The thing is, not only can you not touch the cursor, you also cannot have cycle enabled because as soon as it cycles back to the beginning, your previous automation will be ‘chased’. So in other words, you have ONE CHANCE, to listen/evaluate and write your required automation. What good is that? I’m still not seeing any value at all in the current Virgin Territories setup.
Anything change lately with virgin territories, or is it still as J-S-Q and Hugh describe?
I’ve got 8.5.20 downloaded, now considering activating it. VT is a big part of that decision …
Thanks -
You’re all looking at this wrong in the wrong project context I think… You’re trying to imagine how to use Virgin Territories in your own audio job when you might not have an audio job that requires Virgin Territories or your own work style doesn’t require it.
Virgin territories is not meant to be used by %99 of the people who have Cubase. It is a feature meant for Nuendo that worked its way into Cubase… I’m assuming. That’s why Nuendo is more expensive, it has more niche features but they are niche features that are very important to some people.
Virgin territories should not be used, if you are all over project… jumping from section to section, working on individual chunks, etc, etc. It’s meant if you have a work need where you are either always working from the beginning of the track, to the end (like you would with a tape machine), or in a live broadcast situation.
Think about two things.
1.) Printing your mix/mixing through a console or external fx.
If you are mixing on a console and printing back into the DAW a stereo track, you are mixing from start to finish. You might doing multiple mix downs like this and then choosing the best one. Ie, doing a live performance mix of a track. Throughout parts of the track, you might have very specific values you want to draw in on the automation OR, for example, you have a very specific intro curve and outro curve you want the DAW to handle, but you want your fader to be free/non-automated during the rest of the track while you and your assistants performance mix the track until you get “the one”.
2.) Broadcast cues where visuals and sound are sync’d. This is a guess, as I don’t work in post.
So for television cues, like a news station… you might have a visual graphic intro in which you want the sound to be perfectly sync’d to, but when the segment cuts to a camera man swinging his camera on a dolly onto the talent/interview/etc - there could be some variance here in terms of timing - when the camera gets to its position or when people start talkng… the control room might want manual control without there being an automation read causing the fader to bounce back up to a level.
You’re not hearing from these people on this forum, because of none of these people have the time to be on internet forums. 
For some of you, an instance you might find yourself using it… an example… you might be working on a very ambient track in which you are sending something to an external delay like a PCM41 which you are printing live back into the DAW. You might have a start value automated, but you want control of the output to the PCM41 through the track to experiment with and print multiple takes. Infact, it doesn’t even need to be an external fx. You can record the output of your tracks internally in Cubase now, so it might just be a VST delay you want control of throughout the track.
"For parameter automation, Cubase works either with an initial value or with virgin territory.
When no automation data exists for a particular parameter, the starting point of an automation pass is saved as the initial value. When you punch out of the automation pass, it is this initial value to which the parameter will return. This has one important consequence: As soon as the initial value is set, the corresponding parameter is fully automated for the complete track, at any given timecode position of the project – even if your automation pass lasted only 2 seconds. When you release a control, it returns to the value that is defined by the automation curve – even when in Stop mode.
When you enable Use Virgin Territory, no automation curve is displayed on the automation track, and you find automation data only where you actually perform an automation pass. After an automation pass you will find virgin territory only to the right of the last automation event."
just to have confirmation… it seems there is people here who understood how virgin territories works… I made the update to cubase 9.5, now virgin territories doesn’t work right anymore… here is a video I made from the problem where you can see automation is not correctly read… cubase doesn’t read the last value when moving… so automation is not read correctly now… you can’t have the right values when moving accros project…
cubase pro 9.5 automation problem - YouTube which makes automation a real nightmare now using virgin territories (and saddly it is the only mode I’m confortable with)…
can anyone confirm this ?
and to respond to ancien post (I didn’t read all), Virgin territories was never meant to have the same functionnality as a “disable read automation” … it’s just a way to write automation so that when you write it, it doesn’t return when you release the fader to the “line” of automation because there isn’t one… automation will change at the next automation value… and it was so usefull and so convenient. And the way to write an “initial value” at the begining of the project as soon as you start automation was brillant. It was a very usefull feature… and now it is broken…
Yes, alexis.
It is now working as I believe it should.
“Virgin Territories” are now truly “Virgin”.
You can now write automation to one part of your project and then play around anywhere else - with Read still on - and nothing will change, nothing will chase.
When you reach or locate to the section you automated everything will be read correctly.
Hugh
Edit: Just noticed you said 8.5.2. This change is in 9.5 only, as far as I know.
It’s been so long since I’ve touched the function though (due to its “brokeness”, IMHO) can’t say for sure when it changed.
hum… so, explain me how you use it, now that it is good to you… ???
lets make a scenario… you jump in a virgin territory, lets say an other song in the same project and are happy to have you faders not moving…, you start writing automation… and as soon as you release the fader, it stops writing automation… so you have a virgin territory in the middle of your song… a litlle latter in the song you make a change, so write new automation… and now… you want to hear if the change you made is good, so you go a little before your new writing… and … tadam !! cubase doesn’t read the value before, so it doen’t read the automation at all.
So the only way using virgin territories in your vision of the things is… to draw lines between all your events… and so to have no virgin territory in your song at all… waw… very convenient way of using virgin territories… not to have them …
my point is when you say “when you reach or locate the section you automated everything will be read correctly”… yes, but you start from something no ? before the moment you automated you had nothing ?? you start in a virgin territory, you are happy because there is nothing… you move the fader and it will stay were you put it… so if you don’t write automation of that “correct” position, cubase won’t remmember it… so what the point to move your fader and make a choice you have to write it anyway… and as I said, in this mode, cubase won’t fill the gaps, so you have to write all the way to the end automation, or fill the gaps yourself by hand…
A feature that would be great, is when disabling read function, to have the ability to write down the current status of all tracks that have automation as a new “begining” snapshot… (maybe there is this in nuendo I don’t know.) but this is an other subject. For now virgin territories mode is totaly useless… I persist… use it and you’ll see… or explain to me how it is so good now ?? It seems I talk with people who never understood its operating mode so that they never used it… and now they are happy to have a useless feature… waw… what a world…