v5.0pre18b - March 16 2015

[XarquS]

v5.0pre18b - March 16 2015
# Envelopes: apply VCA actions respect selection, oops
# FX: reset PDC when offlining FX
# ReaInsert: more sync fixes/improvements especially when muting/bypassing

v5.0pre18 - March 15 2015
# Actions: fixed switch toolbar actions [t=157294]
# Envelopes: apply VCA actions
# MIDI editor: mouse modifier to stretch notes behaves like a normal note edge edit when note is not selected
# ReaInsert: allow negative delay offsets when using automatic device latency
# ReaInsert: fixed more potential sync issues
# ReaInsert: more accurate pinging (zero crossing check, use of DC offset filter, noise threshold
# ReaScript: prompt to launch or terminate deferred instances, with option "Remember my answer for this script"
# Tempo map: fixed changing tempo map point between square and linear transition, using context menu
# Theming: added envcp_knob_small/large images

[Otto Tune]

Originally Posted by XarquS

# Envelopes: apply VCA actions

looks like some initial coalescing functions there

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Otto Tune

looks like some initial coalescing functions there

Yes, working as expected, and thank you very much for not calling it "coalescing".

[BenK-msx]

hail the developer overlords.

the 'apply and reset' is nice and easy, quick check seemed to work fine. thanks!

[Seventh]

Originally Posted by Banned

thank you very much for not calling it "coalescing".

Now it's not very pro though, is it?

[WyattRice]

Could someone give a demo of what apply VCA actions does?

[planetnine]

Originally Posted by WyattRice

Could someone give a demo of what apply VCA actions does?

One is effectively, "coalesce", the other with "remove VCA groups" is more like a VCA "freeze".

Coalesce applies the gain that VCAs introduce to faders and automation, and then moves the VCA fader and automation back to unity.

This is off the top of my head, as I'm just setting something up to test it


Edit: First one is correct, selected VCA master loses its fader gain which is applied to the slaves; same applies to volume automation on master and slaves. Second one, the fader gain and automation is applied to the slaves, but not removed from the master, but the slaves remove themselves from the VCA group.

Incidentally, a click on the TCP "fader" if set to exactly -6dB, sets it to -6.04dB -which I believe corresponds to a true linear gain of 0.5, but it surprised me that REAPER did it.



>

[Lazarus]

Originally Posted by Banned

Yes, working as expected, and thank you very much for not calling it "coalescing".

They are not obeying selection here. For example if I have two VCA groups, no matter what track is selected both actions perform the operations globally.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by WyattRice

Could someone give a demo of what apply VCA actions does?

Sure. Here's a little screencap of the action "Envelope: apply all VCAs from selected tracks to grouped tracks and reset volume/pan/mute":



Minor issue: redundant envelope points may be added (easy enough to get rid of them using a little script, though).

A bigger usability issue seems to be that these actions can't be used to apply and remove / reset only one specific VCA group.

[Justin]

Originally Posted by Lazarus

They are not obeying selection here. For example if I have two VCA groups, no matter what track is selected both actions perform the operations globally.

hah, oops fixing for pre19

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Lazarus

They are not obeying selection here. For example if I have two VCA groups, no matter what track is selected both actions perform the operations globally.

Oh you're correct, I can confirm this issue.

[WyattRice]

Do these actions work with pre fx envelopes?

[Otto Tune]

Originally Posted by WyattRice

Do these actions work with pre fx envelopes?

Yes, but if you apply both pre and post fx vcas, the two envelopes are hard to tell apart w/o right clicking on the envelope.

[Banned]

When you have both regular (post-fx) and pre-fx volume envelopes on both VCA master and slave tracks, these actions seem to be quite buggy. Need a bit more testing to find out exactly what isn't working.

[Lazarus]

Woot, I got one!

# ReaScript: prompt to launch or terminate deferred instances, with option "Remember my answer for this script"

This is cool, also if full screenset support isn't possible at the mo, could scripts also remember which dock they last lived in?

(psst, I started a wildly unpopular thread about Lua networking... http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=156799 ... there will be loads of jelly and ice cream there if anyone swings by)

[WyattRice]

Here's a test I did with regular volume envelopes.
https://stash.reaper.fm/23648/vca_env_test.gif

I couldn't get it to work with pre fx envelopes.

[Otto Tune]

Originally Posted by WyattRice

Here's a test I did with regular volume envelopes.
https://stash.reaper.fm/23648/vca_env_test.gif

I couldn't get it to work with pre fx envelopes.

Hmm, with the "Flag: VCA pre-fx slave" box checked on the S track, it's working as expected here, though I might be missing something.

