Logic Pro 9 Vertical copy of automation?

O

oortone

Logician
How do I copy automation vertically? Accross al tracks at the same time.

If I like the volume values at a certain point in the timeline how to I copy these values to the start of the song for all the tracks at the same time?

(I know I asked a similar thing recently but since no one answered I've tried to rephrase the question)
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
oortone said:
How do I copy automation vertically? Accross al tracks at the same time.
Click to expand...

Select your automation by shift clicking around the nodes to lasso them. Hit command C. Go to the destination track, put it in automation view, hit command V. Copying automation from one track to another is really that easy - that's all there is to it.

I don't think there's a way to copy it to all the tracks simultaneously. But this is quick enough. Once you copy it and it's in your buffer and you have enabled automation on all your tracks; just use your arrow key followed by command V and repeat.
 
Upvote 0
There is a faster way to copy all the parameters at once.

There's a key command to open the automation folder that gives you an event list of everything.

Hit copy in the automation folder of the source track, open the automation folder on the destination track and hit paste. You may have to create one node in the destination track because Logic won't let you open an empty automation folder, but that's still a pretty quick solution.

Best of luck
Hans
 
Upvote 0
Hmm and why is this faster than rubberbanding and then Apple+C. It's only a certain part of the automation that he wants to copy and I personally lose track of where I am in the automation eventlist. The method you describe is very good for copying everything on a track I find but on heavily automated tracks it's just simpler to rubberband (to me that is).
 
Upvote 0
Thanks everyone but this solution doesn't really solve the problem in an easy way. I believe a great way to get started with a new mix is hit play - start balancing and then when I'm at a good rough mix to start with I want the new values copied to the start.

So in the screendump I'm at the cursor and I wan't the current values to be my new start values.

But as you can see there are no nodes exactly at the cursor position, they are at different time positions on each track.

Now on DAW:s (and older automation engines like SSL) I've worked with there are usually two ways to do what I want.
1. There's some kind of "write to left".
2. One turns automation "off" then go back to the start (faders won't move) then hit "write". Either the new values are written directly or when playback is started.

Going about copying the last node from each track one after the other is quite useless. It's probably faster to write them down and doing it manually. Is there no other way to do this? (Strangely enough there's a "write to right locator" in Logic, but not to the left.)
 

Attachments

  • Bild 1.jpg
    Bild 1.jpg
    37 KB · Views: 225
Upvote 0
You do know that if you just grab the line (not on the dot but in between) by clicking on it and holding the mouse button down you can quite easily change the volume between the two dots (like the first and the second).
My problem here is that I simply don't understand the problem since changing the start values would only take maybe 5 seconds per track and how busy are you.
Or do you mean that you want to delete everything to the left and keep everything to the right. In that case you're back to rubberbanding and then deleting them which would make it 10 seconds per track or you could simply just use the eraser tool which is also very fast, much faster than clicking on all notes.
 
Upvote 0
and I'm not sure if I think Logic is "primitive", it may also just require another workflow than what you're used to. There are many, many shortcuts and keycommands that has to do with automation and they are really worth checking out, it certainly speeds the level-setting up considerably.
 
Upvote 0
oortone said:
Thanks everyone but this solution doesn't really solve the problem in an easy way. I believe a great way to get started with a new mix is hit play - start balancing and then when I'm at a good rough mix to start with I want the new values copied to the start.
Click to expand...

What about this:

Grab the last node - the one you want to have at the beginning of the track; hold down shift in order to lock movement to horizontal only (or is it control - I can never remember which is for vertical and which is for horizontal movement...) and drag backwards - erasing all the previous nodes - until you are back at the beginning.

It'll still take you five seconds per track.
 
Upvote 0
HKC said:
Or do you mean that you want to delete everything to the left and keep everything to the right.
Click to expand...

Exactly, then I'd go back to the start (or the left point which could be somewhere in between two scenes in a film or between two songs in a live concert) and start a new mix from there with these new updated values.

