Export Entire Mix does not export entire mix

[Chris Boshuizen]

This has been a problem for years - unless you do a ctrl-A to select all tracks and all time, only the current track is exported. That happens even when "Entire Mix" is selected. The export dialog gives no obvious clues that this will be the behaviour, and there are a number of settings that indicate that it isn't going to behave this way. 

If you have only one track in selection focus, it will export only that track, no matter what you pick in the export dialog, This was a problem with the old export interface and sadly survived into the new interface as well.  Even when you see that the source is the hardware outputs, and entire mix is selected, you still don't know. 

It is extremely confusing, because if the project PLAYS everything no matter what is in focus or selected, it should EXPORT everything just the same. 

Suggestion: the export dialog should default to entire mix, exactly as it plays, by default, and the code should be updated so that is truly what happens. Selections and focuses should be ignored unless the source is changed to track(s) or buses. 

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

I think it's semantics.

Export Entire Mix  exports the entire mix based on your selection plus all downstream FX..and this is what I take it to mean. 

It doesn't mean export everything in the Project. Which is what I think you are asking for. Maybe that should be an option,

But for many of us I think the default behaviour which as you say has been in place for years if not decades works perfectly well, and make it much easier for bouncing deliverables for clients when you may need to export half a dozen or more variants of the same track as you can just select what's needed for each iteration and quickly run it off. 

[Chris Boshuizen]

54 minutes ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

I think it's semantics.

Export Entire Mix  exports the entire mix based on your selection plus all downstream FX..and this is what I take it to mean. 

It doesn't mean export everything in the Project. Which is what I think you are asking for. Maybe that should be an option,

But for many of us I think the default behaviour which as you say has been in place for years if not decades works perfectly well, and make it much easier for bouncing deliverables for clients when you may need to export half a dozen or more variants of the same track as you can just select what's needed for each iteration and quickly run it off. 

It has been that way for years, for sure. But every week I still make a mistake because the UI is so unclear about what's going to happen. Today I just walked away from a 20 minute render (1 hr+ long live set with edits) and came back to find I'd exported only track 1. To be honest, I don't even know what settings to change to make it export the whole mix. Again, if you can hear it without selecting Ctrl-A, then you should be able to export without hitting ctrl-A. 

To your point on exporting iterations of selected tracks, a "selected tracks" options would be fine too. One thing, perhaps unique to Cakewalk, is that this interface is trying to let us pick source material, routing, and destination files. It's complicated, for sure. But part of the complication is that the default source is wherever you made a selection 20 minutes ago and weren't even thinking about any more. That is the hidden complication that makes this a bug, not a feature in my mind. 

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

3 hours ago, Chris Boshuizen said:

To your point on exporting iterations of selected tracks, a "selected tracks" options would be fine too. One thing, perhaps unique to Cakewalk, is that this interface is trying to let us pick source material, routing, and destination files. It's complicated, for sure. But part of the complication is that the default source is wherever you made a selection 20 minutes ago and weren't even thinking about any more. That is the hidden complication that makes this a bug, not a feature in my mind. 

And all these options are there. Really, they are. You can export a selection of tracks, busses and so on. Cakewalk is the only DAW in existence at the moment where an export preset called "Entire Mix" means something that's different from the mental model everyone has in their of what that means.

"Entire Mix" should give you whatever comes out of the hardware outputs the way you have it set up in your project without you having to select or do anything to make it happen. Anything different from that is not the entire mix.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Bruno de Souza Lino

[Chris Boshuizen]

3 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

And all these options are there. Really, they are. You can export a selection of tracks, busses and so on. Cakewalk is the only DAW in existence at the moment where an export preset called "Entire Mix" means something that's different from the mental model everyone has in their of what that means.

"Entire Mix" should give you whatever comes out of the hardware outputs the way you have it set up in your project without you having to select or do anything to make it happen. Anything different from that is not the entire mix.

I tried my best today, but I could NOT find a way to export a whole song without selecting Ctrl-A before opening the dialog. None of the options presented seemed to override the prior, arbitrary, track selections. 

