Mattias, I’m sorry but I can’t, really, unless this situation presents itself to me in another job.
I pay big bucks to Steinberg each year to have my professional DAW updated and I believe they should fix this issue at once, especially since it’s apparently been reported for ages now - (I just don’t happen to combine VCA and individual tracks automation too much in my usual workflows, so hadn’t noticed this before.)
And if this hasn’t been fixed this far, I don’t believe spending more time than I have with this issue will help them achieve that at all.
What makes you define this as a bug ?
Of course it is jumping by the VCA offset, since the VCA itself applies this offset.
In your example, when you add the initial node at 0 for the Audio Track, then the VCA offset is automatically applied to it, the node value remains 0 but the -10 from the VCA is applied to it, consequently the Audio Track fader moves to -10.
What should be the expected behavior for you ? Are you expecting the Audio Track fader to stay where it was ? But the VCA is taking precedence and applying the offset in real-time ! That’s just pure logic right here, this ain’t a bug !
Perhaps StudioOne and Pro Tools don’t “read” the VCA when writing automation on stopped playback, but as soon as you hit play the VCA is supposed to get into action…
Yes it ends with the same “problem”, how would that change anything ?
If the VCA is at 0 when writing the audio track’s automation there’s no jump whatsoever.
If it’s set to anything other than 0 then obviously the offset will be reflected as soon as you start writing the automation…
There is/has been (?) a bug in Nuendo and it has to do with the order in which you change things. By having initial automation nodes on both audio tracks and the controlling VCA tracks those problems go away.
I’m not saying it should be one way or another in Cubase for this user or for any user, I’m just asking them to try it to see if the behavior changes since that would tell us something.
I am facing this exact problem.
Adding a node to each track and VCA track is just a work around, not a solution, 'cause then we can not modify the fader of those tracks separately.
A VCA track appear to let us control the volume of many tracks at once while still let us balance those tracks during session.
Hope someone care.
It is a bad habit they have at Steinberg. They close issues as solved without any action. It is only the reporter that should be able to put the state as solved. They of course need to be able to close issues, but if they don’t fixed it should be solved as work-as-designed, wont-fix or fixed-please-verify-and-close. It is very rude to put a case as solved without any solution.
There was a Locked topic with the last comment from admin “Steinberg is aware of this”, however it was 2018 since Cubase 9.
I think this issue is there because of the second automation lane of linked tracks. I remember a time, VCA track work as traditional DCA (on Digital Console), it means the volume of linked tracks follow VCA while their faders don’t show those changing.
Hi Thomas. I think you may be experiencing the latest VCA bug, which I made a post about. See the video and my explanation to replicate, in case it’s the same one.
This just happened to me now… My head is about to explode. I just assumed it would be fixed, I remember this in cubase 10. but this happened now to a fully mixed track I was about to do a revision and do one tiny move. I have zero clue where the faders were, Is there any way to recover the settings?
Unfortunately, you have to use your ears and any reference mix you might have previously exported. There doesn’t seem to be any way to recover the VCA/Track relative positions.
Any tracks that have a VCA’s & automation on the tracks will have their automation turned off when re-opening the project… having to enable automation every single time the project opens is a bit of a nightmare…
this bug has also been around for years now =/
Since Cubase 8 (if I remember), the VCA function had a new update: an automation line created for every linked track, it is useful for users who want to release the automation VCA but still want to keep them for every single track, however this is why the known issue happened. This automation line won’t remember the original volume of every linked track, it just affects to the last volume it noticed. So every time we open the project, all the volume of linked track has dropped to the smallest value. For example, if we try to automate VCA, starting at -10dB, when we close and open the project again, all linked track will be gain down 10 compare to our original mixed.
The admins and mods, suggest us to create 1 automation knob for every linked track to keep their value unchanged, it is just a workaround, can’t be a solution, because doing this, we are also impossible to modify those track during mixing.
I think it will be the best solution for this case, if Steinberg keep another VCA function Called “Traditional DCA” which won’t create any automation line for every linked track, as it was without issue several years ago.
I hope someone from developers team read it. VCA tracks is still useless to me and many other users till now.
I know Cubase’s VCA implementation might still be different from Nuendo (I can never remember) but shouldn’t you be able to just use other automation modes on those tracks to get what you need?
If you mean separated automation for them, I say of course we can. But if you don’t want any automate, only change the volume a bit during mixing, it is impossible if that track has a volume automation node. I mean that.
Imagine we are balancing the volume of a String Section, while keeping a VCA track to control their loudness manually, we don’t want to remember our change as some automation node, just simply changing the volume to get the best result for that track compare to others. If we have 1 automation node, the volume won’t change. If we don’t add any automation node, The volume of those tracks will change without notice next time we are back to the project.
But you can set those string section tracks automation mode to “latch” with “fill” to “start” and “end” ‘locked’… This way faders should be freely moved and not revert to that node. Instead it should always rewrite automation to beginning and end.
Write Automation for the Audio Tracks freely, with To End (and) To Start enabled. You get a new static value for the whole length of the project.
Write Automation for the VCA track.
It works.
If the tracks don’t have automation, at least try to save the project with the cursor always at the same spot. The same when changing between projects. It’s weird, but follow the link some posts above and you’ll see. You can test for yourself and see how it’s perfectly reproducible. What’s the root cause? Who knows.
