Fairlight Stereo Tracks Randomly Panning Left Or Right

Full disclosure: I ran a web search on this but have not searched the forums yet because it's 1 am and I'm leaving town in a couple of days with a 3 month project as of this evening not quite finished but I have to ask here....

I'm on Resolve 17.4.6 (Mac OS 10.15.7) and have a situation in Fairlight where stereo tracks are at times no longer centered, or other bizarre things like level shifts (literally had the end of a clip that was automated into silence spring back in volume, even though the automation line clearly showed it was down). By centered, I mean instead of L/R stereo channels being even, one side will be louder than the other. I know it's not a hardware, speaker, or interface issue. The actual meters inside of Fairlight show this imbalance when it happens. It seems to happen randomly too, with no indication of why or when it will happen next. I tried rendering to see if it was an issue on render and it was.

It hasn't ruined anything yet but I'd like to get this sorted out and figure out how to solve it, obviously. Any ideas?

Is this a Fixed or Flexi Bus Project?
No attempts at manually converting between Bussing architectures?

On the affected Tracks are the Panner beads positioned correctly or are abnormal offsets present?

Is this a Fixed or Flexi Bus Project?
No attempts at manually converting between Bussing architectures?

On the affected Tracks are the Panner beads positioned correctly or are abnormal offsets present?

Had to look this up to answer your questions since Fairlight is the one page I ran out of time to do the training course on before I began running out of time to make videos and get this 3+ year project off the ground (I'm coming from a Pro Tools/music/studio background) but as near as I can tell, it must be Flexi Bus since it's Resolve 17.4.6 and I found another one of your posts in the archive where I learned that Resolve 17 default to Flexi Bus, correct? Of course no attempts at manually converting on my end.

For the panner beads, I'm not sure if you're asking if the beads change position when it happens, or if the beads are positioned abnormally (on purpose) during any section of video/audio, in which case, no, everything is straight down the middle. If you need an answer on what happens during abnormal glitches I'll wait and see when it happens again and get back....

Thanks for the reply and time!

Sean

Don't know how far out of whack it is Sean, but if its only marginal then don't rely on the channel strip UI to accurately reflect whether you are panned exactly centre or not ... open the pan control window and check that the Left / Right control is set to 'C' (double click the pot element to reset to centre if in doubt).

I had a project where the left right legs were slightly out of whack, I had no recollection of adjusting them and they looked bang on in the channel strip UI, but when I double checked in the Pan window they were indeed slightly off centre.

Glitches still befuddling me today. Here is a video of the random audio coming on even though the fader is all the way down. As for the pan issues, haven't replicated that yet today and would probably be hard to hear stereo balancing problems on an iPhone video anyhow but in the mix window, everything looks as it should be

Is that behaviour also present with the automation system bypassed?

Is that behaviour also present with the automation system bypassed?

Not sure and wouldn't have an answer now until the next time it randomly happens, when I can check. I do know for sure that the audio spiking back up when it should be/has been automated down to silence....that for certain was not happening until after I began automating, and more, until after I had selected "Automation Follows Edit." The rest, I don't have a clear answer for you on yet

Thanks,

Sean

6 months, one operating system, and one major DR update (17 to 18, studio) later, just a follow-up that I still have issues with this....and am still searching for definitive solutions.

Toggling the faders (literally touching the mouse to it and clicking) usually seems to remedy it. Just had it happen again earlier this evening after a 30 minute render which burned itself into the render. Just thought to try trashing all cache files and will see. But the issue has followed me across operating systems and across projects whenever I start automating stuff in Fairlight. I was a little surprised it didn't seem like anyone else had experienced any issues given how pervasive mine have been with not knowing why. Hopefully all the stuff for my now 4-year project bounces okay after all of this. Worst case, I'd send the audio out to Pro Tools and deal with the audio in Pro Tools only but hopefully won't need to

Okay it's still happening, and now it's in my renders. Absolutely no idea what to do at this stage, having ruled out projects, operating systems, and DR versions. Presumably no one else is having this issue? Any ideas at all???

Have not been able to reproduce this on the systems here.

Is the behaviour still present with the Fairlight automation system bypassed?

Are you able to provide a Project (perhaps with media for the affected region) that exhibits this behaviour?

Have not been able to reproduce this on the systems here.

Is the behaviour still present with the Fairlight automation system bypassed?

Are you able to provide a Project (perhaps with media for the affected region) that exhibits this behaviour?

