Change to Rack Input Gain (Potentially Breaking)

This post describes a small bug fix in Cantabile build 4344 that might have a potential impact on existing setups.

Rack Input Gain Setting and Environment Level Audio Ports

Racks in Cantabile have an input gain setting that controls the input gain of all incoming audio:

Well at least is supposed to...

In builds 4343 and earlier this setting worked for rack ports, but not environment level ports. This means that if a rack uses an environment port (eg: Main Microphone) its audio signal isn't affected by this input gain setting.

By "environment ports" I mean those global audio ports defined in Option -> Audio Ports. These are distinct from the audio ports defined by the rack itself (in Rack -> Properties).

Build 4344 fixes this however, this can negatively impact existing setups.

The only racks that will be affected are those that:

• use environment level input audio ports
• have their input gain not set to 0dB

This doesn't affect song files - just racks. This doesn't affect rack defined audio input ports - just the ports defined in Options -> Audio Ports.

The Solution

For affected racks, the solution is to simply adjust gain setting of the routes from those ports.

eg: Suppose you have a rack with a route from the Main Microphone port and the rack's input gain is set to -3dB.

• In build 4343 and earlier that -3dB won't be applied to that route
• In build 4344 and leater -3dB will now be applied and the route will pass a quieter signal.

The solution: adjust the affected route's gain to +3dB to compensate.

Why Not Just Leave It?

I did consider just leaving this however it's inconsistent with the output gain setting which correctly affects output levels to both environment and rack level ports.

Also I'm pretty sure this used to work in much older builds and at the time it broke, I didn't get any reports about it - so I suspect the impact is small.