W Mixer / F-Key chase oddity

[Brent Evans]

Last night I noticed that the W mixer does not chase properly when switching back and forth between an F-key that has F and W mixers, then one that has F and Z.

Process:

1. Set up F1 to view only F and w mixers, F2 to view only F and Z mixers, saving vertical offset and start channel.
2. View F1, and select a channel in the F mixer, the W mixer will chase.
3. View F2, select a different channel in the F mixer, the Z mixer will chase.
4. View F1 again, the W mixer remains on the channel selected previously in F1, it does not chase to the channel selected in F2, but the F mixer shows the hot channel selected in F2.


I have duplicated this behavior on two computers in 2.2. Is this intentional, or a bug?

[hclague]

Where you chose to save the "Vertical Offset" and "Start Channel" you must also choose "Hot Channel"

Hal

[Bob L]

You must realize that the Wide Mixer has only one chan to display... the save Start Chan option does just that... it saves the START chan... not the HOT CHAN... so... the FKey is working properly in that you told it to save the original start chan that the Wide Mixer was displaying when saved.... and therefore forces that view back to that chan when recalled.

The F Mixer also saves the start chan... the first chan displayed... but it shows many other chans and can therefore also display the hot chan as long as it is within display range of how many extra chans are showing.... but note that it still forces the F View back to the first displayed chan that was originally saved in the F-Key.

Bob L

[gdougherty]

So I'm not the only one. This threw me as a "bug" the first time I found it. Brent, it just means the "start channel" saving is fairly useless in most cases because of it's current behavior. It works in an all F mixer view where you want to force the display to a certain set, but it's really unhelpful for any view that has W mixers or narrow sets of Z mixers. Since the hot channel is the current selection in the F mixer, SAC won't rechase the hot channel in the other mixers until you select another channel then come back to your initial hot channel with either arrow keys or the mouse.

Until Bob changes the behavior to allow for selective saving of the start channel on the various mixers, I just make sure not to store start channels in most F-Key views. The nice thing is the E mixer popup helps allow for quick edits in a view that's only the F mixer. I'm trying to get over my need to see a W or Z full channel reference at all times, but for some reason I still like that security blanket.

[Bob L]

Not sure why you always seem to be such an unhappy camper... but...

There is nothing to fix as far as the start chan is concerned in my opinion... use it or don't... simple....

I find it very useful the way it is to instantly jump to a specific chan on a specific mixer in the Wide view, regardless of the current hot chan you are on, to make instant changes on the Star Vocal, for instance.... guess you never have a need to do that.

Bob L

[Brent Evans]

Makes sense. It's easy enough to get around (2 clicks). Just didn't know if it was by design or not, I've typically viewed the W mixer as something that would always chase. Maybe that would be a cool option to have, a W-chase mixer. :)

Thanks for clarifying, Bob!

[gdougherty]

Not sure why you always seem to be such an unhappy camper... but...

There is nothing to fix as far as the start chan is concerned in my opinion... use it or don't... simple....

I find it very useful the way it is to instantly jump to a specific chan on a specific mixer in the Wide view, regardless of the current hot chan you are on, to make instant changes on the Star Vocal, for instance.... guess you never have a need to do that.

Bob L

Hey, I love SAC and I evangelize for it on a regular basis. That said, I recognize it's a product still under development and what's under discussion is a concept I like but feel was incompletely implemented. I guess I do feel mildly vindicated that I'm not the only one who reported a "bug" with your expected behavior. That to me says that while it may make sense to you as the developer, your users are looking for something a little different.
I'm simply suggesting, like I did when I first brought it up, that an expanded option to save or not save start channels independently on the 3 mixer views would make this much more useful and accomodate both your way of working and the behavior that both Brent and I intuitively expected.

I pointed out that it's not completely useless as-is, and your example is a case for why you'd possibly want the W mixer to jump to a certain start channel. In your case though, I'd possibly want the W mixer to move to a specific channel and not disturb the other mixer views that may be onscreen, so the independent selection option still makes good sense to me. You're so often receptive to other good ideas and I'm not sure why you're so resistant on this one.

Further question for you on your W mixer "star channel" scenario. I'd almost expect SAC to move the hot channel to the channel under adjustment anyway. Does that not seem inconsistent with how the hot channel jumps to a channel in all other interactions with the SAC UI?

[Bob L]

Not at all... Start chan position and Hot Chan position remaining separate and different adds much more power to the configuration...

