Just gone through hell for a WEIRD problem! Is this a BUG? Bakers should read this!

[msmcleod]

Simply put, this shouldn't happen.

The rules are:
- The envelope shapes are stored in start time order
- The time base for each shape can be either in musical time or in sample time, but the time base must be the same for a single envelope stream.
- The end of one shape cannot be after the beginning of the next one.

Somehow one or more of these rules is being broken... finding out why / where is the tricky part.

It would be useful to know if there are tempo changes in your project, and you have a sample-time based envelope.

There is logic to update all sample-times within a project when the tempo map is altered (which is why editing the tempo track envelope is slower than other envelopes).  I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the logic here, but it's a possibility.

It's more likely a bug in the envelope editor code itself.

[pulsewalk]

14 hours ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

Which parameter(s) are these envelopes controlling? This might be relevant to the bakers

The green one is: Ozone Stabilizer Main Amount

The gray one is: Ozone Imager Main Band 2 Width

 

@msmcleod so, I opened up the saved "bug"-project (in case it would be needed) just to check the controllers so I can reply @Bristol_Jonesey, and discovered that saving the file and opening it up again does alter the automation state, even though the automation has not been touched at all.

So, if you remember the pictures (above) of this problem, then look at how it looks now! It seems that Cakewalk don't really know how to handle the wrong automation information so it draws the automation path a little as Cakewalk think it should be. It redraws it by itself even though I have not touched it.

Look below what it looks like now! 😅

Question to @msmcleod can it not be added a control function to Cakewalk where, in case it detects these kind of faults, you get a little warning that something is wrong with the automation, with reference to where the problem is, so you can click it and Cakewalk will take you to the bad automation so one at least can correct it?

Otherwise this can lead to real weird stuff.

Who knows, maybe this is the reason for the automation ghosting "bug" too, which I've been written about earlier, a problem which completely corrupts entire projects to the level its completely unusable. Here's the thread for it with a couple of videos showing the problem:

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by pulsewalk

[azslow3]

@pulsewalk answering questions which can help identify the origin can... well.. help identify the origin. If you don't take me serious, ok, but at least don't ignore questions from msmcleod (assuming you want the problem is found and fixed...)

@msmcleod it seems like I have found a method to reproduce "reverse Z":

1. zoom to the samples level
2. add an automation with 2 points, so a "jump" composed by two linear segment. Note they are aligned to samples and points can be moved by samples only.
3. add a tempo change before points in question. Notice that points are no longer aligned to the samples (at least visually). 
4. adjust the tempo change such way that automation points are behind sample tick, but close to the previous tick then to the next one.
5. start dragging the point, it will snap to the nearest (previous) sample, producing the picture above.

Note in case points are "closer" to the next sample, CBB does not allow dragging to previous sample.

In saved project, at least in my case, "start" time for some segments is saved as  "musical" but "duration" as "absolute" (I obviously don't know how these parameters are really called in Cakewalk, but I guess you understand what I am talking about ).

 

[pulsewalk]

On 11/15/2023 at 10:12 AM, azslow3 said:

@pulsewalk answering questions which can help identify the origin can... well.. help identify the origin. If you don't take me serious, ok, but at least don't ignore questions from msmcleod (assuming you want the problem is found and fixed...)

I feel you're  insinuating that I'm not taking you serious, and that I'm ignoring msmcleod. This is of course not the case and I'm sorry if you took it that way. One can miss something, which is not the same thing as ignoring.

I saw now that @msmcleod made a reply, and I'm very sorry that I missed it, but it was not specifically addressed to me so I actually missed it. The answer below will address this question too.

Also, I can see that you ( @azslow3 ) wrote questions to me, and I'm sorry that I missed these. I'm not "not taking you serious" nor am I ignoring you, I simply missed this as I was under a lot of pressure finishing a project while Cakewalk has made my work more difficult and time consuming, so I was stressed. So once again, sorry for missing your questions. Here's the answers:

• Quote

  • do you have tempo changes in the project? If yes, are "Z" appears in such changes (only) or also at constant tempo?
  • do you have "unusual" settings in Project/Clock? (not audio Sync / TPQ != 960)
  • how you create your automations? (controller, moving knob/slider by mouse, editing points)

 

1. No, no tempo changes.
2. No, no "unusual" settings, as far as I know, just standard default settings at 134 bpm.
3. Automations are created sometimes by arming a VSTi or VST FX and moving knobs, but most often by drawing the automation. In the case of these "corrupted" automation paths, the automation was actually drawn by hand.

