Pre-render Woes

[LaSalamander]

Does anyone else have a problem using pre-render? Usually when I try to pre-render a track in Audition CC (Build 11.1.1.3) the track just cuts out after a few seconds, as if I'd muted that track. If I unclick the Pre-render butting, it goes back to normal. Can I possibly be doing something wrong?

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

What exactly are you pre-rendering? Audition internal effects, or external VSTs?

[LaSalamander]

Thanks for chiming in, SteveG! I'm using all internal effects. And any track I have pre-rendered will play back maybe 2 seconds before just cutting out. This has always been a problem for me, ever since CS6, even on a different computer.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

If it's really complex rendering, it will take some time to carry out. Initially the track has to be completely downloaded and treated before playback can start; that's basically how this works.

Normally in playback, what happens is that a track is streamed straight from your HD to Audition, and any effects are applied in real time. With rendering, the track has to be downloaded into either RAM or a temp file, and then the effects applied, and then that track's playback is from the image, not the HD. If you do this to several tracks, then the storage situation can become 'interesting'...

So as you can see, there are plenty of places for this to go wrong. To work out which, I think we'd need to know a lot more about what you're trying to do, both in terms of the length of track, and what effects you're applying to it and want to render.

[LaSalamander]

It is a really complex rendering. But I can let it sit for a minute or two, giving it all all the time it needs to sort things out, and it still behaves the same way: it all starts playing just fine, then a few seconds later, most if not all pre-rendered tracks just mute out, while Audition plays on.

I couldn't manage to figure out how to record the audio, but I did make this little video of my monster session, pre-rendering the tracks and playing back.

Pre-render Woes - YouTube

I pre-render every track, then hit play at around the 1-minute mark. You can see it's playing back by watching the meters in the lower left. And then most of it cuts out. The only thing left playing is one track I couldn't pre-render because the effect is on a bus track. But you can see how must of the volume drops out.

Is there anything else I can tell you? I appreciate your help!

[LaSalamander · Accepted solution]

Update: After trying so many things, I think I found a solution to this problem, even though it sounds to me like a far-fetched connection. I updated my system's BIOS. Lo and behold, Pre-render worked again. I have no other way to explain it, but that seems to have done the trick!

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Actually, that doesn't surprise me that much, as the BIOS is heavily involved with the way drives are handled...

But thanks for reporting back - that may well help others in the same situation, so I've marked your solution as correct.

[industral]

I have exact situation you showed on video 😞