No matter what you choose to do, there will be some jarring transition between timings for the trained ear, but I'd suggest making multiple instances of delay and either slowly switching between them (turning ones mix on, while the others off) or a straight switch between them after 8\16 bars or whatever you're trying to do.
Sure. You can try using volume automation to duck the crap created by real-time pre-delay automation, or using a verb which allows real-time pre-delay manipulation (not sure if they exist).
P.S. Or loading two instances of Reverb 2 in your effects (one with 100ms pre-delay, one without), and muting the one you're not using with automation (so only one is on at any given time).
There's a chance Reverb 2 handles pre-delay tweaking more gracefully when rendering (as opposed to in real-time). Try rendering the project (saving as .wav or .mp3) & see if the glitches vanish.
Is it important? Cutting [automating] the wet/dry mix won't do it?
Sweet. I'll give those a try, I didn't even think of trying that.
Thanks! You guys are awesome.