MultiTrack SYNC ISSUES w/ Folder Sync

[mart]

@OldFecker

@leroo

This project doesn’t get out of sync here.
Cuts appear on all 5 of the Kick takes, and on all 5 of the Snare takes.

Hmm. I get that result too, unless I first do the “Move To Front”.

Well, at least I now know what to avoid doing on my system (ie. chopping the overview lane)…

I also wonder if the bug is to do with track stack ordering getting confused. When it happens I might have the top track (I always edit the top track in a folder sync) with its edge hidden more than track 2 and all of the other tracks. I fix this by forcing the ‘move to front’ command. But it should not be happening

[OldFecker]

@mart

I also wonder if the bug is to do with track stack ordering getting confused.

Yes indeed.

On my system, if I bring an event “to front” and then cut it, cuts will also appear on all the events “behind” it on the same track. If it is not in front, then no other cuts appear.

eg. I bring the event in lane 3 to the front, make a cut in it, and cuts will also appear in lanes 1, 2, 4 and 5. But if I cut the event in lane 5 (which is not currently at the front) then the cut appears in that event only.

While this behaviour may not be a bug in itself, it might be an indicator of something screwy going on under the hood with the stacking order…

We just need to figure out how to repro it at will, I guess…

[OldFecker]

I wonder if it’s the result of a flakey “clean up lanes” ? I use this quite a bit to keep things under control.
Anyone else NOT use this function, but still have multisync issues?

[mart]

I dont use Clean up lanes very often at all.

I have multitrack sync issues pretty much all of the time at the moment.

My work practice is to be in folder sync and only work on the first track of the folder (leaving the other lanes not visible) . In theory the other tracks should just follow along my lane selections but the track I’m working on ends up breaking sync with the other tracks below it. I def think its got to do with track ordering. Still cant recreate it with steps though

[brycem]

Yes. Definitely experienced this.

Here’s what I’ve found:

1. Snap to zero must be OFF

2. ALL lanes in the folder must be expanded. You can’t have some expanded and some collapsed (unfortunately, wastes screen real estate). Group editing will fail.

[mart]

I always use group editing with only 1 track open. Having all lanes open is just crazy for screen real estate as you say. Considering I constantly have issues with it and I work this way then you may be on to something

I spent 20 minutes on Friday with a folder with 3 tracks in it trying to break the software. I couldnt. I bet it will break in practice today though. Next time I’m doing extensive drum editing I’m going to open all tracks and see if it holds.

[brycem]

Yes mart, I should qualify my statement no. 2 by saying that in my experience, group editing will likely fail if some lanes in the folder are not expanded

[brycem]

@brycem

2. ALL lanes in the folder must be expanded. You can’t have some expanded and some collapsed (unfortunately, wastes screen real estate). Group editing will fail.

Ok, turns out this only applies when using the comp tool.

There’s another issue at play here to do with whether events are selected. If you have lanes collapsed and events selected, then use the slice tool on the selected event, the slice will only be applied to all of the takes on the track you click upon. Only the selected events will be split on the other tracks - the unselected takes underneath will NOT be split. Group editing will then fail on those takes.

I posted it in the issues forum:

@brycem

Group editing loses sync if an audio event is selected and the split tool is used on it. Tested with Cubase 8.0.40 64 bit.

1. Create empty project
2. Add 3 audio tracks
3. Move the tracks to a folder and enable group editing
4. Set left and right locators 1 bar apart, enable cycle mode in the transport
5. Arm “record-enable” on the 3 tracks
6. Hit record button, record 4 passes, stopping 4th take before it gets to the right locator. The 4th take events will be selected and a darker colour than the 3rd take

7. Change to the “split” scissor tool. While take 4 is selected, make a left mouse click split on track 1 “audio 01”, make another split on track 2, and a 3rd split on track 3.

8. Show lanes on the 3 audio tracks. Takes 1-3 are now out of sync. A split is made across all takes only on the track which received the mouse click. Toggling group editing brings up the “group editing could fail” warning

Bryce Moorhead

@brycem

This is with “snap to zero” off.

Aside from the failure to transfer edits to all grouped events, there’s a secondary issue of what the correct behaviour of the split tool should be - ie: should only the top selected take be split, or should all the takes be split? To me, it’s better if only the top selected take is split.

[brycem]

Looks like the issue has been around for a while too. It’s mentioned here on May 2011 with cubase 6 https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=146&t=8601&p=60862&hilit=group+editing+sync#p60641

@Gabealicious

So it seems one common cause of sync loss when splitting takes is this: If you ‘select’ a region of a take (i.e., the track is ‘highlighted’) and split it while selected, sync will be lost (even though all of the correpsonding tracks in the group folder are also selected). If I unselect the tracks and then split, it does not lose sync.

I migrated to Cubase 8 from Cubase 4 about 9 months ago, still working out where the bugs are

Can anyone reproduce this in 8.5?

[brycem]

Woah. Steinberg deleted my post in the issues subforum

You are receiving this notification because your post “Group editing loses
sync if events selected” at "> www.steinberg.net> " was disapproved by a
moderator or administrator.

The following reason was given for the disapproval:

The reported message is off topic.

Is that because the behaviour is as designed? Or because I’m using 8.0.40?

[brycem]

I also posted this as an issue, but it got rejected as off topic too. Once again I’m assuming that this behaviour is by design.

Group editing loses sync when using comp tool and lanes not shown for some audio tracks.

Tested with Cubase 8.0.40 64 bit. Snap to zero off.

