inMarker bug in Waveform and TE?

Hey there

I found a situation where inMarkers weren’t being respected in TracktionEngine the way I would have expected. I took a look in Waveform and found the same unexpected behaviour.

To help explain, here’s a screen recording (around 30sec is where the issue presents):

Specifically:
While outMarker is correctly respected across a looping clip, inMarker seems to only be respected on the first instance, not the subsequent 3 loops. This is evidenced audibly and by the visual waveform.

In truth, I’m much more likely to believe this is an error on my part rather than a bug. That said, the steps in the video seem reasonable to me, and the result is undesirable.

Any help getting around this, or simply improving my understanding, would be much appreciated!

Cheers, J

Interestingly this issue doesn’t present when using linked-clips instead of one big looping clip.

Is that clip using a proxy file or not? (The bottom left button of the fist tab of the properties panel).

That does seem like a bug but I think you’re supposed to be exposed to the loop start/length properties when a clip is looping which will do the same thing. The editor is much nicer in Waveform for that too as you can zoom it etc.

Hi @dave96
I couldn’t locate the button you mentioned, but i was already looking at the .tracktionedit file and can confirm that proxyAllowed=1.

I was just playing around with setting it to 0, saving and reopening - and when i did that, nothing was playing the section I expected, nor was what i was hearing corresponding with the UI representation of the waveform.

I just noticed that the behaviour is very different if I set autoTempo=0, so I’m wondering if that’s a factor too.

What version of Waveform are you using?

Waveform 12 Free on a Mac Air M1

Yeah, I can’t really afford the time to dig in to that atm as the preferred way of setting loop ranges is with the loop start/length properties as you can see in the screen shot below. I think you must be on an older version of Waveform or this change will be in the upcoming Waveform 12.5 (in a few weeks probably).

Ah, understood. That’s a shame though as in TE using clip->getLoopInfo().setInMarker(0) and .setOutMarker() provide a convenient sample accurate way to isolate the area of interest, irrespective of tempo/auto-tempo changing what loopStart and loopLength (in seconds) are.

Thanks for the screen grab - I’m a little confused by it as it seems like you’re doing the same as me, just with a UI difference (top ribbon instead of vertical in/out lines).

Its a newer version with a combined editor for warp time, setting loop markers and offset/length when not looping. You can also undock it and make it bigger

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Yeah, it’s just that no one actually used that as it defines the start/end of the “file”. So if the number of beats is stored as 16, it’s interpreted as 16 between those markers. Which means that if you move them, the file would adjust differently to the tempo. Using the loop start/length doesn’t have that problem.

Ha yes, amusingly this behaviour you mention is precisely the feature I want for my project! :slight_smile:
So close: outMarker works, but not inMarker.

Well you could dig in to why it’s not working if you fancy fixing it yourself and opening a PR :wink:

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haha careful what you wish for :smiley: I’m not sure the community is ready for the havoc that might be unleashed.

But yeah you’re right - I shall to try and wrap my head around it soon.

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