What I do, is simply drawing the automation, adding the anchor points/nodes (the points in the path) or whatever they are called (in illustrator they're called "anchor points", in Cakewalk it seems they're called "nodes".

So, I just place them out and so forth, nothing more. The last example is from a completely new project file with only one audio track which I use for mastering. So it's not even an old complex project... it's completely new, fresh and with one track. Oh yeah, there's now an archived audio track also, but it's not used, and I think it was put there after I discovered the corrupted path, so yeah... but that's it.

Edited November 16, 2023 by pulsewalk

[azslow3]

14 hours ago, pulsewalk said:

 

1. No, no tempo changes.
2. No, no "unusual" settings, as far as I know, just standard default settings at 134 bpm.
3. Automations are created sometimes by arming a VSTi or VST FX and moving knobs, but most often by drawing the automation. In the case of these "corrupted" automation paths, the automation was actually drawn by hand.

That means my example with tempo change is not (or not only) the problem you observe... I don't have other ideas at the moment, but I will think more.

14 hours ago, pulsewalk said:

The last example is from a completely new project file with only one audio track which I use for mastering. So it's not even an old complex project... it's completely new, fresh and with one track. Oh yeah, there's now an archived audio track also, but it's not used, and I think it was put there after I discovered the corrupted path, so yeah... but that's it.

So may be you can publish it (without audio, just .cwp file). Who knows, something there can give a hint (Cakewalk and I can see internal project structure), even when in its current state the bug is not reproducible.

PS, OT

14 hours ago, pulsewalk said:

I feel you're  insinuating that I'm not taking you serious, and that I'm ignoring msmcleod. This is of course not the case and I'm sorry if you took it that way. One can miss something, which is not the same thing as ignoring.

Thank you for the clarification. I am long time present on this and previous Cakewalk forums, and there was several people which for one or another reason refused to communicate with me. Please don't get me wrong, I respect such decisions. But the silence sometimes irritates me, since in that case I don't know if my attempts to help make sense. Peace 

[pulsewalk]

On 11/17/2023 at 11:06 AM, azslow3 said:

That means my example with tempo change is not (or not only) the problem you observe... I don't have other ideas at the moment, but I will think more.

So may be you can publish it (without audio, just .cwp file). Who knows, something there can give a hint (Cakewalk and I can see internal project structure), even when in its current state the bug is not reproducible.

 

I can see if I can strip it down and send it. I'll try to be back with this as soon as I'm finished with a project here that needs to be done asap. 👍

 

[pulsewalk]

Still not had time to strip the project down since I'm still working on it, but I have a small update.

I've discovered that when there already are several automation lanes, and a new one is added in any other place than at the bottom of these, it gets all weird. When adding a new automation lane somewhere in between the ones that's already there, Cakewalk gets really confused and the automation lanes are re-assigned and creates a real mess. I've discovered this many times before in several other projects, but didn't care too much about it since I just used UNDO and put the automation lane at the bottom instead.

Of course, this should also work correctly.

All in all, with all the problems, I guess there's something fundamentally wrong with the automation part of Cakewalk, which causes a lot of damage and bugs and what not. That whole section should probably be looked at by the devs.

When I think about it, most problems I've had with Cakewalk, actually comes from "bugs", or whatever to call them, with the automation part of the software. This was never a problem with MIDI CC sends/sysex and so forth in the earlier days, that just worked fine. Automation, less so, unfortunately.

Edited November 23, 2023 by pulsewalk

[pulsewalk]

I'm so tired of this ****... the more automation lanes I add the more it crackles and clicks and pops. There's no logic to it what so ever. It just keeps clicking and popping at the start of the clips suddenly and so forth. There's nothing wrong with the clips them selves. They played just fine before. But when automation lanes are added, it just bugs out... a total nightmare. Is unworkable.

I really hope the devs can take a look at this. I'm sure many have these problems without even noticing it, because in the middle of the mix when everything is playing its not always easy to detect these clicks and pops, even though they are there. I guess there are many bounces these are present in, and can be heard when they're listened to reeeeally carefully.

The problem is the more automation is added the more crackle, clicks and pops and it just destroys the sound. Unfortunately, it's on the final bounce too... not only when playing in Cakewalk. A complete nightmare. Project after project when there's "too much" automation I guess.. whatever "too much" is. This is not even a huge project. It's not small, but not huge either, it's about 60+ tracks.

