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7 <section id="sn-automation">
8 <title>Automation</title>
10 This chapter will explain how to use Ardour's automation facilities to
11 make editing and mixing your sessions more productive.
14 <section id="what-is-automation">
15 <title> What is automation? </title>
17 Automation refers to Ardour's ability to remember changes you made to
18 various parameters in the session, and at what point along the
19 timeline playback had reached when you made them. Later, Ardour can
20 make these changes happen automatically at the same point on the
21 timeline, thus leaving your hands free to do something else. A typical
22 practice when using automation is to work on one or two tracks while
23 leaving others alone, recording the edits/changes. Once satisfied with
24 the track(s), you can move on to adjust other tracks. As the overall
25 mix changes, you can return to earlier tracks and adjust their
30 <section id="what-can-be-automated">
31 <title> What can be automated? </title>
33 You can automate all changes to track/bus gain control, panning
34 (currently only for stereo output) and all plugin parameters. Future
35 versions of Ardour will allow automation of mute/solo controls,
36 non-stereo panning, and send gain levels.
40 <section id="automation-modes">
41 <title> Automation Modes </title>
43 Each parameter that can be automated has a button available to control
44 its state of automation. Each button can be used to put the parameter
45 into one of 4 possible automation states:
54 No changes to the parameter are recorded, and any existing
55 automation for the parameter is ignored. This is the default.
64 Existing automation data controls the value of the parameter,
65 and graphical/hardware editing of the value is disabled.
74 All changes to the parameter are recorded as new automation
75 data, overwriting any existing data for that point in time.
84 Existing automation data controls the value of the parameter,
85 but new changes to the parameter are recorded, overwriting any
86 existing data for that point in time.
93 <section id="basic-automation-recording">
94 <title> Basic Automation Recording </title>
95 <section id="automation-recording-gain-and-pan">
96 <title> Gain and Pan </title>
98 Each track/bus has two automation control buttons for gain and pan
99 in its mixer strip. For each track/bus that you wish to automate,
100 click on the relevant automation button. From the popup menu that
101 appears (showing all automation states) choose
102 <guibutton>Record</guibutton> . As long as the automation state
103 remains in "Record", then any changes you make to gain or pan for
104 that track/bus will be recorded.
108 <section id="automation-recording-plugin-parameters">
109 <title> Plugin Parameters </title>
111 Many plugins have many parameters that you might wish to play while
112 recording gain automation, so Ardour offers independent control of
113 recording changes to these parameters. You can access the controls
114 in either of two ways:
120 open the plugin's editor window, and click on the appropriate
121 automation control button. From the menu that pops up, choose
122 <guibutton>Record</guibutton>
128 make the automation track for this parameter visible (see
129 plugin_automation_tracks on how to do this), and click on the
130 automation control button in the track controls. From the menu
131 that pops up, choose <guibutton>Record</guibutton> .
137 To record edits to the parameter, click on the appropriate
138 <guibutton>arec</guibutton> button. As long as the button stays
139 pressed, all edits to that parameter will be recorded.
144 <section id="basic-automation-playback">
145 <title> Basic Automation Playback </title>
146 <section id="automation-playback-gain-and-pan">
147 <title> Gain and Pan </title>
149 Each track/bus has two automation control buttons for gain and pan
150 in its mixer strip. For each track/bus where you want existing
151 automation data to control gain and/or panning, click on the
152 relevant automation button. From the popup menu that appears
153 (showing all automation states) choose
154 <guimenuitem>Play</guimenuitem>. As long as the automation state
155 remains in <guimenuitem>Play</guimenuitem>, you can no longer
156 control the gain and/or panning from the graphical user interface or
157 an external hardware control surface.
161 <section id="automation-playback-plugin-parameters">
162 <title> Plugin Parameters </title>
164 For each plugin parameter you want controlled by automation data,
165 you need to activate automation playback which can be done in one of
172 open the plugin's editor window, and click on the appropriate
173 automation control button, and choose
174 <guimenuitem>Play</guimenuitem> from the menu that pops up.
180 make the automation track for this parameter visible (see
181 plugin_automation_tracks on how to do this), and click on the
182 automation control button in the track controls. Choose
183 <guimenuitem>Play</guimenuitem> from the menu that pops up.
189 You also need to enable automation playback for the plugin itself.
190 This needs to be done in the plugin's editor window by clicking on
191 the automation button in the upper right corner. Without this step,
192 the individual parameter buttons will not enable automation
197 The plugin automation button also allows you to globally disable
198 automation control of all parameters by unsetting it (clicking it so
199 that it is no longer "pressed"). This leaves the individual
200 automation control buttons in whatever state they were already in,
201 but it stops the use of automation data for all parameters. This can
202 be useful if you have a hardware control surface, and have
203 automation-playback-enabled several parameters. You can override the
204 automation playback settings and manually control parameter values
205 from the control surface without having to click on each parameter's
206 automation control button individually.
211 <section id="editing-automation-data">
212 <title> Editing Automation Data </title>
214 The editor window can display all automation data for a track. Each
215 type of automation data is shown in its own "track" to make it easy to
216 see the data, and to edit it.
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