[BenK-msx]

[snip]
realised i needed the 64bit version of MIDIReaControlPath in v5 x64



Edit:

re Vca's:

a bunch of VCA set up/associated actions covering most bases are needed, and would be welcome.

e.g
create new vca master track with selected track(s) as vca slaves - group N/new/next/unused/etc.

as well as 'add selected track(s) to group N as vca master/slave yadayada.

[Superfly76]

Originally Posted by Otto Tune

looks like some initial coalescing functions there

YES! Off to download and test now. I'm glad that this is moving along.

[avoca]

Originally Posted by XarquS

# Envelopes: apply VCA actions

Thank you!

[WyattRice]

Originally Posted by Otto Tune

Hmm, with the "Flag: VCA pre-fx slave" box checked on the S track, it's working as expected here, though I might be missing something.

I tried that, and it wont work. I must be missing something?

Here's another gif with that flag set, and I have pre fx envelopes.

https://stash.reaper.fm/23649/vca_env_test_2.gif

[Mercado_Negro]

I think I saw a discussion about this somewhere but I can't find it right now. Can someone please explain to me why we can't have VCA Masters to control another VCA Master(s)? For example:

VCA Strings
-VCA Violins
--VCA violin 1
--VCA violin 2
-VCA Cellos
--VCA cello 1
--VCA cello 2

VCA Strings control VCA Violins and VCA Cellos and each one of them control their corresponding tracks.

[EDIT] I'm asking for a technical reason inside REAPER. I understand why this isn't "right" in the VCA context (it's just a "signal" after all).

[Superfly76]

Because there is no signal passing through the VCA Masters. My guess is that it's still adjusting the gain, but there is no signal in a proper VCA master passing through anyway.

Try This:

Group 1
Master VCA Violins
-Slave VCA violin 1
-Slave VCA violin 2

Group 2
Master VCA Cellos
-Slave VCA cello 1
-Slave VCA cello 2

Group 3
Master VCA Strings
-Slave VCA violin 1
-Slave VCA violin 2
-Slave VCA cello 1
-Slave VCA cello 2

In theory that should do what you want. I'm off to try it out now.

Originally Posted by Mercado_Negro

I think I saw a discussion about this somewhere but I can't find it right now. Can someone please explain to me why we can't have VCA Masters to control another VCA Master(s)? For example:

VCA Strings
-VCA Violins
--VCA violin 1
--VCA violin 2
-VCA Cellos
--VCA cello 1
--VCA cello 2

VCA Strings control VCA Violins and VCA Cellos and each one of them control their corresponding tracks.

[EDIT] I'm asking for a technical reason inside REAPER. I understand why this isn't "right" in the VCA context (it's just a "signal" after all).

Edit:

Just tested my above setup with vocals. 10 vocal tracks with lead vox and BGVs. I set up 3 VCA Groups. All Vocals, Lead Vocals, BGVs with a VCA Master for each and the proper corresponding Slaves. It worked. I could control the lead Vox, The BGVs and all vocals.


This will be a super powerful way of mixing!

[Mercado_Negro]

Originally Posted by Superfly76

Because there is no signal passing through the VCA Masters. My guess is that it's still adjusting the gain, but there is no signal in a proper VCA master passing through anyway.

Try This:

Group 1
Master VCA Violins
-Slave VCA violin 1
-Slave VCA violin 2

Group 2
Master VCA Cellos
-Slave VCA cello 1
-Slave VCA cello 2

Group 3
Master VCA Strings
-Slave VCA violin 1
-Slave VCA violin 2
-Slave VCA cello 1
-Slave VCA cello 2

In theory that should do what you want. I'm off to try it out now.

Yes, I understand it makes no sense in a "real world" context because it's just a control but I was more interested in the technical side (or corner cases) inside REAPER which wouldn't allow it (almost anything is possible in software ).

I'll try what you suggested. Give me a sec...

[Mercado_Negro]

Originally Posted by Superfly76

Edit:

Just tested my above setup with vocals. 10 vocal tracks with lead vox and BGVs. I set up 3 VCA Groups. All Vocals, Lead Vocals, BGVs with a VCA Master for each and the proper corresponding Slaves. It worked. I could control the lead Vox, The BGVs and all vocals.


This will be a super powerful way of mixing!

Yep, it works Now, if we only hadn't that bug with the actions being applied globally I could test it with envelopes and see if it works ok there as well

[Lorbakounet]

And now for something completely different :

Whether it's a track fx or an item fx, midi rendering seems to have come down to something :

[Mercado_Negro]

Originally Posted by Lorbakounet

And now for something completely different :

Whether it's a track fx or an item fx, midi rendering seems to have come down to something :

Confirmed

[timboid]

Does apply VCA works on the whole track or it is possible to apply VCA over a selection only?

[heda]

Originally Posted by XarquS

# ReaScript: prompt to launch or terminate deferred instances, with option "Remember my answer for this script"

In case you change your mind, or pressed the wrong button, How to forget the setting to be prompted again?

