How do you punch-in automation changes?

[Angstrom]

Ok, here's something I've had a lot of problems with.
Imagine this situation: you record automation for a particular soft-synth part into the arrangement. There's a 16 bar section where you'd prefer the sound to be different than the recorded automation, so you put the arrangement into loop and tweak the synth around until the sound is as you want it. Imagine you have altered 16 parameters of the synth.

Now - we want to punch that alteration into the automation of Arrangement. To "print" our changes onto the established automation envelopes. So ... how do we do that?

If we arm arrangement and start the song then the new parameter positions are not written to the arrangement envelopes. To do that we must nudge each parameter as the song is recording - this registers the control change and inserts a new point.

My normal workflow is either to
A: nudge each altered parameter up and down one increment, then stop playback ... go back and edit the envelopes manually (and swear at the new snapping envelopes which make this near impossible)
Or B: I click-enter the envelopes one by one to match the new dial positions ... which takes ages.

I'm sure I must be missing something because this is really cumbersome.

[Angstrom]

Ok, in a last gasp attempt to explain what I need to achieve

In this image we can see the (greyed out) automation which has been recorded, and the red lines show us where the knobs are currently positioned.

So how do I punch in and record where the knobs are currently positioned? Surely I've missed something obvious

[slatepipe]

wouldn't just copying and pasting the envelope solve the problem?

or have i misunderstood?

[McAnix]

Concerning automation snap, holding down cmd momentarily disables it.

[Angstrom]

wouldn't just copying and pasting the envelope solve the problem?
or have i misunderstood?

No that won't work because I need to write the new positions of the knobs onto the timeline.

Concerning automation snap, holding down cmd momentarily disables it.

Yes, that's a bit of a side issue here - but alt-drag that only works when there are no other adjacent points.
When attempting to move a point past adjacent points (to the left or right) it doesn't work. The drag action only kicks in once the mouse has passed the nearest major grid line.
Like this


the drag action is ignored until the mouse is beyond the major grid line, regardless of pressing Alt (that's the key on PC)

[McAnix]

Okay yes I see, one can drag it back to the point where you want it at but if you have lot's to do and keep track of this would make it very frustrating.

So are you trying to get the new values ( red line) to stay where they are from bars 6-9 and the rest of the automation, bars 10 etc... to stay where they are?

[Angstrom]

yep,
the outcome I want is to hit record and to have the red line "print" onto the envelopes for as long as I am recording, simply put: to overwrite automation
but it won't do that unless the dials are twiddled one by one. Live does not overwrite the existing automation with these new static values.

[McAnix]

Dang, yes I get it now, if you have lots of automation to change it's super frustrating, even on one lane it would be, to get it to the exact location is annoying. Never thought of it like this, I've just always put in new nodes, or when one does record over old automation there's always a mess of nodes that needs cleaning. To be able to punch in as you described would be way better.

Maybe I'm also missing something?

[cotdagoo]

Interesting situation. I always figured it was a limitation with Live and how it handles the "Back to Arrangement" stuff between Session and Arrangement views.

I've definitely run into this issue before. Usually I just make a copy of the track, delete automation entirely and record it fresh on the new track, and cut & paste any automation changes back into the original track.

It's a bit of a weird workaround, but I'm not sure how you go about keeping current automation, appending new automation data to automation lanes which have been "disabled" whenever their parameter is modified. It seems to be a one or the other situation.

[re:dream]

Angstrom are you still on the beta test community? This sounds like something for the developers to think about.

[Angstrom]

Yeah. I think I'll post something in the suggestions section over there about automation punch-in. Also perhaps a bug report for the snapping envelope issue, which seems like it might be an oversight.

[McAnix]

Yeah. I think I'll post something in the suggestions section over there about automation punch-in.

If you do, post a link so we can vote for it.