X3E - Groove Clip looping length change causes clip incorrect size CWBRN-23503 not fixed

You know, I want to like X3, but stuff keeps happening that really irritates me after I try to find features I like.
(UPDATES IN RED)
I have a guitar clip for use as a scratch take for a group to take home and work with. It is 96 beats long. I have the clip, decide to groove clip it. Groove clipping breaks down the clip to 64 beats. No problem. All the crap I went through trying to sync groove clipping reminded me that I could just change the beats on the clip. I change the beats to 96 and the whole clip gets deleted!!??!!.

Now, I did not find anything on search, but maybe something is there.
 
1. Create clip 100 beats long
2. Trim clip on both ends so that clip is 96 beats
3. Bounce to clip to remove the ends
4. CTRL-L - Groove clip enable the clip :Notice the clip goes to 64
5. Double click clip properties and change beats to '96' only and hit enter. (Do not change to 96:000)
 (turns out 'Beats' was 'clip length')UPDATE
At this point the clip is deleted no sound whatsoever. (clip should not have been deleted)UPDATE
 
For step 5, if I change the clip size to 96:000 and hit enter, the clip length changes to 27:704. Entering 96 gets the clip deleted again. (This behavior is weird regardless of what I was trying to do)
 
I am trying to do this with 3 other people in the room with me and they are asking what happened. Not cool to have SONAR behave this way. I was highly embarrassed. This is one of the MAJOR functions of SONAR and it does not work on my machine.
 
Right now, I see no way to groove enable this clip.
 
Thoughts and suggestions to remedy this? (a shot of something strong)
 
Updated title to refer issue in X3E although reported in X3c.

I'm not seeing a problem. I did a quick check of two different clips -  random length recordings in 4/4 time, ending at 26-27 measures edited down to 24 measures = 96 beats. Both defaulted to 128 beats when groove clipped, but after correcting them to 96 beats, all was well.
 
BTW, it shouldn't be necessary to bounce before groove-clipping; groove clipping will warn you it's discarding the hidden parts. But I did it both ways for good measure - no difference.
 
 

Guitarmech111
I think I have found the issue. I am not in the groove clip section of the clip view. I was changing the 'length' in the Properties view which is how I used to use this in 8.5. If the length values are not supposed to affect the beats and such, what use is the length feature at all during groove clipping?

 
I meant to ask you about that when you mentioned entering 96:000. As you noted, Length is in the general clip properties section, not the groove clip section. Changing it basically slip edits the end of the clip which will change the number of beats in the clip proportionally, but what you needed to do was change the number of beats by stretching, which is what the Beats in Clip value does.
 
All that said, it appears you've stumbled on an unrelated bug with the Length property. I also found that changing the length was giving bizarre results in clips over about 64 beats. A little investigation showed that values over 68:256 were being modded to that value. So entering 68:257 gives a length of 1 tick, 69:258 gives 1:002, etc.  And, surprise, surprise, 68*960+256 = 65536 = 2^16 ticks. Looks like they didn't declare a large enough data type to hold the total number of ticks when entering a value directly.

I know this sounded familiar, so I was able to track down this thread from back in 2008 (starting at post # 9):
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Lack-of-understanding-heregroove-clips-m1296832.aspx
 
This seems to be the same core isssue/limitation, though I don't recall the specifics. 

Yeah, I'm not sure either, Dave.   It just seemed similar. 

Guitarmech111

Billy was a good bit of info. He is missed.

That's a big ole +1.
 

yup, sorry, the thread got percolated down the forum and I didn't get back to it.
 
 CWBRN-23503

It has been updated to - Reported to DEV

Conley, just to clarify, your clip is not actually being deleted. It's getting cropped so small you can't see it.

Conley it appears your issue could be fixed. What do you say? Cheers

Thanks Conley.
 
Was hoping the issue might have got fixed along with the other looping bugfixes.
 
Would you mind going to Cakewalk Problem reporter and verifying the status of CWBRN-23503? One would assume the issue is still open but just to check....
http://www.cakewalk.com/support/contact/problemreport.aspx
 
Many Thanks..

Thanks Conley,  I guess next time lucky...

I had that set. If the patch changed it, then the parm is not set. I will check it out.
 
That is a good point. The audio I am working with is a straight line with no instruments or voice though.

That would definitely take care of the issue if there was a non-zero point around the 1/2 note snap point.  

This thread makes my head explode because I just don't get exactly what you're trying to accomplish...creating grooves with silence (although no audio input doesn't mean there's silence; there's still preamp noise etc.), and making really long grooves to roll them out. If you have something like a 96 measure clip, at usual tempos that's over a minute...seems if you just copy a couple more instances you'll have several minutes of audio?
 
Groove clips are designed to create, well, groove clips. These tend to be relatively short, repetitive patterns. I use this feature all the time and never encounter any issues, as long as snap to zero audio crossing is off. The worst thing that happens is if Sonar guesses my intentions incorrectly, and doubles the number of beats. But that's easy to fix by entering the number of beats.
 
If you're trying to accomplish a particular function by using a function in a way it wasn't really intended to be used, it's generally best to find a different way to accomplish that function using a workflow that's more congruent with the intention of the function.
 
But maybe I'm missing something...like I said, this thread makes my head explode!