Automation Tilt/Scale/Compress should not create automation events

Cubase
1

I’ve posted this before in the Nuendo section of the forum. It got some traction from fellow users but never any formal response. I’m guessing this might also be more of an issue for composers/producers then it would be for mixers so I’m posting this here to see if it’s just me, or there’s more people with this problem, because even after 4 years+ this might literally be the single biggest sore I have while working with Nuendo/Cubase.

It’s essentially a very simple thing, yet a bit complex to explain without getting wordy so if you’re like me and don’t like long texts: I made a video:

For everyone else, I’ll try and do a short explanation in text:
I don’t remember exactly when they where first introduced but Cubase and Nuendo’s unique automation editing functions “Tilt”, “Scale”, and “Compress” blew my mind and ever since I’ve used them extensively. Prior to Nuendo 8.2 these functions where usable in 2 ways.

First: Select the points you want to edit with the “Object Selection tool”. Then, Tilt, Scale, or Compress the material and any automation present before or after the selected events would be ‘bent’ towards the new position of your starting or ending points (or ‘Automation Events’), making sure the entire automation pass remains fluent.

Second: Make a selection using the Range Selection tool instead. Any editing done would work identical but by using the range selection tool Nuendo puts an extra point (or ‘Automation Event’) before and/or after your selection making sure any automation data before or after the selected events would not be altered in any way, in essence isolating outlying parts from your editting.

Super useful to have these two options, since 8.2 however, method 1 (using the Object Selection tool) exhibits the same behavior as the range selection tool. When using “Tilt”, “Scale”, or “Compress” to edit the automation, it creates extra points (or Automation Events) at the start and/or ending of your edit. However, if you want your automation pass to remain fluent, these points have to then be remove manually (and are sometimes easily to overlook and missed resulting in unintended jumps in automation).

As a score composer - using for example orchestral libraries that rely heavily on CC parameters like Modulation, Expression and Breath - I use automation and Cubase/Nuendo’s scale, tilt and compress functions all the time so getting this remedied is something that would save me SO much time. Hope I can find some likeminded people here to get this ‘fix’ higher on Steinbergs to-do list.

EDIT: If you agree, use your vote (Top left of this post) to help make this a priority! Thanks!!

Cheers!

1 Like
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I am totally with you. This new behavior is absolutely not intuitive to me and I would prefer the old behavior. I know that there is a way to move all the points vertically by clicking on one of the points and drag them - which I also find rather counterintuitive - but I don’t know of a way to scale them without creating new points. So I’d prefer a change or rather the possibility to change it in the settings.

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I couldn’t agree more. I always have to delete those extra automation points.
On a similar note, I would like it if additional automation points were not created when a part is moved, cut or pasted with the option Automation Follows Events active if not needed.
And it shouldn’t be needed if the automation value(s) at the start and/or end of the event matches the destination.

PS. I would add the “Feature-request” tag to this thread.

2 Likes
4

Agreed, and I posted about something very similar here:

While I found this forum useful to get often very good advice from other Cubase users, there is very little interaction with Steinberg representatives here, and based on that, I suspect any feature-request made here goes into a bit of a black hole.

If this is really important to you, I suggest rallying forum participants to use their scarce “votes” to upvote this request, and I’d also email Steinberg Support for good measure.

1 Like
5

Don’t see why not. Absolutely. +1

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6

I’ve looked quite extensively and so far, I can’t find any way to do it. By the way, what you’re talking about I believe ‘moves’ the entire automation pass (useful in it’s own right), but the ability to scale it is what I love so much and there is no way to do this without creating new points (or Automation events).

1 Like
7

That’s a great addition. I don’t often move MIDI parts with ‘Automation Follows Events’ because I don’t trust it. I usually get my hands dirty and manually select all automation as well, but this solution seems like a no-brainer to me.

Also, I’ve added the feature request, although it used to be in there, so it feels more like a bugfix. :joy:

8

Thanks for the suggestions!

To be entirely honest I get what you’re saying however I was actually going the other way around. Steinberg support used to be very hands on and I’ve had some really insanely great experiences with them in the (distant) past, but more recently and over the past couple of years, after experiencing some pretty extreme cases of really ridiculous support having me run in circles for 18 e-mails straight I decided to take my issues to the forum, doing exactly that: Trying to get as many votes as possible in hopes of getting noticed by the devs.

So thanks for your vote! Hope we catch a couple more and who knows, crazy things could happen!

It’s funny, because I’ve been nagging about it for a couple years now at least and it seems like a really small thing to alter (I might be wrong I have very little programming experience) for something that costs me so much time. On the other end I get they probably have a to-do list several hundred of things long, and I get that this is, sadly, not a sexy priority…

9

Try using the value parameter in the info line.
Behaviour is then as expected.
(no new automation points)

Delta

10

Hey Delta,

Thanks for the tip - Info line is a great tool indeed, for moving the values up and down. However there is no way to use it for these (powerfull) Compress/Tilt/Scale functions.

11

Oh yes, this is very annoying behavior! All my votes are used, though, else I’d upvote this topic :frowning:

1 Like
12

Hi Fese,

No worries, Thanks for commenting, I hope this makes enough of a difference.