Exporting stems is super duper slow

What's good peeps! I've been away for a while but I jumped back on the MPC to try out the new 1.8. Last version I used was 1.6. Anyway, loaded up an old project I made in 1.6 bc I needed the stems and tried to export the tracks, I selected explode tracks and I'm still waiting and it's been 30+ minutes. Am I doing something wrong? This can't be life... lol If I'm not doing anything wrong this needs to be fixed. Why did this change and become worse?

bump

Try saving the project to a new version before exploding tracks.. ANd then try it again.

How many tracks are there?

There are 23 tracks. If I'm not mistaken, I beleive when I first open the old (1.6) project its makes a backup and converts it to a new project. I'll try again and see if the same thing happens. Is no one else experiencing this same issue?

Exporting track stems will take significantly longer in 1.7 and up due to the new mixer, which requires it to export one track at a time. However, it's should not be taking 30+ minutes unless you are using some really intense plugins, like UAD or something, or just a lot of plugins in general. 23 tracks is a lot to export one at a time. So I would expect it to be pretty slow. Exporting program stems should be really fast because program stems can be exported all at the same time.

Can you give some more details about your project?

So are you saying I can have 1.6 speed if I place each track on a diff program? My project has no plugins at all. There are 17 tracks with .wav files on the pads. And abt 12 midi tracks where I'm seq 2 diff keyboards. It's exporting the midi tracks as well even tho they will be blank.

hotboi wrote:So are you saying I can have 1.6 speed if I place each track on a diff program?

Correct. If each track has it's own dedicated program, and you select Separate Programs as your export option, it will export very fast because it will do all the programs at once.

All of the audio runs out of the program. So if you want track stems, but have multiple tracks going out of the same program, then those tracks have to be muted and exported one at a time so audio from the other track does not get into that stem.

What you can do is just create your beat as usual, then wait until the end before you are ready to export to split your tracks into dedicated programs.

Ok, well that's good news. I was hoping it was a way to keep the 1.6 speed. I'll let u kw how it works out.

DJ Hellfire wrote:

hotboi wrote:So are you saying I can have 1.6 speed if I place each track on a diff program?

Correct. If each track has it's own dedicated program, and you select Separate Programs as your export option, it will export very fast because it will do all the programs at once.

All of the audio runs out of the program. So if you want track stems, but have multiple tracks going out of the same program, then those tracks have to be muted and exported one at a time so audio from the other track does not get into that stem.

What you can do is just create your beat as usual, then wait until the end before you are ready to export to split your tracks into dedicated programs.

Ok maybe I'm slow, but is there a video or instructions on this process? Mainly the last part about creating the beat as usual and then splitting tracks into dedicated programs?

jigdagod wrote:

DJ Hellfire wrote:

hotboi wrote:So are you saying I can have 1.6 speed if I place each track on a diff program?

Correct. If each track has it's own dedicated program, and you select Separate Programs as your export option, it will export very fast because it will do all the programs at once.

All of the audio runs out of the program. So if you want track stems, but have multiple tracks going out of the same program, then those tracks have to be muted and exported one at a time so audio from the other track does not get into that stem.

What you can do is just create your beat as usual, then wait until the end before you are ready to export to split your tracks into dedicated programs.

Ok maybe I'm slow, but is there a video or instructions on this process? Mainly the last part about creating the beat as usual and then splitting tracks into dedicated programs?

All you have to do is cursor to the Program field in the main screen, press window, and select Duplicate to duplicate the program on that track. Then just make sure the new program is what is assigned to the track. That's it. You can also rename the programs to the same name as the track name so they are easy to see in the mixer.

Maybe these three videos will help.

Aaaah - I also wondered how people were doing this "explode" thing - I was concerned that this manual approach is the way...

If I have a 20 track project with one program, it's silly that I have to create 20 programs if I want to export the stems (converting to one sequence from song mode, albeit not desireable, is an option with many less steps).

I'm surprised there aren't more people complaining about this mixer implementation and the effect it's having on exporting stems, song mode, etc. But I assume that not many people are exporting stems, or don't use many tracks to begin with.

But either way, there needs to be an export that is based on the track, not the program. It's why I'm still on 1.6.