1. Create empty project
2. Add 3 audio tracks
3. Move the tracks to a folder and enable group editing
4. Set left and right locators 1 bar apart, enable cycle mode in the transport
5. Arm “record-enable” on the 3 tracks
6. Hit record button, record 2 passes
7. Show lanes for track 1

7. Change to the comp tool. Make a swipe on track 1, take 1

8. Show lanes on the other two audio tracks. Take 1 group editing is now out of sync, the comp tool does not work on tracks with hidden lanes. Toggling group editing brings up the “group editing could fail” warning

[mart]

Sorry to say I was hoping this was it… but when follow your steps SYNC doesnt break across the few minutes I’ve ben trying… Does this happen every single time you try it? I"m on 8.5.2 but SYNC breaks during my working day 80% of the time I’m using SYNC’d folders.

[brycem]

Hmmm yeah 100% repeatable here on my system. Did you try both methods, split tool on selected event and comp tool with some lanes hidden? Maybe they’ve fixed this on 8.5.2

Reading back through your posts in this thread, do you still do group editing with only one track open?

Thanks!

[brycem]

@mart

Here’s the bug in action. In this video I first show files are in sync. The I make a cut on on of the lanes. Then choose the arrow tool again. Then select around the parts. You notice it’s now out of sync, the cut part acting as if folder sync is off.
Then I undo, and parts are in sync again.every time I edited the top part at this stage things got out of sync

http://youtu.be/WBmx4UxdlWA

Hey Mart, I watched this video at 0.5 speed…it’s a bit confusing because of the low res and jerkiness, and it seems that the kick events on lane 1 have already lost group editing sync - at 6 seconds, when you select the event on lane 1 track 2, you can see that the kick event isn’t selected. But anyway, the rest of the tracks get selected. Then you make the split on the 2nd track, but then select the already out of sync kick event to demonstrate loss of sync…hard to draw any conclusions as the lanes for the other tracks aren’t showing.

[brycem]

@OldFecker

I now have a CPR file that demos this bug in action!

https://app.box.com/s/ik7b1tnid9p2jk8cz9un99ulp4pu6qrk


In the demo project there are two tracks, “Kick” and “Snare”, each with 5 lanes of takes, inside a folder track that has group editing enabled.

When you load it you will get warnings about missing files… just ignore these by closing the dialog box.

1. With the arrow tool, select the take in Kick lane 5.
2. On the menu, select “Edit > Move to > Front”
3. Select the scissors tool.
4. On the Kick track OVERVIEW LINE (not one of the lanes) make a cut with the scissors. Observe the cuts that have been made to the Kick and Snare takes.

What happens is that cuts appear on all 5 of the Kick takes, and on only one of the Snare takes.

Congratulations, your takes are now out of sync.

If you now disable and re-enable “group editing” on the drums folder track, you will be told “the tracks in this folder are no longer in sync”

Badda-bing.

Maybe someone can repro this on Cubase 8 and verify it’s still there?

The link to the cpr is dead, but I followed oldfecker’s repro, and I can confirm YES, SYNC IS LOST.

I don’t even need to do the “move to front” command. All I have to do is SELECT one event, then make a split on one of the track overviews. ALL events on the track which received the mouse click are split, but only the selected events on other tracks are split. BOOM, out of sync. Doesn’t matter if lanes are shown or hidden either.

Odd that some have reported no loss of sync.

I’ll see if I can make a video of it.

[brycem]

Ok here’s a simplified video I made of the scenario oldfecker was describing Cubase group edit sync loss using split tool - YouTube

Prob need to watch fullscreen, although I do enlarge the lanes part way through before I make the split

1. Create 3 audio tracks
2. Move them to a folder
3. Enable group editing
4. Arm tracks for recording
5. With cycle mode on, record two takes
6. Show lanes for all tracks
7. SELECT the events on lane 1
8. Use the split “scissor” tool, make a split on the TRACK OVERVIEW of track 1, not the event on the lane
9. Group editing is now out of sync for lane 2, the split was applied only to the track which received the mouse click AND the the events on other tracks which were selected. Unselected events on the other tracks are not split.

I undid this split and then redid it with no events selected - group edits work as expected.

I then undid this split, selected take 2, made a split on the track overview - lane 1 group editing is now out of sync.

[brycem]

Ok, I’m baffled by this - surely this behaviour can’t be as Steinberg intended?

I checked the manual, page 187

If the group editing mode is activated and you select an event, a part or a range on

a track inside the folder track, other events, parts or ranges that have the same start

and end time and the same playback priority, are also selected and temporarily

grouped.

So this works as intended.

The action which is causing the problem is when the split tool splits all unselected events on the track which it is used upon.

So to fix this, the tool behaviour needs to be changed so that when you split a selected event THE SPLIT SHOULD ONLY APPLY TO THE SELECTED EVENTS.

[mart]

+1… thats a spec flaw surely

[GargoyleStudio]

+1 please.

I think the folder sync feature needs a revisit because IMO the most logical way for it to work is that every track gets adjusted the same, end of story, whether clips are selected or not. I.e. it should be the tracks that are grouped not simply the events when selected.

Other ‘inconsistencies’ occur as well at the moment, for example, move the boundary of an unselected event in one track and the others don’t move, even though they’re folder synced - crazy behaviour given the name of the feature I think!

As a use case example, I’ll say that I’ve just been using folder sync to comp/edit dual mono tracks and I really had to keep my eye out for accidentally adjusting clips without selecting them first. And, particularly for the adjustments of boundaries and cross-fades, I’d never be selecting the clip first… Many times I’d get out of sync, undo and do the adjustment another way to get all tracks to follow.

So, really what they’ve given us here is that when you select an audio clip then the ‘folder sync’ feature automatically selects the other clips in the same position on other tracks so they get edited together… This is what I’d call a ‘lite’ implementation of what it could/should be. But now at least I understand why I was having the problems

Mike.

[mart]

Moderators… can we label this a bug or an issue for a redesign of spec somehow?