Archive for August, 2008

If you’re working on Pro Tools HD, then you’re probably aware that it does some automation. You’re probably aware that you can craft a mix and have the software remember your moves. What you may not realise is that you can write those moves in real time and push them pretty much anywhere you like, in time…

Open the Automation window. You’ll see two sets of 5 buttons that look like arrows. These are the Automation Write To commands. They are some of the most powerful buttons in Pro Tools HD, but they look pretty unassuming don’t they? So how do they work?

Well, you’ve got two choices. The top set of arrows work in real time during playback. So you can be riding the faders, get to a level you like and then push the button for the direction you want to write that level and it happens immediately, and you’ll see a red line in track volume view update to show you what you’ve done.

The second set of buttons do the same task, but they kick in when the transport stops. So they are buttons for “anticipation”. A slightly different workflow. Most engineers Ive met have found these functions and started here, with the second option.

So what are my choices? Well, the simple ones are write from where you are now, to either the start or end of the session. Then you’ve got the write to all button in between – this is a tricky one, as its actually TWO buttons in one. If you have a selection on screen, then it will write your automation to all of your selection, constrained by the in and out points. If you are playing and writing automation from the cursor with no selection then it will write it to all of your session, from the start to the very end.

The lower two are new, cooler ones…Write to Punch and Write to next. Write to next is to write your current level down the timeline to the next piece of automation, protecting what is downstream if you will. A safe way to work when you are in the middle of a job doing fix ups. Write to Punch is Digi-speak for “lets get the level right before committing to it” – write to punch writes your current level back in time to where you touched the parameter. Say you are finding a level for a vocal, you get it sitting well and write to punch, then you see a red line go back to where you grabbed the fader and a 90 degree breakpoint is written there, at the start!

In my last video we had a super quick look at AutoMatch, the ability to drop back to Read from writing automation in latch mode. Automatch works very powerfully with the write to punch function, have a play with them together!

The only other thing worth throwing into the mix (pardon the pun) are the buttons above the auto write-to commands, the automation enables…This allows us to almost slice and dice our mix by enabling and disabling as we write to all, write to end or write to punch etc

The features really came into their own in PT HD 7.2 when they became much more real time and you could see the red line on screen to give you confidence in what you are writing.

There’s also a great new preference that came into play in 7.2, on the Mixing tab, “Suppress automation write to warnings”, be sure to tick that on before using these features, it will save you alot of pop ups!

Next blog I hope to write up some tips for gliding automation and applying automation from the mouse and keyboard – for those of you without ICONs!