[Ardour-Users] automation bugs redux

[Kim Cascone]

I mixed a piece for a diffusion of electronic music I'm doing in Spain 
this spring

I had *major* problems with automation points flying off to beyond the 
end marker
and Ardour crashing - but miraculously it always saved my work when exiting

working in Ardour today was painful and frustrating
but way worse than I remember it being in the near past -
I know these issues have been brought up before but I'm wondering if 
other Ubuntu users out there are experiencing more bugs due to some 
recent update...?

here are some details:
I imported both wav and aif files into Ardour without a problem
all were 24bit/44kHz wavs - some were .aif but same resolution

these files consisted of around a dozen files (approx 3 minutes in 
length) contributed by various composers
then I arranged them in a session around 20 minutes in length

because I like to do glass mixes when mixing electro-acoustic diffusions
I end up creating/placing automation points in the 'Fader' window and
moving and deleting them as the session is playing back

there are a few patterns which I noticed caused problems:

#1
- move a region on a track that has automation points
- because the automation points (envelop) don't move with it
- I move the entire group of points with ctrl-left click + drag
- I go to add a new point then
- all the points to the right of the new point fly off to the end of the 
session, past the end marker

#2
- on certain regions (unable to determine what causes this (i.e. was the 
region an imported .aif vs a .wav? was the region SR converted when 
imported? etc.)
- I can crash Ardour by placing a point at the very beginning of a 
region @ -inf dB, adding another to the immediate right of it @ 0 dB 
then moving the 0dB point leftwards up against the -inf dB point for an 
instantaneous 'fade in' - this will make Ardour crash fairly consistently

#3
- track containing audio
- automation is in play mode
- change an automation point -or- add an automation point during playback
- move the playhead back to beginning of region to hear the new 
envelope/fade
- fader stays at -inf dB until I move a single or two automation points 
at once
- then the track will pick up the automation info and play the points 
correctly

#4
- none of the files were 'drones' ;)


-- 
*my Linux audio perf config:*
Dell Studio 1537 Core2 Duo @2.0GHz | 3G-RAM
Ubuntu 10.10
kernel 2.6.37-3.dmz.1-liquorix-686 #1 ZEN SMP PREEMPT
jackd version jackdmp 1.9.6
Ardour 2.8.11
Pd version 0.42.5-extended
USB iMic audio interface
Korg nanoKontrol
M-Audio kbd Axiom25
cpufreq-set - both cpu's are set to 2.0GHz and performance