Computer Music

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2. Basic fader automation

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1 View the track lane for the channel you want to automate and select volume automation. In most DAWs you’ll see an automation curve (or ‘breakpoint line’) at 0dB. Set mode to Touch for brief adjustment­s or Latch for long ones. It’s now ready to capture fader moves. 2 Hit play and move the fader as needed during playback. Do short passes or run through the whole track. If you make a mistake, either hit stop and undo it and try again, or keep going and fix it afterwards with breakpoint editing, to graphicall­y edit the automation by drawing the curves. 3 When done writing the automation, set mode to Read, which is a safe mode for playback and won’t overwrite automation levels. Hit play and listen to find the spots you want to fix or edit. The visual overlay of the automation curve on the waveform will be helpful for seeing where you need to make adjustment­s. 4 The same procedure as with faders can be used for automating knobs. So, you could automate a reverb send so that reverb level increases during a particular song section; or change the amount of distortion on a guitar track by automating the gain control in a virtual amp, which we’ll explore in the tutorial below.

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