Digital distortion/clipping in one track although the file is ok?

[Leander]

Hi!

Noticed something strange. A guitar track has +3.9 volume and clips...but both volume and gain are set to 0....and when I move the file to a different channel, everything is ok...only that one channel has the problem with all files. I deleted it...so everything is ok again, but what might have been the reason? Is this a known bug?
The channel itself did not push the signal...the mixer look ok, too.

[Amberwolf]

Most likely at some point you changed to offset mode and upped the gain or volume output while there, without realzing it.  Unless shortcuts have changed, if you hit O it changes to offset, and pressing it again brings you back to automatable controls view.  (I think it would be nice to have a view that has both visible to keep track of this sort of thing easier; don't know if that's possible in modern Sonar). 

So it's easily possible to be, say, trying to rename a track, accidentlly not click on it right, type someting and end up accidentlaly triggering assorted shortcuts via the keys you pressed--and O is a common letter in English0 musical words at least (Vocals, Viola, Bowed, Orchestra, Toms, etc) so ti's very very easy to do this. (ask me how I know 😊 ).   Then go change a control (volume, gain, whatever) somewhere, then later on rename *another* track and switch back to automated mode, all without ever realizing it's happened, utnil you run into something like this.

Deleting the track fixes it, since it deletes the offset control value.   

 

Antoher thing that can cause it is clip gain envelopes, or an automation envelope for the main gain or volume that was later hidden to be able to see something else more clearly, and then forgotten about.  Since the value of an automated control still shows on the control, you'd see this change...but not if you did the automation, and hten accidentally switched to offset mode--that version of hte control doesn't change with automation, so....    

 

In offset mode, at least in my ancient version, there is a + sign in the controls that have that mode when you're viewing them.  There is no + in them if you're in the automatable view, so it is easy to see which mode you're in if you remember to look for that (took me a while to learn to check).  

 

 

[Leander]

Thanks! Yes, I accidentally press keys or click the mouse...scrolling is dangerous, too as you scroll a knob while on it instead of a UI area.

The problem is also that some plugins let you save a preset after entering the name, but Sonar reacts to your key presses and does things although you only want to the preset name and type on your keyboard.

[Amberwolf]

30 minutes ago, Leander said:

The problem is also that some plugins let you save a preset after entering the name, but Sonar reacts to your key presses and does things although you only want to the preset name and type on your keyboard.

Not sure what the icon looks like now, but for me it's a  keyboard icon near the top right of a plugin window frame.   This allows you to to pass  or deny keystrokes thru to SONAR while a plugin window is in focus.  If it's pasing thru, you can get behavior you don't want or expect if you don't realize this.