Just toggled the switch to bypass automation and the behavior was still present, but as for re-creating it reliably, it's completely random and intermittent. Closing the project and re-opening can be enough to make it appear "fixed" for a little while until it happens again. Since it's across projects, any project may eventually exhibit the behavior. I can certainly extract a section of the one I'm currently in and share a 30 second sample or something, but in desperation, I noticed some VSTs that belong to Finale notation software are included in my available plugins, and started wondering if it's worth trying to remove any audio plugins. I just found a thread you'd helped someone with here: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=172375

Worth the effort to remove a MIDI keyboard from the Fairlight page?? Or would those be unlikely to trigger problems???

Temporarily disable the MIDI keyboard to at least eliminate that as a potential tigger.

Temporarily disable the MIDI keyboard to at least eliminate that as a potential tigger.

The MIDI keyboard is disconnected. I'm not entirely sure on how to delete any actual plugins or VSTs....

Audio Plugins may be disabled in Resolve's Preferences:
System > Audio Plugins > Available plugins

On macOS delete audio plugins from the default paths.
Ensure Components, VST, and VST3 folders do not contain unwanted plugins:
Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/
Macintosh HD/Home folder/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/

Restart Resolve and allow the host to rescan plugins.

Audio Plugins may be disabled in Resolve's Preferences:
System > Audio Plugins > Available plugins

On macOS delete audio plugins from the default paths.
Ensure Components, VST, and VST3 folders do not contain unwanted plugins:
Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/
Macintosh HD/Home folder/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/

Restart Resolve and allow the host to rescan plugins.

Much thanks. Doing at the moment. Nothing under Macintosh HD/Home folder/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/ but there is under Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/

The plugin/VST is called ARIA Player, and in Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/ there is another ARIA file in the "Components" folder. Do I want to get rid of that too? The file is ARIA Player AU.component

(I've already removed the .vst extension files & am keeping a copy of these in a separate folder on the desktop so I can get them back if need be).

If the ARIA Player AU is still required, disable the plugin in Resolve's Preferences to prevent the plugin loading. It will still be available for use with Finale.

If the ARIA Player AU is still required, disable the plugin in Resolve's Preferences to prevent the plugin loading. It will still be available for use with Finale.

Thanks Reynaud. We've conclusively ruled out the plugin, as the behavior was recurring even after ARIA player was disabled in Preferences and then after the .vst files had been removed. I put the files back in place and it's now available again in Resolve so no harm done.

I'll be updating this thread in an hour or two with a link to a .DRA archive from a current project, bearing in mind this happens on many/all projects now. I do think I've narrowed it down to automation, in that if Automation is on, it happens, and once it does, if I flip off automation, it still happens. But if I load the project fresh and disable automation before playing anything, then it never seems to happen. The automation does seem to to be triggering the issue the more I investigate.

Thanks for your help and patience. Any insights the .DRA might give you would be great. Hopefully the behavior replicates itself when the file is uploaded and ready to share

Please also confirm that no controllers are enabled in Resolve Preferences:
System > Control Panels > Audio Console

Please also confirm that no controllers are enabled in Resolve Preferences:
System > Control Panels > Audio Console

Thanks. System > Control Panels > Audio Console says "None." "Use MIDI Audio Console" is not selected but clickable. The two below that are greyed out.

Over the course of beating my head against a wall while the .dra uploads, I moved the audio track up, at which point the speaker drop-out that was consistently reliable for recreation all of a sudden flipped to the opposite channel. If the right had dropped one below, moving it above made the sound now normal on the right but dropped on the left. In the meters it was registering something like 15-20 dB. I guess I should also make that clear. It's not a complete drop-out, but significant enough it becomes an unusable render....

After that, I clicked on the fader in the mixer, and as usual, the normal balance returned, but since then....I can't get the behavior to recur again in the .DRA I created. And then....

I deleted the project I'd screwed around with, and re-loaded the .DRA I'm uploading for you just now. As soon as the archive was restored and I went into it fresh, immediately, the drop out happened again. To further refine the investigation, if I click on the audio fader without moving the track, the sound does restore, but then the behavior returns again almost immediately if I replay the region. But if I move the track up, then click the fader, and either leave the track moved up (or even move it back down again), I can't get the behavior to return in this small excerpt. I've confirmed this twice now with deleting and re-loading the .dra fresh.

I'll upload with a download link before I get some sleep. Another 15 or 20 minutes and I'll put the link in this thread.

Here is a link to the .DRA archive referred to above. I'm now attempting to render out the full video file once more to see if what "fixed" things above even works as a work-around on a full timeline. It was doing weird things ranging from the 15db drop in one channel to a complete drop-out (so now mono) on another track to a random jump in a guitar clip. All were momentarily "fixed" by the workaround but the render will tell the truth [**Update/Edit** -- the full video did in fact render out fine this way. No issues in the final audio after doing the above. What a bizarre way to work though].

