"Fill to loop" fills outside loop when punching out outside

Nuendo
1

From the manual:

PROCEDURE
1.On the Automation Panel, activate Touch, and activate Loop to activate it as Fill option.
2.Start playback.
3.Move the fader until you have found the volume setting that you need and release the fader to punch out.
The found > value is set within the range that is defined by the left and right locators> .

I’ve only had one cup of coffee so far, but doesn’t the above mean - and didn’t the older versions of Nuendo - punch the automation to the loop-range only, regardless of where the punch-out happened?

With Nuendo 7.0.35, if you punch out outside of the loop boundaries it writes automation in that outside area as well as in the loop region. Surely this can’t be right!?

Repro:

  1. Create audio track and place it in auto write mode, touch.
  2. Create a loop range about 30 seconds into the timeline. It only has to be say 5 seconds long.
  3. In the automation panel, set “Fill” to “Loop” (for convenience, click twice to lock the parameter)
  4. With the fader at zero gain change, press play from the start of the timeline. Ride fader down to infinity over about 3 seconds. Release to punch out - before you reach the loop region.

Result: you will have the 3 second attenuation to infinity at the point in the timeline you began that fader move, you will have it hold until the point you released the fader at which point you will have the preset return time to zero - AND you will have an instantaneous drop to minus infinity at the beginning of the loop range (correct), with the punch out and return to zero at the loop range out point.

Please confirm.

2

Additionally:

The above issue applies if you start before the loop range but release within (the automation created before the range is written outside (before) the loop range), and if you start within the loop range but move the fader and then release after the loop range (the automation created after the range is written after).

3

That’s how it’s always been (well, ever since Nuendo got a functional copy of the S5 automation system). It will fill the loop on punch out (whether that’s stopping writing or releasing the fader) regardless of whether you are inside the loop or not and you can freely write automation outside the loop boundaries.

For your example, what I gather you want is to enable “autopunch” along with “preview”. This will not allow any automation to be written until you cross the left locator point. It will then start writing during the loop (if fill loop is enabled it will obviously fill the loop with the last value), and then it will punch out upon reaching the right locator.

4

So you’re saying that automation actually being written in two places despite “fill to loop” being selected is intended behavior? Or at least the behavior we’ve had before?

My workflow hasn’t really included my test example before, so this is new to me, and the manual doesn’t really explain the intended behavior clearly I think.

5

Yes - intended behavior. There is functionality (as mentioned) to cover the use case where you don’t want to write outside your loop boundaries.