Automation changes after export

[bubblebobble]

Really hoping someone can help solve this for me. I've spent the whole of last night searching and trying to remedy with no luck.

I have a track which has a fair amount of automation on different tracks. When played inside arrangement view the track sounds as desired and plays all the automated parts correctly. If I export the audio, immediately after the audio finishes exporting the 'Back to Arrangement' light comes on and about 5 different automation lanes (on different plug-ins) are grayed out. Does anyone know why this would be happening?

Note: the exported wav file is also missing the automation.

Thanks for any help.

Edit: upon further investigation.. I kept the problem automation lanes in view during an export. When the song begins to export, immediately the problem automation lanes get grayed out.

[bubblebobble]

(I've included images at the bottom of the post to help communicate what the issue is..)

This has driven me insane for the last week. I can not find a solution. I have a track in Ableton that has 25 channels. A fair amount of these are Strobe and some are Cypher. I have a lot of automation on the different instances of Strobe/Cypher. The track plays as expected when playing from arrangement view inside Ableton. When I choose to export the song, right before the song actually beings it's "export" process many of my automation lanes get "grayed out". Then, once the export has finished the "Back to Arrangement" light is on. The audio file that is exported is not how the song sounds when played inside Ableton's arrangement view (it is missing the automation for many different instances of Strobe/Cypher).

I have no idea what is causing this to happen. It started happening out of the blue, and I can't find a workaround. I have tried many many different things. But nothing seems to remedy the problem. I have a support question open with Ableton, but it's been a while and I haven't heard back. I opened an early version of the track in question (I had previosly exported this version before the problem existed). I tried exporting this earlier version of the track again to see if maybe I did something along the creation process to cause this. But, to my amazement the version that, a couple weeks earlier, exported just fine now had the same exact problem on the same exact automation lanes. I just can't figure it out.

Some of the many things I've tried:

Deleting all the clips from session view.
Freezing each individual track in their desired state before exporting.
Unplugging all midi devices/controllers.
Export using my onboard sound card instead of the focusrite audio interface.
Restarting my computer.
Copying the entirety of my track, deleting everything, then pasting it back in.
Editing the data in the effected automation lanes.
Setting the 'midi-from' to None on every channel.
Setting 'monitor' to off on every channel.
etc.

Note: its always the same automation lanes on the same devices which get affected. It's as if, immediately before the song begins it's export, the DCAM devices change a bunch of their parameters causing their automation in Ableton to get "grayed out".

Thanks in advance. Any help would be amazing. I'm about out of ideas...

[andrew luhring]

SAME. did anyone ever find a solution to this? it's driving me crazy and idk what to do about it and i have to get this mastered wednesday and i need to be able to hand it off to them.

[[jur]]

It's a problem with one of your plugin. Find which one, make sure it's up-to-date.
If the problem persists, record the offending track(s) realtime to an other audio track; remove the offending track(s); bounce your mix.

[Nick P]

Hey, I've had the same issue and found a fairly simple hack/work around. You need 2 computers (laptops), 1 with the Ableton project loaded for payback, and 1 with Ableton (or Audacity for slower machines) for recording the playback.
Simply start recording on the 2nd machine and then start playback of the project on the first. Because you're playing back the project and not exporting it and the automations remain in place.

[Nick P]

Side note, all my plug-ins were up to date and I still has the issue. I'm actually really surprised there isn't a simpler solution inside of Ableton. Maybe someone knows more about this than I do or has a better solution within Ableton. Hope this helps, cheers.

[solarianijinski]

hi all I can't say this will work for everyone, but it worked for me. I had the same exactly issue OP described and I've seen other, similar questions online in other forums.

I noticed in my case it was always one track the was losing automation, and so i deleted the grayed out automation and redrew it. then it let me export.

like I said, not sure if that will work for everyone. I've seen people say this is a bug. but in my case I just needed to redraw the automation, because apparently I had manually edited it and it was conflicting. idk.

hope it helps !

[Angelo54321]

Same. All my plugins are updated. Only solution I found is record track to audio track. It's really annoying specially when I have several track which doesn't work... I hope there will be some Ableton update with solution.

[DEEP Papaya]

I had the same problem. But for me it was only affecting volume automations... and I realized it was only affecting the tracks where I messed with the volume elsewhere. So I highlighted the track, right-clicked and clicked to remove all envelopes, then I was able to create a new automation. I suspect the same is true if you lost panning automations after you made a panning/balance adjustment somewhere else.

[mintheuniverse]

I had the same issue with SoundToys plugins recently. Found the simple fix with help from their customer support - make sure your project sample rate is equal to or greater than your export sample rate. For example:

Project sample rate (Preferences->Audio->In/Out Sample Rate) = 44,100
Export sample rate = 48,000
AUTOMATION ERROR ON EXPORT

The fix...

Make the project sample rate = 48,000 or higher
Export sample rate = 48,000
WORKS

Hopefully solves the problem with other plugins as well.

[liftoff]

I had the same issue with SoundToys plugins recently. Found the simple fix with help from their customer support - make sure your project sample rate is equal to or greater than your export sample rate. For example:

Project sample rate (Preferences->Audio->In/Out Sample Rate) = 44,100
Export sample rate = 48,000
AUTOMATION ERROR ON EXPORT

The fix...

Make the project sample rate = 48,000 or higher
Export sample rate = 48,000
WORKS

Hopefully solves the problem with other plugins as well.

This worked for me! I was having the same trouble everyone was mentioning about automation getting screwed up after exporting. I always work in 48,000 but some how the project sample rate got flipped to 44,000. After reading this, I changed it to 48000. Everything worked just fine! Thanks for the tip!