AUtomation improvements

Community Ideas for Ardour
#1

Maybe I just didn’t get it how to do it. What I really would love to see:

  • freehand automation (e.g. pressed alt button + left click drag with draw tool - like using a pen inside paint… touch mode would be awesome)

  • quick deletion, for example with cmd/ctrl + mid click

:slight_smile:

#2

  1. Closest you get is the click to create a point, multiple times creates lines. TOUCH automation is implemented on the fader when in TOUCH mode.

  2. Pretty sure this exists, can’t remember the combination off hand but I think it is something like CTRL+RightClick on a point to delete it.

    Seablade

#3

We don’t frankly see much benefit to dragging a shape over clicking it out. Hence part 1 of Seablade’s reply.

#4

Shift+right-click on a point to delete it. Or better yet: use the Range Tool to select a range of automation and delete it. The benefit of working this way is that it makes a “guard point” at each end of the cut; therefore preserving the automation lines outside of the range you selected.

#5

Its Shift + Right-click. Thanks Ben.

Unfortunately the smart tool does not work at automation lanes (for quicker ranges) and a range does not work with clip gain automation.

#6

@paul: I just know I can do this in PT, Logic and Reaper. Why not in Ardour?

#7

What benefit do you think dragging to draw has? Our assessment is that there are just a couple of very small benefits, insufficient to persuade anyone to implement it so far. I think you’re doing the “I’m used to some other way of doing this, so a different way feels wrong and inefficient” thing …

Your points about smart tool and clip gain automation are well made, though.

#8

Well, indeed I am used to. Just wondering, that I am the only one ever asked about this?!

For me its more easy, because I do a lot with clip gain automation (including live “in-/decreasing waveform”) just to set levels for hundrets of short voice clips before matching the exact levels. But maybe its just me. :slight_smile:

#9

Very few people have ever made much fuss about the lack of drawn automation. More people have asked for a way to generate automation shapes (e.g. sine, saw, square).

Region gain envelopes are not considered automation (specifically in the sense that you cannot record them, and there is no automation “mode” associated with them). They are intended to perform a different function to track-level automation. They originally come from Samplitude.