Sadly, I've now run out of popcorn.

Kamikaze

Beepster
 
The Gain label on MIDI tracks controlling velocity is indeed a little misleading and struck me as odd when first learning the program but aside from the label it is a perfectly functional and useful knob to have on a MIDI track. It takes the concept of Gain and gives it a MIDI equivelent as MIDI is merely data... not audio so velocity is the closest thing to controlling the input. It makes sense. There is NO GAIN IN MIDI!!! ONLY IN AUDIO!!! The audio tracks associated with a MIDI synth all have Gain knobs that control Gain because they are audio tracks.
 

Midi CC 7 is the continuous controller number in Midi for controlling MIDI Volume. There is a gain in midi!
 
Say you record a guitarist, and he loves the tone from playing with a certain strength,when you reduced the gain in the console, he would be not happy it you affected this tone just to deal with your gain staging.
 
So to record a Keyboard player and he is happy with his playing and dynamics, and you reduce the gain but being that it's not gain, it's velocity, the tone of the piano, rhodes, synth sound changes. He says 'it sounds quieter to me and a bit different', you reach for the console fader and play it a little higher in the mix, and he says 'it's louder now, but it sounds different?', but you are adamant all you have done is changed the gain, which of course you haven't.
 
This is a bit like changing the input to a guitar amp, than to a console, except we are dealing with a console.
 
As a previous poster said ion the thread, if this trims, what happens to the lowest velocities. A midi drummer would be asking 'where did my ghost notes go?'.
 
 
Simply re-naming the knob 'Velocity trim' would be accurate and save confusion. This has got to be the easiest bug fix to fix that exist hasn't it, just re-naming.
 
 

The easiest fix is to add "Velocity Trim" to the manual and cross-reference to "Gain on MIDI tracks"
 
When something appears super simple on the surface but still goes undone, there is usually an answer other than stubbornness behind the lack of change.  I can think of several approaches that could have been taken to code this (back in the 1900s) that would make this change take a bit to do.
 
There is so much left to do to get Sonar "Tight & Tidy" while delivering new features at the same time.
 
The response to this could have been worded more softly, but really, it's not that big of a deal when you step back 2-300' for a broader perspective.
 
As users that know what the knob does, the best we can do is to help other users understand the way it is.  By doing this, the folks at Ye Olde Pastry Shoppe can stay focused on bigger stuff until the time comes to address bundles of smaller stuff.
 
Really.  A bit of perspective it all it takes to get beyond this.
 
@alewgro - I apologize for my part in making light of your thread.  Sometimes I'm funnier to me than I am to those around me.
 
 

When I step back 2-300' I can't even see the offending knob!

I have to say that learning that this is a issue is a big eye opener for me.
 
I have been expieriencing strange beheaviour including this perceptual bug. I understand the OP completely. This issue will become actual again eventualy unless, I think the issue is adressed properly.
 
I now understand that when I need the gain functionality on my frozen instrument track I need to move it to an audio track.
 
As my projects have both vst instruments and audio I was expieriencing this as a bug. But had no idea how to replicate it. As I normally can not be bothered with testing or replicating bugs I always try to find a fast work around (inserting a plugin, wich is far from ideal and caused me to cuss at the bakers in myself).
 
Thanks to the OP I understand the dynamics of the 'bug'.
 
In the ideal situation a frozen instrument track should have the gain knob functioning as a gain knob (it does nothing with frozen tracks, offcourse thats logical when understanding it is a velocity knob for MIDI velocity. The gain knob should be renamed (I read this to be a lot of effort, just hypotheticaly to minimise reacurrency of this issue.) when in instrument mode (non frozen tracks). When the track is frozen the knob should be invisible (not very ideal) or change the functionality 'copied' from the audio gain knob. 
 
Nonetheless, Thanks everyone and double THNX to the OP. If he hadn't started this thread it would have taken a lot of frustration and wasted time for me to find out all by myself.

mettelus

Kamikaze
adjective: condescending

having or showing a feeling of patronizing superiority.

You may have inadvertently hit on the "best answer" to the "Anyone Else Notice a Shift in this Forum?" thread! So many threads break down into this as of late (if people have any restraint), but this thread came out of the chute on that foot with the thread title. Regardless, you can pretty much bank on this occurring at some point!

The thread was started with this title for good purpose.  It's not like it's something I just noticed and decided to come here and rant.  

I went through good effort to fully document, screenshot, and explain how this "Gain" knob is not controlling "Gain" and gave my reasons for why it SHOULD be a "Gain" knob,  I am a paying customer,  - only to have customer support to come back at me with a one-liner "working as expected".

Part of buying a product is the customer support.  I put the effort in and got no effort back to even justify their reason for not looking into my case!


I feel it was poorly handled and I decided to post what I post.  no regrets.   I'm not going to pretend i'm not a little ticked when I am.
 
 

Doktor Avalanche
You do still get I hope the bug is the way it is labelled? That's the issue you need to log again.

