Recording individual fader or knob movements

Recording automation for knobs and faders works in the Track view, the Console view, and Synth Rack. You can record automation during both playback and recording operations.

To record individual fader or knob movements

1.	Do one of the following:

To write-enable an individual track or bus control, right-click the fader or control you want to automate and choose Automation Write Enable from the pop-up menu.

To write-enable individual plug-in parameters, right-click the name of the plug-in in the FX Rack, and choose Write Enable Parameter from the pop-up menu. This opens a dialog box that allows you to choose which parameters to write-enable.

To write-enable individual synth parameters, right-click the synth’s Automation Write button in the Synth Rack, and choose Write Enable Parameter from the pop-up menu. This opens a dialog box that allows you to choose which parameters to write-enable.

To write-enable all parameters in an audio track, bus, synth, or effect, enable the Automation Write button on the track, bus, Synth Rack strip, or plug-in property page you are recording automation for. Enabling the Automation Write button on a track or bus also write-enables all parameters of any effects on the track or bus.

2.	Start playback or recording.

3.	Move the armed parameter control(s).

4.	Stop playback or recording.

After you record the automation data, Sonar draws a graph of it (an envelope) in the Clips pane, which you can edit with the mouse by adding and dragging nodes (see the rest of this chapter). Once you record automation data in a track, the widget that you automated displays an indicator to show that automation has been applied. You can also group controls, so that automating one control automates all the controls in the group.

 

Note: You can specify how shape smoothing works when recording automation in real-time and when using the Freehand tool on envelope shapes. To do so, click the Track view Options menu, point to Automation Smoothing, then select one of the following options: 4 Smooth. Uses the existing fit-to-curve functionality. This is the default setting 4 As Drawn/Recorded (Linear). Joins the nodes up with linear shapes 4 As Drawn/Recorded (Jumps). Leaves the nodes as is, making them jump shapes

Recording automation via numeric input

When recording automation, envelope nodes can be recorded by typing a value in the pop-up edit controls in the Inspector, Console view, Track view, ProChannel EQ, and EQ fly-out module. The numeric input will be recorded as a Jump during automation recording.

To show the numeric input pop-up, give focus to a control or its value display, then press F2 or double-click the value display.

 

See also:

Automation

Quick automation guide

Automation methods

Automation write modes

Automation time base

Automation Read and Automation Write buttons

Automation lanes

Creating and editing automation envelopes

Automating track mute

Envelope mode and Offset mode

Converting MIDI controllers to envelopes

Snapshots

Automating effects

Recording automation data from an external controller