Anyone copy a project from hardware to software and had changes in the mix?

I've opened a large project built on the M+ using 3.4.2. It was originally started on version 2, but seemed to open in 3.4.2 fine.

I copied this to my computer to open it in the Maschine Software. Some sounds are way too quiet. The mix settings are identical, but in some cases, the sound is just quieter, in other cases, it looks like the software is not using a normalized version of the sample.

It's a huge project, full 45 min album, so I guess I'm going to have to go through each sound and confirm it imported properly.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Is there some new setting that might cause (or prevent) this?

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S Righteous

This is absolute $hite - I opened my project on the standalone hardware, to compare it to the same project opened in the software.

The first issue, (and I can't believe this is a thing) - the software doesn't show me the actual values of the faders in the mixer. I can visually see where the fader is, but not its specific db value, like you see in the hardware. I can't find any way to adjust this, so going through the hardware mix to compare it to the software version is a no go. I never had to compare these on V2 of the software, as the integration didn't have this kind of issue.

C'mon NI - can't you make it so that the mixer settings show absolute values in the software? Software is supposed to be easier to use than hardware because there are less screen real-estate issues.

There are some samples that play at full volume (no velocity mod), so I played them on both to compare the 'max' level (which is shown) in the channel strip. Many of these do match, but some are way off. Certainly for samples with velocity mod, this is not a good method to see what needs fixing.

I can see that some sample waveforms in the software don't look normalized, but they clearly are on the hardware version of the project. Some samples look identical, and the mixer settings look identical, but the maximum levels those samples show in the mixer is off by 6db or more.

I've also checked to see if any sample slots use plug-ins where 'maybe' the software isn't using the same version, or isn't using the same settings, but I haven't found any issues here.

In any case, I'm deeply disappointed that my projects from the hardware exported to the computer are not exactly the same when opened in the software. I actually bought a new computer to be able to use Maschine 3, so to find out the integration is worse than it was with version 2 is a kick in the kidney.

S Righteous

I've done more testing, looking at samples which were normalized in the hardware, but do not show as normalized in the software. The weirdest part is that if I find the audio file the software uses, it is clearly normalized.

I also did a basic test, using a single sample, opening that project on both, and they were identical. Then I normalized the sample on the hardware, saved, exported and opened it in the software, and this worked as expected, the sample was normalized. So the issue is some edge case.

My only theory is that this has something to do with opening v2 projects in the Hardware after updating to V3. These projects had zero issues on the hardware, but possibly older V2 normalization info got lost and when these are opened in V3 of the software, it doesn't use normalized versions. I don't see edit folders for these files, and I think Normalization is non-reversable, so the file used, is just the file. Not sure how to even fix this methodically.

ALDREAD

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/260726#Comment_260726

the fader level value , is under the sound name and pan in the mixer , it’s not very big tbh , from scratch it’s value is -inf , , also note , it auto updates the value when you turn the fader up , but doesn’t when you turn it down , you need to click on the value , for it to update

Don’t ask me why , but there must be a reason for that

S Righteous

ALDREAD - I think you might be talking about the 'max' level indicator. It is small, and only updates when you hit a higher level than the one it stores.

What I want to compare, is my mixer settings, is my fader set to -2 or -9db. That isn't shown anywhere in my mixer, so I can't confirm it matches the hardware, which clearly shows these things.

In this screenshot you can see faders, but other than the ones at zero, I have no idea what they are set at, and I don't want to click on these to accidentally screw up this mix.

S Righteous

Way better description of the issue.

Here is a screenshot showing the waveform for sample "extra blade 4" in the software. In the hardware this is normalized, and of course way louder. Also in this screenshot, I've drilled into this project, and opened the sample "extra blade 4" in Audacity to see how it looks, and yeah, it's normalized.

ALDREAD

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/260734#Comment_260734

ok , I get ya , looking again that makes sense now . Thx

ALDREAD

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/260734#Comment_260734

a place to see the fader value is channel view /output / audio , if you hover over the knob it gives you the value

S Righteous

ALDREAD - yup, indeed, I can go through each sample and see the settings to compare them that way. Good catch, I had forgotten that other location of the volume.

