Sustained cues pulse e^-3 over their dur instead of holding a plateau, and the weighted average now only picks the color while min(1, sum of activity) sets the level — normalizing alone cancelled the envelopes (one dying pad rendered full-bright), which is why blackouts never landed. Rests and decays reach black; drops saturate; kicks still punch white on top. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Xju7GpzP6o2JwxtqfKqFiG