Automation Questions

[ontrackp]

I've been experiencing what seem to be some inconsistent automation behaviors:

 

1) pressing "a" to show the automation sometimes shows it on all tracks sometimes on only one or two tracks, sometimes on just one track. I've tried to figure out the logic of this, but can't find a pattern. Forgive my ignorance, but what gives?

 

2) when changing automation with a fader in Touch mode, sometimes it adds another track, sometimes it just overwrites what was there. I'm sure there's a setting that I've changed to make this happen, but I can't seem to wrap my mind around why this happens only sometimes.

 

Any help is appreciated!

 

Thanks very much from a new Logic user.

[Eric Cardenas]

1. It depends on the hight of the track. If you have the auto zoom option engaged it will do this for the selected track.

 

2. I'm not sure I follow. What do you mean with "adds another track"?

[karp47]

1. ^^^

 

2. Could be a number of things, without knowing more about the problem it's pretty difficult to diagnose. What are you using to automate and on what? (fader, knob, keyboard? etc.) I could only imagine it writing to another track for two reasons.

a) both parameters that are being written to are getting information from the same midi message

b) potentially may be a bug

[ontrackp]

Thanks for the responses.

 

I have two midi tracks that are grouped. I made a volume automation pass on the two tracks using the mixer faders. This worked fine. I came back to the tracks a little later, put them into Touch mode and made an adjustment. As soon as I stopped, two duplicate tracks appeared in both the arrange and mix windows, named the same as the original tracks. I made another adjustment pass and two more tracks appeared! In the arrange window the tracks contained only the automation data, no midi regions. It was odd as I had made previous touch up mix passes without this happening.

 

I have shut down since then and not re-opened yet, perhaps it was some type of one-off bug, I'll see if it happens again when I open the mix tomorrow.

[David Nahmani]

Hello ontrackp, a few questions for you:

 

1) Can you post some screenshots of your Arrange area with the additional tracks, and the Mixer with your additional channel strips?

 

2) How are you creating the automation: by dragging faders/knobs with the mouse? On a hardware controller?

 

3) You stated you started by automating volume... are all the adjustments volume automation as well? Or another parameter?

 

Thanks!

[Scott Jackson]

Your signature says that you are on Logic 9. Is that 9.0? The first version was buggy and if you're still on that you should update to a later version of Logic 9.

 

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1519

 

Also, you should test the issue in a New Empty Project to see if it happens there. If not, you might have a corrupt project in which case you can Import it into a New Empty Project.

[ontrackp]

I did some more experimenting and discovered that this only happens to the grouped tracks. When I ungrouped the two tracks and did a volume automation adjustment (using the on-screen fader with mouse) I did not get the additional tracks.

 

Here's screenshots of the arrange and mixer windows before making a volume automation adjustment to the grouped tracks using the on-screen fader with the mouse:

 

 

 

Same two shots after making a volume automation adjustment:

 

 

 

As you can see the program added tracks for the new automation only. Weird.

 

I will try Scott's suggestion and try this in an empty project to see if it is duplicated.

 

Thanks very much!

[David Nahmani]

Thanks! But we'd need full-size screenshots - it's hard to see anything on those!

 

Also if you can answer my question #2?

[ontrackp]

Sorry -- I'll re-post the screen shots. Re: your question #2, I am using the on-screen faders, dragging with a mouse to create the volume automation.

 

Thanks David.

 

-- Steve

[David Nahmani]

Ok thanks Steve. I'll wait for the full size screenshots.

[ontrackp]

Here are the full size scans.

 

Arrange and mixer before tweaking the volume automation using on-screen fader with mouse:

 

 

 

After making a volume automation pass with the grouped Strings tracks

 

 

 

 

Thanks!

 

-- Steve

[David Nahmani]

Ok Steve, thanks for the large screenshots - weird issue for sure. Would you mind returning the project to its original state, then upload it to this thread and give us the exact procedure to reproduce the issue (which track # to automate in touch mode...)?

[ontrackp]

Thanks David. I'll do that and upload the file in the morning. Definitely weird.

[David Nahmani]

If possible, make a copy of the file and modify it to help us isolate the issue: delete all tracks that are not concerned and not affecting the issue, etc.... in short, simplify. Then in the Finder, locate your .logic file, control-click it and choose "Compress...." to get a .zip file. Then attach the .zip to this thread.