Flaw in Step Sequencer

[Cobus Prinsloo]

I've utilized the step sequencer to build my drum tracks very effectively, but now and then, it seems to "forget" the velocities of notes. If you look at the Snare track - after working on this song for a while, the snare seemed to pop out in loudness. I tried to change its velocity from full to 96, but it made no difference. I even turned the velocity knob on the left to zero, but no gain!

I quit Cakewalk, and after opening the project again, the velocities sounded normal again. I tested it and muted the snare track, but even after un-muting it, the Step Sequencer treated it as if still being muted. Even after closing and opening the project again, there's no way I can get the snare track to be audible again!

Can this sort of thing happen when splitting an SS track and/or unlinking splits or duplicates from their originals, making new ones for alterations? Surely this would be normal practice? 

Please fix this issue, Bandlab, I'm very dependent on this tool, and is now climbing up the walls.

[David Baay]

Maybe share that project with just the offending track to see if the problem is reproducible for others. I don't use Step Sequencer that much but have not had issues like that in the past. I would not expect a problem with track mute/unmute to be related to the SS content. Possibly these issues are related to the instrument it's driving; is it SI Drums?

[Cobus Prinsloo]

6 hours ago, David Baay said:

ossibly these issues are related to the instrument it's driving; is it SI Drums?

Hi, the instrument is the old Cakewalk TTS-1, nothing more. (I still use it for its great drum maps) Whom can I share the work file with?

[David Baay]

4 hours ago, Cobus Prinsloo said:

Whom can I share the work file with?

A simple project with a virtual instrument and no audio tracks should be small enough to link to a post. If you don't want ot share it that widely, you can PM me the file or share it via OneDrive or some other sharing service.

[Cobus Prinsloo]

6 hours ago, David Baay said:

A simple project with a virtual instrument and no audio tracks should be small enough to link to a post

Thank you, I appreciate your interest in this matter. Please find attached work file. I've deleted all non-relevant tracks and synths from this project - leaving just the percussion and 1x FX tracks, all deriving their sounds from 5 instances of the TTS-1. If you go to Track 4, clip 6, (see screenshot) you will see what happens when trying to alter its velocities in the Step Sequencer. Just for testing -- I made the velocities of every second Snare step almost 0, and muted the entire Kick step track. On my side, this does not alter the loudness of these steps at all.

SS test.cwp

[msmcleod]

2 hours ago, Cobus Prinsloo said:

Thank you, I appreciate your interest in this matter. Please find attached work file. I've deleted all non-relevant tracks and synths from this project - leaving just the percussion and 1x FX tracks, all deriving their sounds from 5 instances of the TTS-1. If you go to Track 4, clip 6, (see screenshot) you will see what happens when trying to alter its velocities in the Step Sequencer. Just for testing -- I made the velocities of every second Snare step almost 0, and muted the entire Kick step track. On my side, this does not alter the loudness of these steps at all.

SS test.cwp 2.09 MB · 2 downloads

Have you changed the Velocity trim (MIDI gain) control on the track?

[Cobus Prinsloo]

14 hours ago, msmcleod said:

Have you changed the Velocity trim (MIDI gain) control on the track?

Hi, I take it you're referring to the Vel+ slider in the track options (see attached). I didn't change this, as this slider was not even visible in my customized workspace (how can I manually add it;  I've looked under the View and Options tabs?)

[David Baay]

On 10/27/2024 at 3:18 AM, Cobus Prinsloo said:

I made the velocities of every second Snare step almost 0, and muted the entire Kick step track. On my side, this does not alter the loudness of these steps at all.

Those velocity settings are working here; the snares at beats 4 and 8 are inaudible over the tambourine hits on the same beats. But I noticed when muting the tambourine row to better hear the soft snares that the tambourine just became a little quieter (Dim Solo disengaged). So I bounced the SS clip to a regular MIDI clip, and found that both the tambourine hits and snare hits were duplicated - two events with the same timing and velocity for each. Did these clips start out as MIDI clips converted to Setep Sequencer clips or were they SS clips from the get-go? As I said, the velocity settings seemed to be working here, but if there is underlying duplication of hits, that might interfere with the velocity response. I suggest you bounce to clips, remove the duplicate hits and convert back to SS.

P.S. I thought this might be related to the Flam control. It was centered which should be 0.0, but was showing 25.0 and goes from 1.0 to 50.0 instead of -50.0 to +50.0 as the documentation says it should. Also, when I double-clicked it to re-center, it defaulted to 25.5 instead of 25.0, adding to my suspicion that it's not behaving correctly.

 

[Cobus Prinsloo]

3 hours ago, David Baay said:

Did these clips start out as MIDI clips converted to Setep Sequencer clips or were they SS clips from the get-go?

This is interesting - I opened this test project a day or two later, and now the velocities seem to work ok.
I definitely made up all of my SS tracks originally in the SS. I did as you, and also got the double midi hits for the snare and tambourine! How bizarre. 
That Flam control is another mystery: clearly something in the SS engine is not error-proof.

Thank you again for your interest in trying to help resolve this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 10/27/2024 at 10:51 PM, msmcleod said:

Have you changed the Velocity trim (MIDI gain) control on the track?

[David Baay]

18 minutes ago, Cobus Prinsloo said:

I definitely made up all of my SS tracks originally in the SS. I did as you, and also got the double midi hits for the snare and tambourine! How bizarre. 
That Flam control is another mystery: clearly something in the SS engine is not error-proof.

I'm not sure how this happened in your project, but I can't reproduce the doubling in a new step sequencer clip created from scratch. I think something must have happened in the editing process. So far as I can tell, the numerical range of the Flam control is just mis-documented and 1.0% to 50.0% is the intended range; in other words, the flammed sound can only be delayed - not advanced - relative to the initial hit which makes sense. In any case, Flam was not enabled on any of the hits so it shouldn't have any bearing.