No good ways to automate volume

[ColbyKeyz]

Im always tweaking faders until the last stages of the song so I cant loose access to them.

People say use a gain plugin but that so annoying to have to constantly be inserting it on 50+ tracks and the fidelity on it is very hard to use(subtle moves make big changes in volume) 

Also people say use relative automation but it doesnt work I still use access to the fader as you can see in the video(dropbox link)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/03frwdgwzrni0ve4kgza5/IMG_1491.mov?rlkey=6nhsv078j94mha8i6yxh2npo6&dl=0

[polanoid]

Once you have automated the Volume Fader (with absolute and/or relative automation), you lose control over it. That’s just how automation works, it overrides the manual setting.

What are you trying to achieve anyway? Trim the whole volume automation curve up or down by a certain dB amount? Use the automation value field for that (if you hover the mouse pointer over it, it will display the word “Trim” - you can then drag its value up or down, thereby trimming the whole curve).

If you only want to trim a certain part of the automation curve, by a variable value, write Volume Trim automation in Touch or Latch mode.

If you want to trim a part of the automation curve by a fixed value, select that part, grab one of the selected nodes and drag it up or down.

Also, to make a screenshot video, don’t use your phone, use Cmd-Shift-5. That will make the result much more readable 😉

Edited January 4 by polanoid

[David Nahmani]

For screen captures, you can also use LiceCap or Kap, two great screen capture utilities. 

[ColbyKeyz]

20 hours ago, polanoid said:

Once you have automated the Volume Fader (with absolute and/or relative automation), you lose control over it. That’s just how automation works, it overrides the manual setting.

What are you trying to achieve anyway? Trim the whole volume automation curve up or down by a certain dB amount? Use the automation value field for that (if you hover the mouse pointer over it, it will display the word “Trim” - you can then drag its value up or down, thereby trimming the whole curve).

If you only want to trim a certain part of the automation curve, by a variable value, write Volume Trim automation in Touch or Latch mode.

If you want to trim a part of the automation curve by a fixed value, select that part, grab one of the selected nodes and drag it up or down.

Also, to make a screenshot video, don’t use your phone, use Cmd-Shift-5. That will make the result much more readable 😉

I thought relative automation was supposed to make changes to volume relative to whatever the fader is set to. So if I draw in -2db automation and my fader is set to -6db, ill get -8db . then if I change my fader to - 8db ill get -10db.

[Tiago Rocha]

On 1/3/2024 at 8:28 PM, ColbyKeyz said:

People say use a gain plugin but that so annoying to have to constantly be inserting it on 50+ tracks and the fidelity on it is very hard to use(subtle moves make big changes in volume)

If you want a more "dynamic" volume/gain plugin (I agree that the Gain plugin sometimes is super hard to work with, because the automation is not like the Volume automation), try the Pedalboard with the Wah pedal set to volume.

Then automate the Pedal Position. Sure, you won't see the value in "dBs", but if focus more on what it sounds like rather than what number it's at (which should be the goal, now that we are bombarded with visual cues), then it maybe works for you.

[oscwilde]

On 1/4/2024 at 6:28 AM, ColbyKeyz said:

gain plugin fidelity

Hold Shift and drag values in finer increments.

[Tiago Rocha]

2 minutes ago, oscwilde said:

Hold Shift and drag values in finer increments.

My issue with the Gain plugin, is not the plugin itself, because the knob's range is good enough. My issue has always been on how it's represented in the automation lane compared to the Volume automation, for example. I wish Apple would change this.

Gain vs Volume automation

And when you want to automate a 1dB difference, it's a nightmare, even if you go all the way up with the vertical zoom

Vertical zoom 100%

Versus

[Tiago Rocha]

And here's the weird part:

Technically the Volume automation has a larger range, which is -infinity, versus the Gain which is -96dB. But both go all the way down to -96dB or so (Volume seems to go to -105dB before changing to -infinity) so it's weird that the Gain plugin has this narrow "scale" at the top. It should mimic the volume automation

[polanoid]

On 1/5/2024 at 8:47 AM, ColbyKeyz said:

I thought relative automation was supposed to make changes to volume relative to whatever the fader is set to.

No that’s not what it’s meant for

[polanoid]

On 1/6/2024 at 12:06 AM, Tiago Rocha said:

And when you want to automate a 1dB difference, it's a nightmare, even if you go all the way up with the vertical zoom

 

The Gain plug-in’s automation will also not keep value differences between nodes when dragging them up or down together. Like, if you drag a 0 dB node and a -10 dB node down so that the -10 node ends up at -20 dB, the 0 dB node will be -11.2 dB instead of -10 dB.

Gain plug-in automation will also never be sample-accurate, no matter if you set Sample Accurate Automation to “Volume, Pan, Sends, Plug-in Parameters” or not. 

[dubsak]

On 1/5/2024 at 1:47 AM, ColbyKeyz said:

I thought relative automation was supposed to make changes to volume relative to whatever the fader is set to. So if I draw in -2db automation and my fader is set to -6db, ill get -8db . then if I change my fader to - 8db ill get -10db.

If I'm understanding this correctly, you're talking about that you've drawn your automation and you've decided "nope, this instrument needs to be 1 dB louder". If that's the case you can use the Trim control on the Volume lane to move all your automation accordingly. Otherwise, every time you start playback, your fader will just jump back to its original position.