Obviously there must be a better solution though. If I was home with my system clone and DR serial code, I could almost be persuaded to nuke/format the Mac drive and do a fresh install of the OS. But as I said, it was happening in DR 17 on Catalina 7 months ago. I'm actually hoping it happens for you with the .DRA archive and that I'm doing something stupid within Fairlight that is the source of the behavior, because greater system issues stress me out

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/bas8k6mdjfbr3k2fzq0jb/h?dl=0&rlkey=hq2lichp2xyw8mn08jzeaihg9

I'm having the same problem, but I don't see that there was an actual resolution in this thread.

Stereo regions randomly become mono left, or nearly so. I've tried moving the fader, which seems to fix the problem, but now I'm finding that the same problems come back again in the same regions, over and over. Often it's more than one region at the same time.

In my case I'm using the free version of Resolve with no hardware controllers, so this is all within the program. Also, using Windows, unlike the user.

The only thing I can think is that there's some kind of automation cache that's become corrupted.

I'm a relatively new user and any help would be appreciated.

I'm using:

Resolve 18.6
Dell
Edition Windows 11 Home
Version 22H2
OS build 22621.3155
Processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900 2.40 GHz
Installed RAM 32.0 GB (31.7 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

menu

right click menu.jpg (815.68 KiB) Viewed 500 times

I'm having the same problem, but I don't see that there was an actual resolution in this thread.

Stereo regions randomly become mono left, or nearly so. I've tried moving the fader, which seems to fix the problem, but now I'm finding that the same problems come back again in the same regions, over and over. Often it's more than one region at the same time.

In my case I'm using the free version of Resolve with no hardware controllers, so this is all within the program. Also, using Windows, unlike the user.

The only thing I can think is that there's some kind of automation cache that's become corrupted.

I'm a relatively new user and any help would be appreciated.

I'm using:

Resolve 18.6
Dell
Edition Windows 11 Home
Version 22H2
OS build 22621.3155
Processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900 2.40 GHz
Installed RAM 32.0 GB (31.7 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

I've been learning DR for three years now. Believe me, I understand how frustrating and overwhelming it can seem.

The resolution came via a private message. Hopefully the same thing fixes it for you.

I had to go to the Fairlight page, right-click on the track header/name, and select "Convert to Linked Group" from the menu. Then after performing this action, command-Z (I think that's control-Z on Windows) to undo.

15 months later I still have absolutely no idea why that works or what it does behind the scenes. Sometimes I still get glitches with audio and that always fixes it for me though. Hopefully it works on the PC version too!

menu

right click menu.jpg (815.68 KiB) Viewed 500 times

Thank you Sean!

That almost gets me there. Converting to group solves the random panning issue, unfortunately when I undo it crashes the program. That's interesting because Resolve has never crashed on me before.

It's not the end of the world because the group still shows up as one fader in the mix window. It does, however, make the track in the timeline twice as big. And I imagine there might be other inconveniences.

I'll play around with it some more, and post if I learn anything new.

P.S. regarding the crashing.

I'm finding that undo only causes crashes on the one main track, possibly because there are so many edits in it. I can perform the "convert to linked group" on other tracks, and undo with no problem.

However, if I copy and paste the contents of that main track into a new track, I can "convert to linked group" and undo without crashing.

It's all pretty mysterious. But it's getting clearer.

[Peter Chamberlain]

P.S. regarding the crashing.

I'm finding that undo only causes crashes on the one main track, possibly because there are so many edits in it. I can perform the "convert to linked group" on other tracks, and undo with no problem.

However, if I copy and paste the contents of that main track into a new track, I can "convert to linked group" and undo without crashing.

It's all pretty mysterious. But it's getting clearer.

please see the faqs on how to generate and post crash diagnostics logs

Thanks Peter,

I was unable to find the FAQ you refer to. It's not in the Blackmagic Forum, as far as I could see. I did create a log, which is too large to post here, and I don't have a public sharing site.

So debugging the crash was seeming like a rabbit hole that wasn't worth pursuing further, but I've come up with a good workaround.

I've found that if I simply copy the entire track and post it in a new track, VOILA!, the problem is not in the new track.

(Also, I can "convert to linked group" in the new track, and undo, but that now seems unnecessary.)

Unfortunately, this solution wouldn't stop the problem from happening to begin with, and I'll have to be vigilant listening for this panning issue.

I'd love to know what causes the problem, but it seems like an inexplicable bug.

Thanks for everyone's help.

Thanks Peter,

I was unable to find the FAQ you refer to. It's not in the Blackmagic Forum, as far as I could see. I did create a log, which is too large to post here, and I don't have a public sharing site.

You can find the FAQ here:
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=90190

And the specific part about the logs here:
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=90190#17

Thanks, Robert. I'll save for future reference.