Strange Reaper/Plugin problem. Works fine one day, then mutes the track the next.

[AlasdairEaston]

Hi. I'm scratching my head on this one and worrying a bit. Wondering if anyone has seem similar behaviour?

I had a Reaper project, working fine. I was using about 4 instances of bx_dynEQ v2 on it. All good. I got the draft mix done and sent to the band.

The next day, I loaded the project again and there was no audio from the vocal track. After some investigation I found that disabling the bx_dynEQ v2 plugin cured the problem. With the plugin engaged, the sound is completely muted. Disabling the plugin allows the sound to come through.

The other instances of the same plugin on other tracks caused no problems and could be left as-is, working fine.

Interestingly, dragging the offending plugin to another track (or cutting and pasting it there) resulted in it working fine on that track.

So, bemused but needing to get work done, I just disabled the offending one, created a new instance on the same vocal track and it all worked fine. I got a mix revision done and sent to the band. Tick! I renamed the disabled one "Dodgy" and left it on there, disabled.

However this morning, it's like groundhog day - I've just loaded the session and that new instance of the plugin has the same problem as the previous instance! If I disable it then the audio comes back as before. But even more weirdly, if I re-enable the previous "Dodgy" one it now works fine!

It's a bit worrying. Can't go checking scores of plugins are working fine every time a session gets loaded.

Has anyone seem anything similar? I know it's a long shot but this is an incredible forum.

Cheers,
Alasdair.

[Drew Stephenson]

Not something I've ever experienced with Reaper, I have found the occasional weird behaviour with a BX plugin though so I'd start by raising a ticket with them. They were pretty responsive when I did so last year.

[AlasdairEaston]

Update: Looks like the problem might be the plugin before it in the chain. It's Britpressor from Analog Obsession.

Anytime I save the project with Britpressor in place, then close and re-open Reaper, it causes the problem described in my original post. I can replicate it exactly everytime. In contrast, saving it with Britpressor disabled means the re-load works fine and my original problem with dynEQ v2 doesn't happen.

So it looks like problem solved. I do wish I understood more precisely what's happening though, and part of me thinks that Reaper shouldn't allow a technical error in one plugin in the FX chain to affect subsequent ones. That's maybe a bit hard on Reaper though.

For more info...
I went to Britpressor as a suspect first for a few reasons:
1. It was immediately before dynEQ v2 in the FX chain.
2. The problem track was the only track that had Britpressor.
3. I'd had a couple of odd things happen with other Analog Obsession plugins.
They're quite new to me. I'd downloaded a few of their plugins a couple of months ago to try them. They sounded pretty good actually but like I said, a couple of odd things happened. Crashing or loud pops when engaging oversampling for example (sometimes loud enough for Reaper to auto-mute the track for safety). For that reason I'd basically decided not to use them. But I was tempted on this track to try some vintage-style limiting on an agressive rock vocal so I relented and loaded Britpressor.

I feel guilty bashing the Analog Obession plugin, especially since they seem to be the work of one guy. It's clear he's talented, but in this instance it just seems to be causing a problem I can't live with. If I subsequently discover it's more nuanced that this and that it's not exactly the Britpressor's fault I'll be straight on here to update this.

Cheers,
Alasdair.

[Martin Walker]

Hi Alasdair!

I did initially wonder whether Reaper had auto-muted due to glitching, and your comments seem to reinforce that opinion. You don't necessarily need to loud pops for auto-muting to occur - it's possible for even a single sample to trigger this, which could well seem inaudible.

Like you I've tried some of the Analog Obsession plug-ins, and the developer really does seem to be a one-man production line. I'm frankly amazed at how quickly he creates and releases new plug-ins, and they do look good and often sound good as well.

However, I ended up abandoning the ones I tried because some of the frequency controls seemed significantly out of kilter. For instance, when the various highpass filter settings of the AO BritPre sounded different to other plug-ins, its 45Hz setting matched another plug-in when set to 27Hz, its 70Hz setting measured 44Hz, the 160Hz setting measured 103Hz, and the 360Hz setting measured 193Hz compared with another trusted plug-in.

These apparent teething troubles may be resolved in due course, but they left me rather less confident when using them.

Martin