I do wish the mixer view had that data though, because 1) It's all in one place, 2) It's a mixer, which should show mixer settings, 3) Software doesn't have restrictions that should lead to these kinds of user limitations. This is a rant for the developers of course!

S Righteous

I was looking at one of my Groups with this issue of not using normalized samples. I saved just the specific group with samples, then opened it in a new project, and the issue seemed fixed. Now those samples were using normalized versions. (the only versions really when I look at the files themselves)

I of course want project level settings, like Scenes, so I saved every group in my project, with samples, and then reloaded each one of them into the same project. This did not fix the issue, and the groups did not now use the normalized versions of the samples. This seems to indicate that the 'normalization' of a sample is saved at the project level? That seems really weird. Unbelievable actually. I was imagining that the project had some filepath saved to an older version of the project, and loaded those instead of the newer normalized version, but yeah, saving the group with samples may have also saved this problem if loaded into the same project.

Next idea was to save all groups with their patterns and see if that works, possibly I can rebuild the scenes based on looking a the hardware version of the project. However, I do not see any option when saving a group to "save with midi". I don't see it for Save as, or Save with Samples. Is this for real? Or am I missing something?

ALDREAD

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/260751#Comment_260751

if you save the group , all patterns are saved with it , also scale

S Righteous

ALDREAD - that is not what I have experienced. Not even in version 2 of the software.

In the V3 software, if I save the Group on it's own, patterns are not saved.

In V2 there was an option I had to check for patterns to also be saved, I don't see that option any more.

I don't think SCENES were ever saved at the group level in V2 either, because SCENES span more than one Group. Those were only saved when you save a project including all the groups the SCENES use. That is the same in V3, but I expect that.

ALDREAD

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/260754#Comment_260754

have you got the + patterns, switch on , when loading ( bottom of browser)

Because I’ve been saving load of groups the past few days , converting Rex jungle breaks to wav and the midi pattern to a group for use on the plus

S Righteous

ALDREAD - sincerely thank you for persisting and not giving up on this thread!

I missed that button on the software.

I used to see an option when saving, both on software and hardware, but that is gone, and it just does it automatically (makes sense) and you have the option to either load or not load those patterns.

I saved all my groups individually on the hardware. I loaded all those groups individually on the software into a new project, and clicked the "+ patterns" button. Now I do indeed have all the patterns from those groups.

ALSO - these groups now seem to use the correct versions of the samples! The normalized ones. I have to check the other samples where the volume was off, but visually hard to tell if it was related to normalization.

So this method fixes part of my issue. But, I don't have any of my original SCENES. There are a lot of them, I have 16 groups with up to 50 patterns each. I don't think you can export Scenes, or anything like that - I may have to rebuild them again, one by one, comparing the desktop version to my hardware.

For this project, which is 45+ minutes of a full album, I need to get a version into the desktop software, so I may spend hours recreating all these Scenes. But now I know the integration between hardware and software is buggy, in a way that is not always easy to tell, unless you review every sample in your project. I can't rely on this going forward. I hope NI gets to the bottom of it, and can fix this.

Thanks again ALDREAD !

S Righteous

Just some more notes.

I opened the original project on desktop, and just reloaded the saved Groups + Patterns into it, so that I would have the Scenes. In this case the correct samples are not used. So this is somehow broken at the Project level. If I open those groups into a new project, the correct samples are used.

Another weird thing, when I go to save a project on desktop, the default name repeats the suffix twice.

Like this: "project_name.mxprj.mxprj"

I've been deleting that first and just using "project_name.mxprj"

S Righteous

I believe I have fixed my project, but will confirm tomorrow.

I loaded a project on desktop. It was broken. Previously I had loaded the 'fixed' versions of groups into this project and that didn't fix it. So I deleted all samples associated with the project first - hoping the samples would be 'not found' next time I loaded the project. Oddly, the project loaded and the samples were there (still broken), even though all folders with these were deleted. I think it possibly looks back at previous versions of the project or who knows what, but it was finding samples it should not have.

I deleted previous versions of the project, ensuring there were no groups or project sample folders it could use - and then didn't save the project, just reloaded the fixed groups into that project, replacing the existing groups, and keeping the Scenes.

This seems to work, and I will test it out tomorrow, as I have no exact idea how many samples were affected. I saved it, and hopefully when it loads all samples will be fixed.

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