The F-Key jump to a start chan on the F Mixer for instance with a separate Hot chan can be a very useful concept... for instance... jump to the F-Mixer stating on chan 20, which may be a group of 8 vocals... but jumping the Hot chan to 24, which may be the lead vocal of the group....

can not be done if the F-Key auto forced the Hot Chan to wherever the Start chan is... that is why there are separate choices when you create the F-Key.

Bob L

[hclague]

The F-Key jump to a start chan on the F Mixer for instance with a separate Hot chan can be a very useful concept... for instance... jump to the F-Mixer stating on chan 20, which may be a group of 8 vocals... but jumping the Hot chan to 24, which may be the lead vocal of the group....


Bob L

This is how I do it with F keys. Also this lines up the 8 "Vocal" faders of a BCF2000 with the 8 vocal channels etc... when using only 1 BCF2000

Hal

[gdougherty]

Not at all... Start chan position and Hot Chan position remaining separate and different adds much more power to the configuration...

The F-Key jump to a start chan on the F Mixer for instance with a separate Hot chan can be a very useful concept... for instance... jump to the F-Mixer stating on chan 20, which may be a group of 8 vocals... but jumping the Hot chan to 24, which may be the lead vocal of the group....

can not be done if the F-Key auto forced the Hot Chan to wherever the Start chan is... that is why there are separate choices when you create the F-Key.

Bob L

Okay, I think I get what you're saying but I think you misunderstood me as well. Since the view doesn't move the hot channel to whatever is in the W mixer, you can jump to edit a star channel with the start channel in the F-key, SAC doesn't change the hot channel while you edit the star channel in the W mixer, then you can jump back to another view and return focus on whatever is still the hot channel.
I'm not arguing that the start channel and hot channel be forced together. I'm asking for granular control of the start channel in an F-key view so we're both accomodated.
From your example. F Mixer with channel 20-32 onscreen and a W mixer next to it chasing the hot channel. Channels 20-28 are my vocal set and Channel 24 is my "star channel". There are two scenarios where the current behavior works okay. Your scenario above and the same view with both the hot channel and start channel stored in the F-key. Either way I see my 8 vocal channels and the Star Channel is auto selected. The W mixer jumps to channel 24 and I can edit my star channel.

That's all well and good, but now I decide I'd like to use this same layout as a "refocus starting on the vocal channels view" and leave the hot channel to whatever vocal channel I may have already selected. When I save the F-Key view I have the hot channel on 24 and my start channel on 20, but I save only the start channel so I get the same view of 20-32 on the F mixer. At least that's my intent. Now I switch over to a view of only F mixer and I'm mixing the whole band from the F mixer, making level adjustments as needed. I notice I'd like to tweak the backing vocal on channel 22 that I just nudged up a little and give it a little bump in clarity so it sits better in the backing vocal mix. I hit my "refocus and keep the current hot channel" F-key and I get the refocus, the hot channel stayed with vocal on 22, but the W mixer jumped back to channel 24 because that's the "start channel" it saved for the W mixer in the F-key view. I click on channel 22, but oops, it's already the hot channel and SAC won't reselect it as the hot channel because it's efficient and nicely coded in that regard, knowing not to waste CPU with unnecessary things.

So to actually use the W mixer to edit the hot channel I'm currently on, I arrow or mouse click over to another channel and the W mixer starts chasing again like I'd expected it to in the first place. Now I can move the hot channel back to 22 for editing on the W mixer.
So, yes, I can arrow over and back to edit the channel I was already on, but it's not what I was expecting. Especially since, as Brent pointed out, unless we lock the W mixer, all the other behavior in SAC has trained us to expect that the W mixer is a channel view that chases the hot channel. It would be nice if the F-key save dialog allowed us to choose which of the 3 mixer views we want to save the start channel. In my scenario above I could select the F mixer start channel option, leave the W mixer start channel unselected and get exactly the behavior I hoped for. Channel 22 is my hot channel, I hit my refocus F-key, the F mixer refocuses as I want and the W mixer jumps to channel 22, sticking with the hot channel, so I can edit that vocal channel.

Does that clarify what Brent and I would be looking for? I agree that having the W mixer always stick with the hot channel would eliminate the ability to perform the scenario you outlined and I don't want that. It would be nice if SAC did both and so more options when saving an F-key seems like the best choice.