The other is an enhancement request as you are asking for a change in behaviour (it's already been documented the other way).

QA should have clearly written that when they withdrew the problem report I'm sorry they didn't. That may have avoided this entire thread.

Sure - I get it is labelled wrong, but honestly - it SHOULD be a Gain Knob.   It makes no sense to have a Vel+ setting there (especially when its GAIN in audio tracks in the same spot).    There are other ways to adjust the velocity trim anyway.   

Imagine if the next version, they replace the volume slider with a slider that controls MIDI Pitch Wheel, but documented that it is MIDI Pitch Wheel.  It would still make no sense, right?

Doktor Avalanche
And like I said earlier it would be great to have a audio/midi toggle within the instrument track(which would flip over the controls) that would clear up a lot of confusion.

There are Audio and MIDI tabs in the Inspector for an Instrument track that do exactly that. Audio gain is the only missing control. And, as mentioned earlier, MIDI Volume controls synth output volume, giving the same result - control over the input level to the track.

mettelus

Kamikaze
adjective: condescending

having or showing a feeling of patronizing superiority.

You may have inadvertently hit on the "best answer" to the "Anyone Else Notice a Shift in this Forum?" thread!

Agreed.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
I'll take a look at this for a future update. TBH this is the very first time I have even heard of this issue. I agree that when the Audio tab is showing on an instrument track, its counter intuitive that the gain knob to control the track gain rather than the velocity. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't coded that way on purpose so it might have been an oversight when the track inspector for instrument tracks was done.
I'll look into what it takes to get the control to switch what it automates based on the tab. Sometimes what looks trivial on the surface might not be that way, so I can't guarantee a change but I will check it out.

Thank you Noel.
 
Let me clear things up here - I love the product, obviously - there are plenty of other DAWs I can use out there.  Some say I am out on a mission to nit-pick every single bug.   First off, I think I have only about 3 posts ever with potential bug/problems in the software.   Secondly, I took the time to document, screen shot and write up a Problem Report - only to be told "this is working as expected".   No reason why, no explanation.   

And sure, if you wanted to, anything can be "working as expected".   You can build in MUTE buttons that actually do nothing.. even if they say MUTE - so what, we designed them to be buttons that do NOTHING lol... then say it's "working as expected".
 
Have a volume trim knob there really makes very little sense.  Also being told to not use a Simple Instrument Track also seems nonsense.  It's there for ease of use, so if I have 10 synth tracks, I don't have to see 20!!   They work great except for the "Gain" knob!

I do understand how software works.  I work for a software company - with software there will always be bugs, room for improvement, etc...    no problem, it's just when you are a paying customer, and you bring things up that clearly can be improved - and you get a one-liner back.    
 
I hope that Cakewalk can look into this though, it would be really helpful.   Sometimes my VST synths are too loud coming in and I'd like to turn them down right from the gain knob, instead of from inside the synth. 
 
Thank You,
Adam

rezab
thank you, Noel

Ditto many thanks.

Noel I had a similar issue, only this is a clear bug that's been reproduced by everybody and yet has been marked ... Contact tech support... It's clearly not an environmental issue and not hard to repro.
Did you get my PM a few days back?
 
Thanks.

Perhaps not. But if that's what it takes then it's not a forum I want to be part of.
Persistence doesn't mean rudeness and contentiousness.

Posting an issue on the forum is not the way to get Cakewalk to "notice". This is a peer to peer forum and Cakewalk employees do not actively monitor it so there is a high chance that it won't be noticed by the right people actually. In the case of this issue it was a question of whether it was a bug or intended behavior which is why I responded.
The proper way is to log a bug, correspond with tech support and add enough information to it so that it becomes obvious that there is an issue worth investigating. You can also post links to forum threads to the bug report to provide more detail to support the case if necessary.
 
Please note however that even with a confirmed bug report there is no guarantee that the issue will be addressed in the next update. We have a large pool of known problems and in each update we prioritize and work through this queue. For example the specific issue on this thread is quite minor in the big scheme of things. I did find a prior bug report discussing the exact same issue which was deferred for several versions because the severity was much lower than other more important issues that affect more users.

mudgel
Perhaps not. But if that's what it takes then it's not a forum I want to be part of.
Persistence doesn't mean rudeness and contentiousness.

So you wouldn't get a little heated if you took the time and effort to report a problem and then they come back and tell you "its working as expected"?  You don't care if the company you are paying money too put little to no effort into your trouble ticket?   Infact, being ignored by support can be considered "contentiousness", right?   I was simply posting how i felt after being brushed off.   

When I first logged the complaint I was kind and courteous, why wouldn't I be?  I wouldn't fly off the handle just because there is a bug!  It's software for christ sakes!    But to be ignored or sent a one-liner shows a lack of effort completely...    
 
Having said that - I understand the company can't look into every little report that comes in, im sure they get a lot of cases that make no sense entirely or have no purpose, but mine was not that, so I expected a little more.   That's all.