VCA Group fader bug

[Dan Worley]

Maybe you all know about this already, but I'm not on here much so I thought I'd mention it in case anyone else has been surprised by this frustrating bug with VCA groups.

I'm reporting this to MOTU.

I thought I did something wrong the first time this happened. But now, a few weeks later, it has happened again in a different project.

These are the steps.

- Select some tracks and create a VCA group
- Move the VCA fader down by (say) 2 dB
- Delete the VCA group and Retain the adjustment
- Save
- Close
- Open the project back up
- Some (not all) of the tracks gain back the 2dB
- Close without saving
- Open the project again
- Some of those tracks may gain yet another 2dB

It's a crap shoot at this point. Thankfully I thought to take a screenshot of the fader levels this time around.

Oh, I just noticed something. This seems to be happening on tracks with automation (not fader automation). In this case plugin bypass automation.

DP 10.13
Mac Pro (Mid 2010) 10.13.6

[Phil O]

Yeah, Dan. I've reported this to MOTU as well. There seem to be several modes of failure. Bottom line, VCA faders are broken. Here are some threads:

https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewto ... 26&t=66745

https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewto ... =1&t=67392

https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewto ... 26&t=68375

[dix]

This issue has been discussed at length. I thought the verdict was that this bug only affected tracks that did not have automation play-enabled on the individual tracks in the VCA group. I've never experienced this bug because I always keep automation play enabled on all my tracks...or so I thought anyway.

[Dan Worley]

Yeah, Dan. I've reported this to MOTU as well. There seem to be several modes of failure. Bottom line, VCA faders are broken. Here are some threads:

https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewto ... 26&t=66745

https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewto ... =1&t=67392

https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewto ... 26&t=68375

Ah, okay. Thank you for letting me know, Phil. I did a search before posting, but VCA was too vague of a term and it wouldn't search for it, so I gave up. Lol

I hope they get it fixed soon.

[Dan Worley]

This issue has been discussed at length. I thought the verdict was that this bug only affected tracks that did not have automation play-enabled on the individual tracks in the VCA group. I've never experienced this bug because I always keep automation play enabled on all my tracks...or so I thought anyway.

Yeah, I don't know. I think my other project had fader automation on many of the tracks and it still did it. That one was a real mess. I was not happy, but I thought I had done something stupid, which is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

Thanks.

[mhschmieder]

Nope; I rarely use automation and I'm one of the ones who reported the original bugs.

I haven't checked them lately, as I haven't had time for music for eons now. Too much work.

[dix]

Nope; I rarely use automation and I'm one of the ones who reported the original bugs.

I haven't checked them lately, as I haven't had time for music for eons now. Too much work.

"Nope" to what? Are you saying you experienced the VCA bug regardless of the tracks' Automation Play state? It was much later in the conversation after DP10 came out that someone posted this workaround.

[Phil O]

I thought the verdict was that this bug only affected tracks that did not have automation play-enabled on the individual tracks in the VCA group. I've never experienced this bug because I always keep automation play enabled on all my tracks...or so I thought anyway.

Mhschmieder has reported earlier that he experienced problems when switching between mixes. I haven't tested this myself, but it would be interesting to know the details.

MH?

Your friendly neighborhood Phil

[Dan Worley]

Is this fixed in 11?

Thanks!

[Phil O]

As far as I can tell, the problem still remains.

Your friendly neighborhood Phil

[waterstrum]

I've been reluctant to use VCA groups because of the posts here.
Obviously, we all depend on reliable recall of our projects and mixes.
Has anybody figured this out?

[Phil O]

I haven't experimented with this for a while. Apparently the work-around is to be sure automation is turned on. I don't know if all the tracks in the group need it turned on or just the VCA fader or both.The little bit of testing (all associated tracks with automation on) I did with it seemed to work.This would explain why some people report VCAs working fine (they just happened to have automation enabled on those tracks). However, there are several problems associated with VCAs and I don't know if this work-around addresses all of them.

Here's another thought. What if the normal function of DP VCA groups REQUIRES automation to be turned on and MOTU just forgot to include that detail in the manual?

Your friendly neighborhood Phil

[sockmonkey]

Here's another thought. What if the normal function of DP VCA groups REQUIRES automation to be turned on and MOTU just forgot to include that detail in the manual?

Even if that were the case, is "undefined behavior" what anyone wants, if things aren't set up as the designer expects?

[HCMarkus]

Here's another thought. What if the normal function of DP VCA groups REQUIRES automation to be turned on and MOTU just forgot to include that detail in the manual?

Even if that were the case, is "undefined behavior" what anyone wants, if things aren't set up as the designer expects?

You are correct sockmonky.

That said, if this is really all it takes to make VCAs functional in DP, it is a pretty simple workaround.

THAT said, ever since having a client mix get completely F'd up by weird VCA behavior, I've avoided this feature.

[Dan Worley]

Thanks, guys.

After using Performer and Digital Performer since almost the beginning (I think I started using Performer on version 2 when I got my first paying job at a studio), I've now switched to Studio One 5 Professional. Thanks for the memories, MOTU. All the best to all who made DP possible through the years. It's been a pleasure, with a little bit of frustration here and there.