Edited November 23, 2023 by pulsewalk

[CSistine]

Just 2 days ago I had something similar with a clip Gain automation. The first Gain segment was beginning before the instruments first note and I made it with a slanting line coming slowly from 0dB to the Gain change (2 points only from 0dB to -2dB). Accidentally when I zoomed in I saw that the bounced audio had suddenly a very ugly spike in the beginning of the first note! I had to shift the start of the gain change much more to the left to avoid this.

I also had noticed that the visual gain change differed a lot from the bounced audio. In some places I had to remove it, as it was unusable. I had to split those areas and use a compressor instead. After all this I regretted that I had chosen CbB instead of Reaper to do this!

By the way the visual clip Gain change is one of my preferred CbB changes over Sonar Platinum. It is such a pity that it is not really reliable!

Edited November 24, 2023 by Sistine

[David Baay]

On 11/23/2023 at 1:55 PM, pulsewalk said:

I really hope the devs can take a look at this.

You need to send in a formal report to support@cakewalk.com with a copy of the project. If you share a copy of the .cwp without audio as azslow3 suggested we can check if it's reproducible on other systems.

[pulsewalk]

16 hours ago, David Baay said:

You need to send in a formal report to support@cakewalk.com with a copy of the project. If you share a copy of the .cwp without audio as azslow3 suggested we can check if it's reproducible on other systems.

I will strip it down as soon as I get a chance here! Got to finish everything else here first, I'm behind too much already as it is.  The other day I had to revert back several hours of work because the project got unusable. Couldn't find the culprit either. Had to open up an older auto-save. Pain in the ...

[pulsewalk]

This automation hell continues! Whenever I'm doing more heavy automation work, this problem happens!

Too bad I don't have time to strip down projects and send things... Cakewalk itself make this almost impossible since all my extra time is spent on handling "bugs" and crashes and what not. I hope this will be fixed in the new Sonar!

 

I guess this happens more to me than others, since I do more heavy automation work due to working with EDM. Cakewalk is mainly for other genres than EDM I'm afraid

Edited February 17 by pulsewalk

[Noel Borthwick]

Can you share a project that is in this state?

[Will.]

6 hours ago, pulsewalk said:

 I do more heavy automation work due to working with EDM. Cakewalk is mainly for other genres than EDM I'm afraid

I do commercial work and automation works without any issues. I create my own samples in app while doing my Sound Design. 

[John Vere]

6 hours ago, pulsewalk said:

I guess this happens more to me than others, since I do more heavy automation work due to working with EDM. Cakewalk is mainly for other genres than EDM I'm afraid

I think this topic has come up many times and always ends up in a p__sing match.  Let's not go there.

But I will agree that many times when I do manual editing of automating it seems on the edge of weirdness. Just last night all I did was add a node to a flat line section that was at -8db and it drew a jump to 0 db?? I had to undo and try again and that time it worked correctly. It did this a couple of more times. Bugs?  You never know.  I've been experiencing weird mouse behaviours since getting W11. I guess I should go buy a new wired mouse if they still make them?  This is my last one. I don't like wireless mice for Cakewalk. 

[pulsewalk]

8 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Can you share a project that is in this state?

Unfortunately not the entire project, however, I can strip it down and save the "corrupted" automation part. I will have to do this as soon as I find time.

[pulsewalk]

7 hours ago, Will. said:

I do commercial work and automation works without any issues. I create my own samples in app while doing my Sound Design. 

Me too, and the automation works most of the times (otherwise I would have stopped using Cakewalk of course), but eventually there are problems and that is when it becomes unusable. Nobody can work properly under those conditions when you have to do extensive detective work to fix problems that should not be there in the first place. Problems that need to be fixed in order to even be able to play audio (no audio is even played when the automation is corrupted, only a harsh click from the audio engine when trying to play).

This problem has already been replicated by another user if you check the history in this thread. So the problem is not exclusive to me.

Edited February 18 by pulsewalk

[pulsewalk]

6 hours ago, John Vere said:

I think this topic has come up many times and always ends up in a p__sing match.  Let's not go there.

But I will agree that many times when I do manual editing of automating it seems on the edge of weirdness. Just last night all I did was add a node to a flat line section that was at -8db and it drew a jump to 0 db?? I had to undo and try again and that time it worked correctly. It did this a couple of more times. Bugs?  You never know.  I've been experiencing weird mouse behaviours since getting W11. I guess I should go buy a new wired mouse if they still make them?  This is my last one. I don't like wireless mice for Cakewalk. 

