Unwanted Snap on MIDI editor

[elfspell]

Hello good people





Tried disabling snap, tried continuous data.. nothing helped
Could you help me please?

[FMiguelez]

You are certain you have Snap to Grid off for CCs, yes?

If so, to me that looks like the typical poor and lousy DP automation editing behaviour, unfortunately. Sometimes it does crazy unexpected things like that and it's so frustrating!

I've found myself in too many similar situations like yours.

Switch to "points" CC view in the GE to see if there may be a faux CC point somewhere or to see what DP is doing more clearly.

Does it do the same thing if you select only 1 CC value instead of the 3 you have in your giff?

[bayswater]

Haven't seen that one before. I'm still trying to find a quick way to eliminate the steps that keep appearing in automation ramps. Changing the setting beside the Grid button to Auto instead of Fixed seems to clear up a lot of weirdnesses, but maybe not this one. I also find that DP appears to be interpreting a single move with automation points selected as multiple moves. Making a move, then deselecting the points, then reselecting the same point for subsequent edits seems to help this.

But overall its very confusing and inconsistent.

[FMiguelez]

What Bays said.
Also, have you tried constraining your vertical moves by using Shift? Sometimes this helps.

There are a lot of inconsistencies and general weirdness when editing CCs.

Oh, and don't even get me started with the ancient UNRESOLVED issues of timeline edits and CC automation problems (like pasting/sniping) with those god damned unwanted ramps that always RUIN your mix and must be manually fixed every time!

I wonder if MOTU will ever do something about all this. If the past DP update history is any indication, I'm not feeling particularly optimistic about it...

[bayswater]

If I get a chance, I do a video of some of this and send to the tech page. This has been outstanding for 2 or 3 years, and I think we need to encourage MOTU to get a fix into its final release. Those closer to the action says we're looking at V11. I'd be annoyed if this doesn't get fixed before that.

You can get around all this by drawing a line with the pencil tool and the straight line shaper, and then switching to the pointer tool and clicking on the line to add peaks and valleys. Even then you have to fart around to avoid the 90 deg ramps, and the exercise is a huge waste of time.

[bayswater]

I posted a tech link with the specific problem I mentioned. I included a video linked here. There are two attempts in this video to move multiple automation points, first with Grid Off and Second with Grid On.

www.heavyethics.com/DPAV/AutomationEdit.mp4

On the matter of the rectangular ramps that appear from time to time, I noticed these are much less frequent under Mojave, regardless of the DP version. After playing with this for a while, it looks like there is actually an automation point that isn't properly displayed, as in this image.

www.heavyethics.com/DPAV/MissingAutomationPoint.png

You can select the "corner" as if it was an automation point and drag it to produce the ramp might have expected, to get, for example, this:

www.heavyethics.com/DPAV/EditedRamp.png

But even then, the edit is prone to produce another right angle ramp if you aren't careful. I don't know if this is a bug, but the way it works doesn't make any sense to me.

(I tried to show the screenshots as images, but for some reason they don't show up in the post.)

[FMiguelez]

I posted a tech link with the specific problem I mentioned. I included a video linked here.

Thank you for doing that, Bays!

I hope MOTU checks it out (and notices it and corrects it ASAP).

BTW, I could not see the mini-video from the link, but I could download it.

[FMiguelez]

BTW, in case MOTU support does check out this post, here is the algorithm (in spoken language) that would avoid ALL unwanted ramps when pasting or sniping automated sections around (for the nth time)>

--- For every automated parameter that exists for the selected tracks for the selected region, take note of their initial/ending values, so that when the region is cut, snipped or pasted ANYWHERE, the resulting cut, snipped or pasted parameters ALWAYS match the source WHILE taking into account whatever automation came before and after in the target track(s).

Watch for this>>>
---- The source and target tracks may be the same or different tracks, with or without automation...
---- Source and target MIDI and audio tracks may also contain the same, similar or completely different automation parameters before/after the snip or paste.
Either way, source values must always match for all parameters at the head and tail, and this is how to avoid such extraneous and unwanted ramps that ruin your mixes!

MOTU could implement that in probably one evening. It would make DP a MUCH better CC and automation editor!

[bayswater]

I got a reply. The bad news is the way automation edits shown in the video I posted is the was it is designed to work. Something about preserving the automation around the edit points. But it was noted that it makes no sense for this to work one way when a single point is edited, and another way when multiple points are edited. This will be taken up with the developers.

It was also noted this only happens with a drawn pattern of peaks and valley, and not with something like a sine wave, which also makes no sense.

In the conversation, I also brought up the problem of "right-angle" ramps, and unexpected results in the way automation curves are healed when a piece is cut out.