Eyalc wrote:I'm surprised there aren't more people complaining about this mixer implementation and the effect it's having on exporting stems, song mode, etc. But I assume that not many people are exporting stems, or don't use many tracks to begin with.

But either way, there needs to be an export that is based on the track, not the program. It's why I'm still on 1.6.

My thoughts exactly. I've been away for a while, came back and ran right into this. I was like where is the uproar?

@Hellfire I've been working like crazy and haven't had time to test this out, but when I split my tracks into dedicated programs will it also create multiple instances of my plugins? I hope the answer is no.

Thanks for the videos Hellfire. I'll check em out. I was playing with it last night and I did the duplicate and rename to what the track is such as Kick.

I'm not complaining, but the old way was not a workflow hindrance at all. I can create my beat, copy and paste into my sequences, go into sing mode build my song and export my stems with ease. Now I feel like I have to do more unnecessary things and steps just to do a simple export for stems. I know they changed how everything works, but that option to export stems should still be there in some way and not just gone or tell people to get used to another way of doing things when its not a better way to doing it.

I look at MPC software the same as FL Studio as far as how it setup with the dedicated mixer and I can do a simple export of stems.

This is my biggest gripe with the software.

Eyalc wrote:Aaaah - I also wondered how people were doing this "explode" thing - I was concerned that this manual approach is the way...

1. If I have a 20 track project with one program, it's silly that I have to create 20 programs if I want to export the stems (converting to one sequence from song mode, albeit not desireable, is an option with many less steps).

2. I'm surprised there aren't more people complaining about this mixer implementation and the effect it's having on exporting stems, song mode, etc. But I assume that not many people are exporting stems, or don't use many tracks to begin with.

3. But either way, there needs to be an export that is based on the track, not the program. It's why I'm still on 1.6.

1. You don't have to create 20 new programs if you don't want to. You can simply choose Explode Track export option and let it export one track at a time.

2. The fact that you are staying on 1.6 and ignoring all the new, more efficient features just to save a few minutes on exporting is more surprising to me. Just saying!

3. You can't export audio from the tracks because audio does not flow through the tracks anymore. Audio flows through the program. It's mathematically impossible for the software to render multiple stems out of the same audio path at the same time.

The first problem with the audio flowing through the tracks came down to plugins. No one wanted to have to use the submix just to use plugins on the pads. There is literally no way around this with audio flowing through the track. The reason is because lets say you put a plugin on a pad and lets say you use that same pad on two or more different tracks. If the different tracks trigger that pad at the same time or in a way that the audio overlaps, then how will the plugin know which track to output it's audio to? This is why the pads are forced out the submix when they use plugins in 1.0-1.6; so the plugin has one central path to output audio to.

Secondly, no one wanted to have to use separate instances of the same plugin for the same track in different sequences like we had to since 1.0. There is literally no way around this with audio flowing through the track unless you unify the track mixer. Unifying the track mixer sounds cool in theory, but then you lose the ability to have multiple beats in the same project, which a lot of live performers do and is also something many vintage MPC users rely on. Having an optional unified mixer would also be a great idea, except for the fact that things like automation and such would become a mess.

Therefore, the best alternative was the current mixer, which is the same exact way every other MPC functions, minus the plugins. It just works. So you have two options, either take 3 minutes and create 20 new programs that will export at once or just use the Explode Track export option that will automate the track export one track at a time and go make a sandwich while you wait.

The time you think you're saving by staying in 1.6 just for exporting is much less than the time you'll gain by having a more efficient mixer where you don't have to maintain multiple instances of the same plugin on a track in different sequences everytime you make a change to a plugin parameter. Among other things!

hotboi wrote:@Hellfire I've been working like crazy and haven't had time to test this out, but when I split my tracks into dedicated programs will it also create multiple instances of my plugins? I hope the answer is no.

Yes, because you're basically duplicating the entire program channel strip and everything contained in it. If you're concerned about CPU, then just remove any plugins from any pads that aren't used on the track. Audio files will not be duplicated. Each program will still reference the same audio file on the disk.

All you're basically doing is nothing more than creating auxillary channels for your different tracks, similar to how you would do in Pro Tools or any comparable DAW.