Should Cleaning Automation Cuts on 36 Changes take 90 Minutes?

Matchbox
#1

I’m guessing, of course, that the answer to my subject question is “no”.

It is a mix session so there is a lot of automation but it has been thinned.

All tracks deactivated.

No markers. No track markers.

All tracks removed from folders (yes, that’s a pain that I’m going to have to live through again when I re-folder them).

4 levels of undo set in PT prefs.

Yes there are hundreds of clip groups but I can’t get rid of those across a 2hr+ film and hundreds of tracks, can I?

No other applications running whatsoever. Eucon disabled. No PT windows open other than the edit window and the helper plugin window. Helper plugin set to “playlist” not “clip list”. Edit window zoomed out completely.

The session is actually brand new…I created it as blank and imported all of the tracks (minus their folders) that I wanted to conform so I feel confident that the session is as “clean” as it could be.

PT2023.9. Scripting preference activated (because I couldn’t make the conform work without it…I just received the “Bogus Framerate” dialogue box…no, there’s no weird framerates). Latest version of MB. M1 Mac Studio with maxed out memory.

The reconform itself took 97 minutes (91 changes)…lots of redos. That’s likely unacceptable too.

Cleaning auto cuts actually got stuck looping across a single cut (the 2nd cut, for what it’s worth) so I had to stop it and start it again.

Haven’t dropped cut markers yet…can’t wait to see how long that is going to take.

I love MB but it has been horrible with this project.

Help us Obi Wan…you’re our only hope.

#2

Yeah it sounds like you’ve done everything right, but those timings are definitely not right.
Redos are a sign that things are not OK.

My best guess would be that you have incredibly dense automation across a lot of tracks.
Select all and thin automation and see if that helps.
Compare session file size before and after - you might get a shock.

I would guess cut markers would actually be pretty quick. The slow part seems to be your automation since it’s struggling with the simple “cut all automation” across 2 frames.

#3

Yes, as I mentioned automation was thinned. From the stage, the session size was 140MB. After thinning it went down to 41MB. Did that before running the conform (after our conversation here back in December.)

Frustrating.

#4

OK, well I don’t think there’s much more you can do to help that machine.
I don’t want to renounce all responsibility for it - but if it is taking that long, it must be a case of Pro Tools just being really slow due to a heavy session. All MB is doing is sending copy/paste commands and waiting for PT to be ready.

Have you tried slowing the reconform speed down in the MB prefs? If it’s trying to go faster than PT it will get stuck on “redos” which waste a lot of time. Slower could be faster in this case.

Also - 140MB is massive. It’s no surprise that it would choke on automation there.
41 is big… but it should be fine.

And there’s no need to actually take tracks out of folders. Opening them is enough to avoid that Pro Tools bug with copy/paste on a closed folder.

#5

actually… send the session and matchbox file so I can try on my system here. It’s a helpful comparison but also, I can send you the conformed session

#6

Try turning off “markers follow edit” or update to PT23.12 at least . There was a huge bug in PT that they fixed in 23.12 I think that had nothing to do with MB. Pre 23.12 having that on will slow down everything massively even when manually cutting automation across empty segments of the timeline. So any PT version before that needs “markers follow edit” turned off otherwise every cut/copy/paste operation can take up to 30seconds

From the bug fix list of PT23.12

Improved editing speed when selecting across a lot of tracks with Marker Follows Edit enabled (PT-314515)

1 Like
#7

Oh thank you Frank. I’d forgotten about this one.

#8

Ahhh this is (could be) huge, Frank, thanks. I have to hold off on upgrading until I’m done on this film but I will get up to date soon.

And, @Justin thanks for the offer of sending you the PT session and MB file…I will do that, for the sake of research if nothing else. We just found out about another round of picture changes soooooooooo…:woman_facepalming:t2:

#9

Lemme guess: “won’t affect sound” ?

#10

AVID’s “…when selecting across a lot of tracks…” in the bug fix list is a euphemism for “…when selecting across one track or more…” :wink: