Saving & Loading Times ?

[JJLeo77]

I'm working on my first song (a lot of fun) and I have around 17 different riffs that I've created so far. I've noticed the more riffs I create within this one song the longer it takes to Save when I'm done for the night. When starting the program it takes a good amount of time to Load also. I would say probably around 2-3 mins. Is this normal once you start creating complex long songs?

Probably a stupid question... just wondering.

Thx. JJ

[randy]

Hi JJ (wow, we have two JJ's now!),

2-3 minutes sounds like a reasonable loading time if the song has 17 different Riffs. It also depends on how many layers each one of those 17 Riffs contain. The speed of your computer also plays a huge factor in loading times, so we can get a better picture of the times if you give us more information about your computer's specs.

Thank you for choosing RiffWorks!

[scott]

The more complex anything is the more of it there is to save. With music files, the more complex they are (more layers etc.) the bigger they and therefore the longer they take to save. If you check out the size of the song file you've created, it's probably tens of megabytes in size.
It will also depend on the spec. of your system too.

[JJLeo77]

Oh. Sorry. It's a Pent 4 3.0 with 1Gb Ram

I do have a lot of layers and most of the heavier riffs are panned L/R.

[randy]

Oh. Sorry. It's a Pent 4 3.0 with 1Gb Ram

I do have a lot of layers and most of the heavier riffs are panned L/R.

Sounds about right for your system specs. That's a big song! As Scott said, you could locate the saved .rws file, right click on it and see how big it is in MB. The bigger the song, the longer the loading time.

Cheers,

[JJLeo77]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think the song will end up around 10 minutes long.

I did have another question I'd hope somebody could share their opinion on. Currently, I have the Gain on the individual layers (riffs) set around +3db to +6db. Is that going to be too much (loud) when I complete the final mix? I read somewhere on this forum that the guitar parts should remain around 0db to -6db but that seems so low. I do keep an eye on the master meters on top and I haven't noticed any clipping. I'm going to be burning to CD at somepoint so converting to .wav. I also have compression selected on most layers (it seems to bring out the sound very well). Sorry I'm still learning on how on these functions/effects work. Thanks.

[JJLeo77]

Oh...and I just checked the song's size....it's 1.02GB. (This includes some riffs that I probably won't end up using.)

[randy]

Oh...and I just checked the song's size....it's 1.02GB. (This includes some riffs that I probably won't end up using.)

That's a huge song. Awesome!

[JJLeo77]

Hi Randy,

Do you think with the song being so large I'll run into problems when trying to make the final mix to .wav to burn to CD?

When you create a song, on average how big is it?

Considering this is my first song I'm not sure if I could've done things differently to save space.

[randy]

You don't need to worry about anything unless you're running low on hard drive space. To save some space, you could go through and delete the layers and riffs you aren't going to use. That's about it though. There's no benchmark or standard for song sizes. Long songs with lots of layers will be a lot larger than short songs with just a few layers.

I think it's GREAT that you're making something so complex, so you're the only one worrying here!

Cheers,

[JJLeo77]

Wow Randy...Thanks for the quick reply.

Hey, is there any way I could get you to shed some light on my question in post #6?
I promise I'll leave you alone for a while

Thanks for the positive comments.

[randy]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think the song will end up around 10 minutes long.

I did have another question I'd hope somebody could share their opinion on. Currently, I have the Gain on the individual layers (riffs) set around +3db to +6db. Is that going to be too much (loud) when I complete the final mix? I read somewhere on this forum that the guitar parts should remain around 0db to -6db but that seems so low. I do keep an eye on the master meters on top and I haven't noticed any clipping. I'm going to be burning to CD at somepoint so converting to .wav. I also have compression selected on most layers (it seems to bring out the sound very well). Sorry I'm still learning on how on these functions/effects work. Thanks.

Oops, I missed this question earlier. Thanks for the reminder.

The final mix volume should be the same volume you hear when you play back the song. Knob position is completely relative to how loud the input signal and the amount of effects you have on each layer. Getting the mix volumes set correctly requires listening and fiddling. The only visual cue you should be using are the red limit lights on the master meters at the top of RiffWorks. They should just "flicker" a bit at the loudest parts of the song. If they're pegged, the you should lower the master gain. If they never light up, then increase the gain a bit until they line up occasionally.

You might consider starting a new "test" song. This would give you a chance to play around with mixing and levels and help you get a feel for how they affect the final .wav mix down without having to risk messing up your masterpiece!

Don't worry about asking too many questions, as that's what we're here for.

Cheers,

[JJLeo77]

Hi again Randy,

The song is up to 13 mins and 1.62GB! A lot of fun!

Question for you....I now have the song laid out in the song bar, however, when I click the Play button I've been getting some delay and skipping during playback, typically during transitions from one bar to the next, riff to riff. It's similiar to a CD skipping. The thing is once it plays all the way through the song with skipping, I play it again and it plays through flawlessly. It's almost like it's trying to buffer the first time through.

Any ideas on what's happening and could this affect the final mix down???

Thanks!

[dyonisos]

It has been my own personal experience with RiffWorks that any glitches heard during playback of a song do not end up in the final mix (unless they are player-created glitches, such as excessive string noise, bad cords, and what-not). I guess you'll find out soon enough, when you go to mix this huge song down for the first time!

Hi again Randy,

Any ideas on what's happening and could this affect the final mix down???

Thanks!

[scott]

I've had a couple of incidents where the mixdown has only picked up the drummer for one early riff. If you search RiffCaster, there are a few people who have experienced the same thing. Don't know why it happens but a re-do usually fixes it.