I'm not mentioning this to start a p__sing match, but it is the truth and I'm quite sure this is one of the reasons that this problem even exist in Cakewalk.

In a DAW where you need to do extensive automation work, with maybe tens- or even hundreds of thousand users, no problems like this would be allowed to continue. And I think this might be the reason for why it is like this. Firstly, this problem might not be that big for the average Cakewalk user, since Cakewalk is not mainly used by EDM artists. This is a fact and can be checked on various sites. Secondly, even if there comes reports of these problems, as from me, right here, also replicated by another user (see earlier in this thread), it will not be prioritized by the devs., much due to the first fact, that the average Cakewalk user doesn't do as much automation as EDM artists do. This is just a fact and yeah... bummer for those who do EDM. And of course all the different DAW's are aimed to the different type of producers, so it is what it is. Cakewalk can do fantastic stuff that some other DAW's can't. I'm just using the wrong DAW for what I need and I can only blame myself actually. But I'm very used to how Cakewalk works and I loved it in the 90's when doing lots of MIDI work with hardware. That is where Cakewalk excels really, MIDI with hardware, and not mainly extensive VSTi and audio editing/manipulating work.

I don't think this is a mouse problem, because there are problems happening here that should not even be possible. Automation should be designed so this simply can't happen, because if it is designed so this Can happen, then automation is completely worthless. So I can't think of anything else than that this is a bug or a automation design problem simply. There are actually also quite a few other automation problems in Cakewalk. It is simply not functioning as it should.

[pulsewalk]

Just gonna throw it out here while I'm at it. I'm so tired of all the bugs with the automation in Cakewalk! It is more or less a working hell.

I could make a list with all the bugs, but I just don't have the time and want to take the effort right now.

One is that when you have an automation lane and you do an UNDO, and then a REDO, then the automation lane that was undone, will not pop back up again.

So in best case, you will have to add a new lane, which will NOT be the lane that should be added back with the redo but rather something else like Volume or Pan, and then you have to chose the correct parameter for the automation. This is in the best case.

In some cases you can't even select the automation lanes that's already there (but not visible more than on the track) in the shortlist (it sits there VISIBLE, but is greyed out and NOT selectable), but you have to go all the way through all the menus and find the automation lane that you have to add, and add it manually, AGAIN. This can be a little hell with maybe a hundred parameters to choose from, sometimes perhaps even more.

In worst case, you can't do a damn thing and you just can't get the automation back and you can't add it back no matter what you do. It just sits there on the track, but you cannot get it back to an automation lane, no matter if you add it manually. Then you have to redo everything.

 

Another is when automation lanes just disappear completely. Very nice.

 

A third one is when the automation lane is for some weird reason just stuck up in the lane, and you have to add it AGAIN manually if you want to change something. Worst case scenario, the lane is up in the track, but you can't do a damn thing with it, as you cannot even add it manually.

 

Four, automation ghosting (yeah, there's a whole thread about this... ..no wait, there's more than one).

 

Five, automation lane doesn't trigger the plugin and one have to enable, disable, enable, disable etc. a number of times for it to react. This also happens from time to time.

That Cakewalk crashes a number of time each day does not even have to be mentioned. I guess I have 5-10 crashes/freezes a day. On a good day maybe I get away with a couple of crashes/freezes. On a bad day, when there's automation corruption, it's just a freakin' hell. Not least when it takes for ever to open up the project again.

This is automation in Cakewalk 2024. It has been like this since I started to use Cakewalk "by Bandlab". Which means, for years now! No fix, nothing. It's just the same. CWPA 9.03 work just perfectly, although it didn't have VSTi functionality and such, but for MIDI it was great.

Cakewalk might work fine for rock, pop, country or other genres where you use MIDI and use the DAW for multitracking, and volume mixing, a compressor here and there. But for EDM and extensive/heavy automation work and complex routings, not so much.

Edited February 19 by pulsewalk

[pulsewalk]

Yeah, by the way. Why not mention the one where the entire automation lane is deleted just because you try to delete one little node. This happens often when there's not many nodes there yet. But it doesn't matter if there's like 5-6, if you delete one, there goes the entire damn automation. And to get it back, you'll have to go through automation hell again, according to my previous post.