Automation

Volume, pan, mute, send levels and any plug-in parameter can be automated per track, as in Logic. A folder stack automates its volume and mute, which reach its subtracks; a summing stack automates like any track. Stereo Out automates its volume and its plug-ins on the Output track.

Showing and editing automation

Show Automation (A, or either View menu) draws each track’s automation over its dimmed regions. Region editing is off while it is shown.

• The track header gets a parameter pop-up (Volume, Pan, Mute, each used send as “Send N → bus”, and a submenu per plug-in with its parameters; lanes holding points are marked ●) and the mode pop-up. On a one-line (short) header the mode pop-up stays and the parameters are in the ⋯ menu. The pop-up also has Delete parameter Automation and Delete All Automation on Track.
• Add a point: click empty lane space (snapped in time; the value is where you click).
• Select: click a point (Shift adds or removes); drag on empty lane space for a rubber band.
• Move: drag selected points in time and value. Hold Shift while dragging to change only the value.
• Delete: double-click or Alt+click a point, or press Backspace or Delete for the selected points. Right-click for Delete Selected Points, Delete parameter Automation, Delete All Automation on Track and Hide Automation.
• Curves: Ctrl+Shift-drag a line between two points (Control-Shift on macOS; Alt+Shift works too) to bend it into a curve that follows the pointer up or down: the change then comes early or late. Double-click the curve, or right-click › Straighten Segment, to make it a straight line again. A point added inside a curve keeps both halves bent the same way.
• Hovering shows the value. Volume is drawn on the fader’s scale. Lanes are lines between points, holding the first value before them and the last one after.
• A lane is drawn faded when the track’s mode is Off.

Several lanes per track

• The + beside the parameter pop-up opens another lane below the track, with its own parameter pop-up (it starts on the next parameter that has automation, else the next of Volume, Pan, Mute and the sends). Each extra lane is edited exactly like the main one; its + adds another and its − closes it. Right-click a lane for Show Another Lane and Close Lane.
• Show Used Automation (Shift+A, View menu, or a lane’s right-click menu) shows every lane that holds automation on the selected tracks (all tracks when none is selected), and the Output track’s when it is shown. The main lane keeps its parameter if it has automation.
• Extra lanes are as tall as their track (at least 36 pixels), sit below any open take folder’s rows, and appear only while automation is shown. They are saved with the project; opening and closing them is an undo step.

The Output track

Track › Show Output Track (also in the Tracks area’s Functions menu) adds a Stereo Out track at the bottom of the Tracks area. It has no regions: its header has Stereo Out’s volume and, with automation shown, the automation controls. Its lanes take Volume and the parameters of Stereo Out’s plug-ins, and work like a track’s (extra lanes, curves, modes, writing from the Stereo Out fader or plug-in panels). The mode pop-up is also on the Stereo Out channel strip, and its fader follows the lane while playing. Whether the Output track is shown is remembered per project, like track heights.

Automation modes

Set the mode in the track header (with automation shown) or above the pan knob on every channel strip.

Mode	Behaviour
Off	Lanes are ignored.
Read (default, green)	Lanes play. The fader, pan knob and plug-in editors follow while playing.
Touch	Plays the lanes, and writes while you hold a control during playback. When you let go, the parameter glides back to the existing curve (over 0.2 s).
Latch	Like Touch, but once you have touched a control it keeps writing, holding the last value, until playback stops.
Write	From where playback started, overwrites volume, pan and every existing lane (except send lanes) with the current values. After you stop, the track switches to Latch, as Logic does by default.

• Moves in a plug-in’s own editor are written too (through the plug-in’s begin/perform/end edit calls). While they are, they undo with the pass, not as steps of their own.
• Group members that share volume, pan or mute write together.
• Each pass is one undo step, Write Automation. Written passes are thinned to the points the curve needs.
• Lanes are evaluated every audio block. Volume keeps the fader’s smoothing, and plug-in parameters are ramped across each block. With plug-in delay compensation, automation follows the delayed audio.
• Lanes stay put when regions move, unless Settings › Editing › Move Automation with Regions says otherwise (see Moving, trimming and snapping).
• Lanes follow their plug-in. Moving a plug-in within its strip keeps its lanes; dragging it to another track’s strip moves its lanes to that track, with their points, so they keep driving the same parameters there (the track showing one of them shows it on the new track). They play in the new track’s automation mode. A copy (Alt-drag, or Copy and Paste Plug-in) starts without automation, and the original keeps its lanes. A plug-in moved to or from Stereo Out takes its lanes along too.
• Stacks: a folder stack’s volume and mute lanes scale and mute its subtracks on top of their own faders and lanes (nested folders multiply). A summing stack’s lanes act on its bus. Bounces, exports and Bounce in Place include stack and Stereo Out automation; exported subtracks include their folder’s.