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

2 hours ago, Chris Boshuizen said:

I tried my best today, but I could NOT find a way to export a whole song without selecting Ctrl-A before opening the dialog. None of the options presented seemed to override the prior, arbitrary, track selections. 

Make an Arranger Section that lasts the entire song length and you can click that instead of Ctrl-A

[Xoo]

Or click somewhere in the track view to ensure nothing is selected.

That said, I do feel Entire Mix is badly named and should be renamed something like Mix Selection, and a new Entire Mix option created which does what it says on the tin: exports what you would hear if you hit play right now.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

If anything, this new export window is currently a downgrade the way it works. You have to do extra steps for the same result and, on top of that, you might not get what you're expecting. There are other posts suggesting ways of you getting the entire mix but they're workarounds for a feature which currently reinvents the square wheel.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

54 minutes ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

they're workarounds for a feature which currently reinvents the square wheel.

Technically it hasn't reinvented anything as it's always worked the same way. 

[Chris Boshuizen]

9 hours ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

Make an Arranger Section that lasts the entire song length and you can click that instead of Ctrl-A

 

This may be my new permanent habit. Very clever.  Anything that is a time waster or involves redoing steps is anathema to me. 

[Chris Boshuizen]

8 hours ago, kperry said:

Or click somewhere in the track view to ensure nothing is selected.

That said, I do feel Entire Mix is badly named and should be renamed something like Mix Selection, and a new Entire Mix option created which does what it says on the tin: exports what you would hear if you hit play right now.

100%.  Export what you hear. 

[sjoens]

All Audio Tracks may be an alternative. Currently it seems Entire Mix is referring to the entire project length of all audio tracks within the project itself. It includes unfrozen synth/MIDI/instrument tracks and FX  but no outboard sounds or outboard FX unless they are recorded onto a track 1st.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

3 hours ago, sjoens said:

All Audio Tracks may be an alternative. Currently it seems Entire Mix is referring to the entire project length of all audio tracks within the project itself. It includes unfrozen synth/MIDI/instrument tracks and FX  but no outboard sounds or outboard FX unless they are recorded onto a track 1st.

I feel like this is  Cakewalk's version of MuseScore 3's "New All."

[Starship Krupa]

23 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

"Entire Mix" should give you whatever comes out of the hardware outputs the way you have it set up in your project without you having to select or do anything to make it happen. Anything different from that is not the entire mix.

I agree with you (except I'd make it so that it's whatever's being sent to the hardware outputs due to not wanting the setting of the hardware faders to affect the exported track's level), but it's been done differently under the term "Entire Mix" for so long that changing it would throw too big a spanner into too many works.

What you describe but call it "What You Hear" or something. The feature would be great, but the name is already taken.

I set up an extra bus for Export and just go from there, but due to the whole "oops I had a track selected" thing I get either a silent or single track export on my first try about 50% of the time. The rendering process in Cakewalk is way too fraught with ways to mess it up.

As a matter of fact, I screw things up due to having something selected that I didn't want selected so often that I bound a single key (~) to "Select None" and hit it reflexively every so often, like checking to make sure I have my keys and phone, and checking my zipper after coming out of the men's.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

2 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

I agree with you (except I'd make it so that it's whatever's being sent to the hardware outputs due to not wanting the setting of the hardware faders to affect the exported track's level), but it's been done differently under the term "Entire Mix" for so long that changing it would throw too big a spanner into too many works.

What you describe but call it "What You Hear" or something. The feature would be great, but the name is already taken.

I set up an extra bus for Export and just go from there, but due to the whole "oops I had a track selected" thing I get either a silent or single track export on my first try about 50% of the time. The rendering process in Cakewalk is way too fraught with ways to mess it up.

As a matter of fact, I screw things up due to having something selected that I didn't want selected so often that I bound a single key (~) to "Select None" and hit it reflexively every so often, like checking to make sure I have my keys and phone, and checking my zipper after coming out of the men's.

