Ableton Forum

Hi,
So I've got a group of single note harmonium-like things making a chord. 4 Tracks, they are grouped. While I was arranging, I put an Autofilter and Utility plug in for gain into the Group track. I wrote some automation for the Autofilter to sweep closed as a fade instead of volume. There are no plugs on any of the individual tracks. My observation is this:
When I bounce individual tracks (without the Group track selected) none of that automation is recorded on the separate stems. If I include the Group track, I get bounced stems of the individual parts as well as the summed Group bounce as a stereo mix down. The group track does print the automation. But none of the individual stems get it. I kind of thought Grouping might behave like a routing folder? Where it's almost a bus? But I guess in Ableton that's not the case. So...apologies for the long preamble...
my QUESTION is: If I want to have this automated effect on EACH individual stem, do I need to copy and paste the plug ins and the automation across all those individual tracks? Sad face emoji if that's the case. Is there a better idea?
Much thanks for any advice!

I’m sorry, I don’t have an answer for you… but your question made me wonder. I know there’s separate options for exporting Sends and the Master track during mix down. So, I’m posting to subscribe to the thread…

It actually makes a lot of sense that if the effect and automation are not in the individual track, then it would not bounce with that effect on it. The track at that stage has-yet-to-come-in-contact with those fx and automation. Live can’t guess if you’ll take that channel and do something different with it before it hits the Group stage.

Also. If it Did add the effect and automation. Then when it gets to the group stage and sums the affected track with the… effect again, with automation again, then it’ll be affected twice. That would not make sense and would almost never be a deliberate method.

You might be best off duplicating the Group track so there are 4 group tracks with the automation. And then in each one, remove all but one channel such that each group represents a different clip. Then freeze the 4 groups.

Hi
thanks for your thoughtful response. So the good news to report is: I copied the devices from the Group track to each individual track and lo and behold, the automation drawing went with the copied device. I just disabled the plug ins from the group and it's all there in each stem. I didn't have to fuss with copying and pasting automation. I did not know that about device copying and it's really a great feature.
Thanks!