It may be that Logic requires another workflow. But it's very strange the automation lacks som basic features which you'd find in almost all other professional automation systems. I really can't see how do do what I'm describing in an efficient way. It's impossible as far as I can see.

So why is this a problem when it only takes 5 seconds per track?

Well, if I have 64 tracks and the adjustment takes 5 seconds per track that's 5 minutes of work. If my project is made out of 20 scenes then that's 5 x 20 = 1 hour and 40 minutes of work. That is if I have to do this on a per track basis. If on the other hand it could be done on all tracks in one go it would be 5 seconds x 20 which is one and a half minute. That's a huge difference in time not to think of how tedious it is to do the same thing on 64 tracks twenty times.
 
Upvote 0
Eli said:
Grab the last node - the one you want to have at the beginning of the track; hold down [...] and drag backwards - erasing all the previous nodes - until you are back at the beginning.

It'll still take you five seconds per track.
Click to expand...

Yes, thanks it seems to be the only way to do it. It's OPTION to lock movement horizontally and CONTROL to lock vertically.
 
Upvote 0
I can totally understand his workflow...

play the track, move the faders on some hardware controller to get a rough mix and then wanting to stick to that level.

You may want to try not recording your rough mixing, that way you just end up with the levels you want and no automation to read, how does that sound?
 
Upvote 0
wonshu said:
I can totally understand his workflow...

play the track, move the faders on some hardware controller to get a rough mix and then wanting to stick to that level.

You may want to try not recording your rough mixing, that way you just end up with the levels you want and no automation to read, how does that sound?
Click to expand...

Exactly and your idea would work great for a single song and then when the rough levels are set, turn on automation and go. No problem (intersetingly Logic automatically makes a "write to left" once I start using automation on a track).

But if the material is made out of many parts where each part needs a new "rough mix" it won't work.

I know from experience that this is a very effective workflow and I've used it in both radio drama and when mixing live concerts. I'd love Logic to be able to do it. All that's needed is an additional "write to left locator".
 
Upvote 0
Ok - I have struggled a bit with this myself and I have to say I never do this BUT you should be able to get levels with automation off, then as in an SSL, turn all the faders to write and start from the top again. No? does anyone do this?
best,
jamie
 
Upvote 0
jlproductions said:
Ok - I have struggled a bit with this myself and I have to say I never do this BUT you should be able to get levels with automation off, then as in an SSL, turn all the faders to write and start from the top again. No? does anyone do this?
best,
jamie
Click to expand...

That was my best bet also. But for some extremely peculiar reason, it works all the way until you hit play. Then it fails. Although the faders are in the desired positions and although write is enabled for all channels - when playback is started they all jump back to their original position on that time location. They can't be written in any other way either as far as I can see.

In my opinion this is an extremely strange behaviour. If I activate write then hit play there's no reason whatsoever to recall the old values. That's a latch or autotouch feature. I don't know if a control surface could solve this but with the on-screen faders there's no SSL style write.
 
Upvote 0
I just did a quick test as I wasn't sure about this. (Often when it occurs to me to do this I am far enough along on a mix that I don't want to risk it!) However in my test with NO automation on and setting a bunch of faders to crazy places, write did maintain levels. I think the trick is to have no automation whatsoever when you go into write. Maybe the thing to do if you want to be pre-mixing with automation on is to stop when you get to the perfect balance, then use the delete all automation on all tracks command, then go into Write and then back to the top. I have tried this and it seems to work so I would be interested if you get the same results. I was in L9. j.
 
Upvote 0
jlproductions said:
[...] use the delete all automation on all tracks command, then go into Write and then back to the top. I have tried this and it seems to work so I would be interested if you get the same results. I was in L9. j.
Click to expand...

I'm sure that works but I can't delete all automation on all tracks if I want to do a scene change. Obviously that would erase automation from earlier scenes.
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top