The sad part of all that is not the wonky functionality itself IMO, but seeing people defending said design flaw and engaging into semantics arguments as if the whole issue with the thing was a matter of whoever is complaining about it not understanding the meaning of words. Despite knowing about these quirks, I still run into these problems when I export because no other DAW does it that way. You hit Export, maybe choose what you want to export or maybe it's different options and it just does what you expect it to do. Plus that overriding thing is duplicated functionality that the Export window already provides for you in the form of you being able to choose what you want to export.

But, of course, I won't be surprised if this behavior never changes and I still have to try the same export a few dozen times until I get it right. I'm just holding it wrong.

[Lord Tim]

I don't think anyone is opposed to the idea of there being a way to just go "gimme everything" and it's really just a case of lousy naming more than anything else.

Entire Mix, from the point of view of routing, does exactly what it says on the tin - everything selected goes through all of the routing in the project and spits out whatever was selected (or everything if nothing or all is selected). The big key word here is "selected."

Absolutely agree this should be renamed to avoid confusion and give a simple way to just export the "Wot U Hear" version of the project, where everything is just selected by default during the export.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

5 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

Entire Mix, from the point of view of routing, does exactly what it says on the tin - everything selected goes through all of the routing in the project and spits out whatever was selected (or everything if nothing or all is selected). The big key word here is "selected."

This is not a semantics matter. This is a case of bad design, as even if a preset which does exactly what it's been asked was added, you would still have issues because of the selection overriding it.

If anything, the export window options should override what you have done on the DAW and not the other way around. Otherwise, there's no point in having it, as you could just select whatever, pick a preset and fool yourself thinking you're getting that instead of your selection.

[Starship Krupa]

6 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

The sad part of all that is not the wonky functionality itself IMO, but seeing people defending said design flaw and engaging into semantics arguments as if the whole issue with the thing was a matter of whoever is complaining about it not understanding the meaning of words.

We're in a forum for a product that a lot of people have used successfully for a long time. The program was designed a ceertain way, and it uses certain terminology. Most users either fine with the way it works or, like me, have developed workarounds. Someone speaks up and says it doesn't make sense, it's pretty natural for the others not to "get" what their problem is with it and assume they just need it explained. Probably inevitable that it seems condescending.

It works one way, you (and I) want it to work another way. No need to debate about whether the current feature is misnamed or misdesigned or whether some other program(s) does it better, yada yada. What would be nice would be a new option with a new name.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

No need to debate about whether the current feature is misnamed or misdesigned or whether some other program(s) does it better, yada yada.

This type of attitude is what makes Ardour/Mixbus the outdated thing it is. If anything suggested or mentioned is not how the lead developer uses the product or doesn't make sense to him how one would do so, despite being given explanations about it, he simply doesn't do it.

[Starship Krupa]

4 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

This type of attitude is what makes Ardour/Mixbus the outdated thing it is. If anything suggested or mentioned is not how the lead developer uses the product or doesn't make sense to him how one would do so, despite being given explanations about it, he simply doesn't do it.

Yep, Ardour suffers greatly from "not invented here" syndrome. Cakewalk much less so.

I've run up against a brick wall or two in the 5 years I've been using Cakewalk and making feature requests, but I've also made multiple feature requests that are now incorporated in the program. The devs are resistant to changing how existing features work due to the huge existing user base who are used to the way it works now. They are much more open to making something available via an option. One of my early successes was gaining the ability to turn off the numeric indicator in Aim Assist that overlays the Ruler. I knew enough not to request that it be removed, I just wanted to be able to turn it off if I desired.

We dislike an existing feature. We agree on how we would like that feature to work instead. The devs are not going to change the existing feature to suit how we want it to work, because there is a (silent) majority who are fine with how the existing feature works. This is assumed since nobody but 5 of us in this topic are speaking up about it. The best thing to do is just add a new feature that functions as we would like it to.

What good does it do to go round and round about the name of the existing feature and how it was implemented 20 years ago? Just add a new one and get on with it. The only thing worthy of debate at this point is what to call the new feature.