Hi,
I would like to be able to change parameters controllable by automation (fader, pan, send, plugin parameters) and have Ardour create automation track for me.
Enabling and disabling this feature should be as easy as pressing Record. Because it should behave like a record button - but for automation.
It would make working with many parameters much more fluent.
Use cases:
Mixing: you do a rough mix without automation. Then you want to automate some moves. While it’s easy to do with faders, automating an EQ can be tedious: you need to find number of the EQ band you want to automate in the plugin UI, find it on the automation list, set both gain and frequency to Write or Touch. Repeat for each band.
With the automation recording feature, you would disable it while doing rough mix and enable when starting “animating” your mix - introducing changes that vary throughout the track.
Recording jamming on plugins, in MIDI and automation.
Changing parameters of synths and effects (cutoff, delay send, delay feedback etc) live spontaneously which is essential for many kinds of electronic music.
I think it could be done by setting automation states in the whole session (or just the elements we want to animate - similarly to Record button on tracks) to Write or Touch, and making sure that any new parameter (e.g. send created) also follows this setting. So could it be done with Lua script?
Or maybe Ardour already has similar feature but I couldn’t find it?
Any feature can be bound to MIDI for this purpose. The catch to what you are talking about is a workflow one, how do we expose this to the user. For plugins that Ardour creates the UI for (LADSPA or LV2 without a custom UI) this can be done thorugh the plugin dialog IIRC. But for plugins with a custom UI, Ardour has no control over this, so finding a way to expose this that is easier than the current methods is the question, and would need to be designed and suggested, but needs to keep in mind that Ardour doesn’t and can’t modify the UI of a plugin.
This is one of the items on Harrison’s ToDo list for Ardour/Mixbus development.
The plan is to add a global automation button like you would find on a large-format console:
All Touch: all mixer and plugin parameters are able to switch into Touch as soon as you touch/turn them, even if they explicitly in Play or Manual.
(EDIT: I also mentioned All Play and All Manual in my original post, but removed them after some IRC discussion … those are features of our big consoles but maybe not very useful in a DAW. )
I expect that button, and a few other global automation buttons, to appear in an optional Toolbar at the top of the main window (like the Latency or Punch toolbars).
We haven’t set a release date for these features but I expect it will come sometime after v7.
@x42: I think I caused some confusion with the terminology “All Touch”. Since that term is already used in the plugin dialog to explicitly set all params to touch.
The “All Touch” I’m referring to is an implicit touch… as you describe. It just allows knobs to go into “touch” when you turn them, without having to find and click the little menu.