Also. it would be great if the scripts remember their position if they have a gfx window. They all open at 0,0 top lef corner. Or at least to be able to define left and right position at gfx init.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by timboid

Does apply VCA works on the whole track or it is possible to apply VCA over a selection only?

These actions work on entire tracks.

(I can smell a FR coming up... )

[airon]

Originally Posted by Mercado_Negro

Yep, it works Now, if we only hadn't that bug with the actions being applied globally I could test it with envelopes and see if it works ok there as well

VCAs do not stack, i.e. you cannot excert control over one VCA master with another.

Yet I should hope. I'll still use this of course.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by airon

VCAs do not stack, i.e. you cannot excert control over one VCA master with another.

Indeed.

But for some cases (e.g. live mixing) you may be able to get away with building an hierarchical setup by using regular grouping for the top level(s), and a VCA group at the bottom. Note that this will *not* combine the master/slave track automation on the top level(s), though.

Originally Posted by airon

Yet I should hope. I'll still use this of course.

Me too. But I would guess that it may be somewhat complicated to enable stacking VCA groups while also preventing possible feedback loops.

[Banned]

After a bit more testing, it seems that the new VCA envelope actions only take envelope point values into account, but completely ignore the envelope segments between envelope points, and also their shape (btw, I think it's quite silly to speak of the shape of points rather than envelope segments, but that's a different issue, and doesn't get in my way - but for conceptual clarity, I will speak of the shape of envelope segments, though).

A little demonstration:



Some issues are immediately apparent here:

- The (Bézier type) envelope segments on track 'A' are not changed at all, because the envelope point values are the same - yet, the tension value *should* have been changed.

- The (linear) envelope on track 'C' gets completely flattened to -inf, while it should initially have gone up a bit, then coming down.

- The fourth envelope segment on the VCA master track envelope is of the 'slow start/end' type, but it does not impose its shape on the linear envelope segment in slave tracks such as track 'F' here.

[machineareves]

I've been able to use the dry/wet knob on Reainsert without any phasing issue for the first time. Ping dectection seems to be working as it should. Thanks a lot for this. For whatever reason the automatic latency compensation still doesn't work with my fireface 800.

[G-Sun]

Originally Posted by XarquS

# ReaInsert: allow negative delay offsets when using automatic device latency
# ReaInsert: fixed more potential sync issues
# ReaInsert: more accurate pinging (zero crossing check, use of DC offset filter, noise threshold

Thanks for improving ReaInsert!

[musicbynumbers]

Just a guess here

Some devices don't report the in and out converter latency on top of the buffer they also have so you might need to send a sample through and look at the timing difference. You could probably then add this amount to the audio drivers prefs in reaper so that even recording takes this into account just a guess though

Originally Posted by machineareves

I've been able to use the dry/wet knob on Reainsert without any phasing issue for the first time. Ping dectection seems to be working as it should. Thanks a lot for this. For whatever reason the automatic latency compensation still doesn't work with my fireface 800.

[Otto Tune]

Originally Posted by WyattRice

I tried that, and it wont work. I must be missing something?

Here's another gif with that flag set, and I have pre fx envelopes.

https://stash.reaper.fm/23649/vca_env_test_2.gif

You might try removing the M track flag. I've got flags only on S tracks and it seems to be working fine. Maybe that's the difference?

[Justin]

Originally Posted by Mercado_Negro

I think I saw a discussion about this somewhere but I can't find it right now. Can someone please explain to me why we can't have VCA Masters to control another VCA Master(s)? For example:

VCA Strings
-VCA Violins
--VCA violin 1
--VCA violin 2
-VCA Cellos
--VCA cello 1
--VCA cello 2

VCA Strings control VCA Violins and VCA Cellos and each one of them control their corresponding tracks.

[EDIT] I'm asking for a technical reason inside REAPER. I understand why this isn't "right" in the VCA context (it's just a "signal" after all).

It's a design choice -- since any track can be in multiple VCA groups (both as a master or slave), it just makes more sense (and is more efficient from the implementation side) to put your cello tracks in both the "VCA cello" group as well as the "VCA strings" group. The hierarchy system was, IMO, because on the hardware of the day each track could only be a member of a *single* VCA.

[EvilDragon]

Makes sense when you look at it that way, Justin.

How about this great idea outlined here? http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=157309

[WyattRice]

Originally Posted by Otto Tune

You might try removing the M track flag. I've got flags only on S tracks and it seems to be working fine. Maybe that's the difference?

I tried that as well. It made no difference.

Devs, could you look and compare the gifs?

The first one is with a volume envelope.

The second one is with a pre fx envelope.

Shouldn't the action do the same thing to the pre fx?

Regular envelope



Pre fx envelope