[quaizywabbit]

so you want NOT to have to change hot channels to get the w mixer view to chase?

re-selecting the current hot channel does nothng, so you want it to snap the w mixer to the hot channel right?

maybe allowing the spacebar to unlock the w mixer (providing the w mixer has focus) would be faster..

[Bob L]

If you want to focus on the Wide Mixer for a certain adjustment... then save an F-Key focused on the Wide Mixer and make it chase what you want... do not complicate the issue with the F-Mixer in the same view... or at least not one that is pulling for your attention... so focus a separate F-Key on a specific view... then you can have it do what you want...

Realize the Wide Mixer is a unique beast all its own... it is different from the F-Mixer and Z-Mixer... and that's why it exists...

The Wide Mixer can never behave like the F-Mixer... it cannot display a different start chan and a different hot chan at the same time.

Create Wide Mixer F-Keys and then create F-Mixer F-Keys and then Z-Mixer F-Keys...

Each F-Key gets a certain window that becomes the active window also... next you'll be asking me to make sure every window in the F-Key becomes the active window. :)

Bob L

[gdougherty]

If you want to focus on the Wide Mixer for a certain adjustment... then save an F-Key focused on the Wide Mixer and make it chase what you want... do not complicate the issue with the F-Mixer in the same view... or at least not one that is pulling for your attention... so focus a separate F-Key on a specific view... then you can have it do what you want...

Realize the Wide Mixer is a unique beast all its own... it is different from the F-Mixer and Z-Mixer... and that's why it exists...

The Wide Mixer can never behave like the F-Mixer... it cannot display a different start chan and a different hot chan at the same time.

Create Wide Mixer F-Keys and then create F-Mixer F-Keys and then Z-Mixer F-Keys...

While that sounds somewhat reasonable, I'm not working on a netbook monitor. The rackmount rig is a 23" 1920x1080 resolution monitor. The install at church is two of those side by side. I like my F-key views to show me as much as possible. My standard view gets a nice scene window, all three fx related windows, a screen width f mixer and a single channel of Z mixer for quick edits and jumping to sections without having to touch the mouse. My channel edit view has a shortened F mixer, all the fx and scene windows again and a W mixer stacked on top. I round it out with occasional use of a bank of full screen Z mixers. Sure, swapping F-keys is quick but I like to have as much info as possible at my fingertips in case I have an emergency moment. With a large screen it seems like a waste of real estate to have an F-key view that displays just the W mixer.

I really don't see the deal here. I'm asking for a simple expansion of an existing function. Just three little options replacing the single current option in the F-key save dialog to allow selection of Z-mixer start channel, F-mixer start channel and W-mixer start channel. I think I've pretty clearly explained a logical scenario in which this would provide helpful functionality and flexibility for the users. The scenario I described is exactly what I was originally trying to achieve and also what Brent was noticing. Instead of a "That sounds like it'd be useful in your scenario, I'll look into it." I get responses as if I'm asking you to flip the screen upside down and display all the text right to left.



Each F-Key gets a certain window that becomes the active window also... next you'll be asking me to make sure every window in the F-Key becomes the active window. :)
Bob L
Not hardly, that behavior makes sense and is fully intuitive. It's standard that one item has focus. The other, as evidenced by at least two users running into the same issue and reporting it as a bug, is not quite intuitive with the rest of SAC's behavior.

[gdougherty]

so you want NOT to have to change hot channels to get the w mixer view to chase?

re-selecting the current hot channel does nothng, so you want it to snap the w mixer to the hot channel right?

maybe allowing the spacebar to unlock the w mixer (providing the w mixer has focus) would be faster..

Yes and yes, though because the behavior is annoying enough, I just don't use the start channel saving functionality.

It'd be fastest and most flexible for all involved if I could save the desired behavior into the F-key view in the first place. What I want is the option to make each mixer window save and worry about the start channel independently of the others. If you want a view where the F mixer and Z mixer both save the start channels, you can do that. If you want a view where the F mixer shows a preset view but the W mixer continues to chase the hot channel, you can do that. If you want a view like Bob described where the F and W mixers both jump to preset start channels, you can do that. If you want a view where the F mixer shows a preset view but a bank of Z mixers chases and always shows the hot channel and a few others, you can do that too. If you had all three on screen you could make the F and Z mixers jump to start channels and let the W mixer chase the hot channel. Right now it's all or nothing. In some cases that works just fine. In other cases, arrangements I and others would like to make are impossible with the current config so we just skip it and scroll through channels to get back to the view we'd really like to see.