BR: Dead Audio Record Meters

[sjoens]

Meters work when actually recording synth but do not work when playing synth, or project, with track armed

1. Create new project with one Audio and one MIDI track

2. Set MIDI track output to outboard synth and record or manually enter notes

3. Set Audio track Input to outboard synth

4. Arm Audio track and PLAY project without recording

Expected = Audio track Record meter will show activity as synth is played

Actual = Audio track Record meter is dead until project is stopped and you MAY briefly see the end tails of meter activity.

Reproduced issue several times with new and existing projects.

Could not reproduce issue in Sonar Platinum.

Anyone else see this?

Edited March 1, 2023 by sjoens

[sjoens]

Because of this there's no way to gain stage or set levels prior to recording.

Is this a new feature, or broken?

[Lord Tim]

This has always been how its worked AFAIK: if a track is armed, the meter will be showing what's coming into the input rather than what the track is playing back. If you want to see what the track playback level is doing, disarm the track.

Not sure why you're seeing it in SONAR, I'm sure it was like that back then too. But if not, it kind of doesn't make any sense for it to work that way, honestly. Happy to be proven wrong, though, and it was like you mentioned in SONAR!

Edited March 1, 2023 by Lord Tim

[Starship Krupa]

If I understand the steps, then I'm getting different results, and it's behaving as I would expect it to.

On 2/15/2023 at 6:07 PM, sjoens said:

1. Create new project with one Audio and one MIDI track

Check

On 2/15/2023 at 6:07 PM, sjoens said:

2. Set MIDI track output to outboard synth and record or manually enter notes

Check

On 2/15/2023 at 6:07 PM, sjoens said:

3. Set Audio track Input to outboard synth

Check

On 2/15/2023 at 6:07 PM, sjoens said:

4. Arm Audio track and PLAY project without recording

Check

On 2/15/2023 at 6:07 PM, sjoens said:

Expected = Audio track Record meter will show activity as synth is played

Result on my system: it does. The MIDI data is going from Cakewalk to the synth (via the MIDI interface), and the audio data is coming from the synth into Cakewalk (via the audio interface).

If this worked in some other way, it would not be practical to overdub vocals or any other audio source with a MIDI track playing.

Cakewalk doesn't care (or even know) what device its audio is coming from, be it a hardware synth or microphone or whatever. All it knows is that one (or more) of the inputs on the interface is taking in audio. That audio could be from any sound-producing device, a microphone, a turntable, a hardware synth, or whatever, so how could the fact that it's coming out of a hardware synth that happens to be driven from a Cakewalk MIDI track make any difference? There's nothing at all special about audio coming from a hardware synth as opposed to coming from a microphone. The MIDI track and the audio track don't even know about each other.

If you set this up in the same way but also set up a second audio track and plug a mic in and arm that track with the mic as input, are the input level (recording monitor) meters also dead? If so, then something is going really wrong. If they work for the mic, they should work for the synthesizer's audio outs.

Are you 100% sure that you have your synthesizer's outputs plugged into the correct inputs on your interface? Are you able to hear the synth correctly on that audio track when it's playing back, and are you sure that what you're hearing is coming from the Cakewalk track rather than realtime monitoring on your interface?

[sjoens]

 

4 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

if a track is armed, the meter will be showing what's coming into the input rather than what the track is playing back.

As it should, but in my case the meter is dead.

 

So earlier today when I posted last, it was not working and had not been working since before my 1st post.

After reading your replies I tried it again just now in several projects and a new one and it started working, tho intermittently, so I don't know what's going on.

Another one for the book, I guess.

Edited March 1, 2023 by sjoens

[Lord Tim]

Really weird  

You've got a lot of posts with weird stuff like this going on though, which is strange in itself. Not pointing any fingers or accusing you of anything here of course   but I'm wondering if there's something inherently broken somewhere that's exposing a lot of this stuff in your environment?

[sjoens]

There is... ME!  I tend to have a disrupting affect on all electronics as well.

... like having to reset the TV remote several times a day.

[Jim Fogle]

On 3/1/2023 at 1:42 PM, sjoens said:

There is... ME!  I tend to have a disrupting affect on all electronics as well.

... like having to reset the TV remote several times a day.

@sjoensI understand completely.  I have to be very cautious whenever I'm around electronics and ground myself at every opportunity.  My cell phone resets multiple times a day.   I can break a VU meter by waving my hand in front of the meter.

My Father and I use to buy wristwatches at the same time.  We would wear each others for a few days and both watches would stop.  Then we would swap watches and the watches would work. again.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Jim Fogle

[sjoens]

Yes but... do street lights go out as you drive by? 

[David Baay]

38 minutes ago, sjoens said:

Yes but... do street lights go out as you drive by?

All the time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_light_interference_phenomenon

[sjoens]

...