white flowers

What are people's preferred methods for selecting and deleting a group of automation nodes? As I discussed most recently here: https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/7171-201909-feedback/page/6/&tab=comments#comment-77103, the behavior for node/envelope selection has changed in the last several months. Since I can't understand why the behavior was changed, I'm hopeful that it will change back soon as I requested at the link above. However, until then, I'm curious about what other people are doing. A specific scenario I have found to be more difficult in the current release would be when there is one node directly (or almost directly) above another one, and I wish to select that node as well as several others on the same envelope, followed by deleting the selected nodes. Previously, I would lasso-select the nodes on the main track (for various reasons I prefer to edit all automation curves on the main track without expanding lanes) and press the delete key. I explain why this is no longer possible in the above-linked post. As far as I know, in the current release, the most efficient method would be to expand automation lanes, then swipe-select the nodes as well as the synchronous nodes I wish not to select, then to control-click on those synchronous nodes to deselect them, then to press the delete key, then to collapse the automation lanes. This is less efficient and also incurs a degree of unpleasant cognitive dissonance as I have to select and then deselect the synchronous nodes. Does anyone have thoughts about what is supposed to be happening here, why it changed, and whether there is an efficient way to do this now, either intended or workaround? Thanks

I'm still noticing strange behavior with lasso selecting nodes on a track automation curve. Actually it appears to have gotten worse since 2019.07, about which I had some discussion here: https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/5539-201907-feedback/page/3/&tab=comments#comment-48602 As far as I can tell, the 2019.07 behavior is still happening, in that if "select track envelopes with clips" is checked, then all track automation nodes on a clip are selected when I lasso a single node. Also, even when "select trk env w/ clips" is unchecked, if I use the lasso to select a node, it selects the envelope itself, so that deleting the nodes deletes the envelope, leaving a "jump" style dotted envelope. This is really not helpful to me, and as far as I can tell it's no longer possible without expanding automation lanes to select a group of nodes and delete them without also turning that part of the envelope to "jump". If I expand the automation lanes, and then select multiple nodes with the lasso, the clip on the main track is selected and deleting the nodes deletes the clip. So, what remains is to use the swipe-selection method on the nodes after expanding the automation lanes. Expanding automation lanes is for me an unnecessary complication, and I prefer to see all automation curves at once on the main track. Swipe-selecting using the selection tool is inferior for selecting nodes, because the nodes are often nearly or completely vertical to one another, meaning that it is impossible to select only one of them by swiping. The lasso is (or was) basically perfect for selecting nodes. I am unaware of any reason for any of these changes. I would humbly request that the behavior be reverted to how it was several months ago, which was the way it had been for as long as I can remember over the last ten or so years I've used the program.

It looks like after the hotfix, clicking during playback in the bus area still sets the now time - the "set during playback" option only changes the behavior of the track area. Not sure what the intended behavior is now but I think the bus and track areas were both safe before.

OK I started a new project, recorded a bit of silence, and it looks like when "select track envelopes with clips" is checked, lassoing one node will select all the nodes within that clip, but unchecked it will select only the one node. Before it would always select the one node.

Another new behavior is that when I try to select a couple of nodes on an automation envelope with the right-click lasso, it selects all automation on the clip. (This happens even if I expand the automation lanes, which I normally never use except sometimes while creating envelopes.) Is that the way it is now, or am I missing something? I can see how it makes a kind of sense since the right click lasso would select the clip were the track's edit filter set to clips, but the vertical swipe-to-select thing doesn't work well for selecting nodes that are stacked up above each other, and ctrl-clicking each node or moving them one at a time is kind of clumsy. Anyway, is the behavior supposed to be different now? Is there a way to use the lasso on only a few nodes?

Thanks Noel for elaborating on your thinking. It's necessary to stop and restart playback in order to get Melodyned clips to play back at the right time. Resetting the audio engine is also usually a good idea when there are stability questions, as for example when using plugins with a lot of latency. As a result, it's rare that I would want to click somewhere during playback and have the time jump there. In the use case described, I generally prefer to stop playback using the space bar, set the now time before the peak in question, then restart playback while looking at the relevant meters or other screen elements. I think ctrl-clicking as a way to change the now time during playback seems like it might occasionally be useful for me, and it would solve the use case you described, without creating the possibility of accidentally changing the playback position, so that seems like a good solution to all of the concerns people have mentioned. Also, I'm not sure that this behavior was noted in the release notes. I think that the surprise and mystification I felt after updating and having the playback position jump around unexpectedly would have been significantly ameliorated by a big boldface notice of what is a fairly important change in the behavior of the software.

Deselecting by means of clicking in the empty space was a nice way to work without removing my hand from the mouse. The other side of it is that I prefer that it not be easy to accidentally change the playback position. For example, one way to select a clip is by clicking on the clip header bar. With the previous behavior, if I missed the bar and clicked next to it, nothing would happen. It was still easy enough to change the playback point with the mouse in the timeline, and actually in a lot of cases (such as when using melodyne) there can be problems with playback unless I stop and restart, which is OK since usually when I want to change the playback position it is to go back to the beginning of a passage which I'm working on. Anyway, it looks like right-clicking-and-dragging to select an empty space deselects all so I'll switch to using that. Thanks for your continued work on the software.

During playback, clicking (with select or smart tool) in an empty area used to do nothing but deselect all clips. It now also moves the cursor and playback position to the place clicked. I assume there's a setting which I can use to revert to the previous behavior?

OK, thanks for your response. In general I'd prefer that when you remove or simplify features to make the program easier for some people, you consider retaining the more advanced behavior as an option, but I appreciate you taking the time to explain your reasoning. The recent plugins list in the right-click menu actually messes up my concise plugin menu layout anyway, so I may as well get used to the new workflow.

Hello there. It used to be (say, a year or two ago) that I could have a different sorting method for the right-click plugin insert menu in the track view, versus the plugin browser. I would keep the track view right-click menu set to a particular concise layout I've created with my most-used plugins, while maintaining the "sort by manufacturer" setting in the browser to have access to all of my plugins as well as any which I'm demoing or otherwise don't wish to have in the concise plugin layout. I remember that this was a bit wonky, in that the browser layout would periodically revert to another layout (or something, I'm not remembering it exactly), but it worked well enough. I'm currently on the latest version of Cakewalk (2019.05), and it seems that the browser menu and right-click menu are both always set to the same layout. Is this how other people are experiencing it? I would like it if we could go back to having the different menus sort independently.