stupid workflow things that I haven't figured out

[James Steele]

New users need a video that explains that in DP, the following things will be different from what they are used to:

Regions, Automation (MIDI Learn), Grids…
RAG

I actually think that would be a great idea! In fact I'de even purchase those videos.

....when you want to automate an LFO sweep in a 3rd party plugin, do you just use the mouse? Do you pencil it in SE insert? If so, how do you know the CC# of the parameter you want to automate?

What I've done is to put the track into automation record mode, move the LFO slider in the plugin, then hit stop. This will put a bit of automation data in the track for said LFO. I find this much easier than digging through all the automation parameters for a givin plugin in the "insert" dropdown list, because that list can be EXTREMELY long for plugins that have a bazillion controls. After you've got that bit of automation data in the track, you can access that particular paramter by looking in the current active layer dropdown.. which is the top most dropdown list in a given tracks controls in the SE. On instrument tracks it defaults to "volume", for audio tracks it defaults to "soundbites", for MIDI tracks the default is "note".

At this point then yes.. it's all about drawing it in or just moving the knob in the plugin UI. However, if you haven't noticed... DP has some amazing automation tools, some that even PT doesn't have.. and well. "L" doesn't really have ANY except for a basic line tool. But DP gives you:

Straight Lines
Flat Lines
Sine Wave
Square Wave
Triangle Wave
Random Ramps
Random Steps
Parabola
Spline (my personal favorite!)

So yeah... no MIDI learn for plugins that don't have it built in,... the flip side is having one of the best sets of automation tools around.

Holy crap! You really HAVE !! You're a quick study. Impressive! A unicorn smiley is in order!

[benmrx]

Holy crap! You really HAVE !! You're a quick study. Impressive! A unicorn smiley is in order!

See... I'm not always a noob pain in the ass! And yeah.. being a daytime stay at home dad has allowed me to read the manual... more than once at this point. I took a partime job recently at night 2-days a week, simply because I needed to get out of the house and verbalize with other adults and I even took the manual with me to work to read during downtime. If I had a version of the manual as a book on tape.. I'de probably listen to it everyday in my car too.

[williemyers]

Thanks for the reply. Frodo did, indeed, hit the nail on the head. The best way is to cancel cancel until DP is blank, and start from there.

Erik, not sure exactly what you mean by "cancel cancel until DP is blank", but if you set DP's Prefs>Document>StarupOptions to "none", everytime you start DP from it's Dock icon, you'll get a blank screen, ready to select the template of your choice

[cowtothesky]

Holy crap! You really HAVE !! You're a quick study. Impressive! A unicorn smiley is in order!

See... I'm not always a noob pain in the ass! And yeah.. being a daytime stay at home dad has allowed me to read the manual... more than once at this point. I took a partime job recently at night 2-days a week, simply because I needed to get out of the house and verbalize with other adults and I even took the manual with me to work to read during downtime. If I had a version of the manual as a book on tape.. I'de probably listen to it everyday in my car too.

Oh yea - an audio version of the manual would be KILLER!

Technical manuals put me to sleep. It took me like 3 months to read the manual because I kept falling asleep.

Wait - maybe an audio version for the car isn't such a great idea.

[erikjamesmusic]

BENMRX - YOU DA MAN!!! I'm going to try this tonight, and if this is in the manual, then SHAME ON ME! I open the manual on a daily basis, but sometimes I don't know where to LOOK in the manual for workflow type questions, ya know?

Williemyers, thank you as well! This is exactly what I was looking for.

[Shooshie]

Wow! I think you all are getting it on your own now, and that's what I really have hoped for! But before I say any more, I have something to say:

I apologize to everyone involved foreven suggesting that your questions are not welcome here. I was feeling lazy, overwhelmed with the magnitude of all the information being asked at once, and I just didn't feel like rewriting the manual in here, even though that's typically sort of what I do. It is much better, though, when everyone is contributing and not just asking.

Benmrx, your post above that shows how much you've learned about using automation is a real bright light! I hope others will follow your lead.

In the other thread, the one about the grid, I have contributed a similar but slightly longer essay on using the pencil tool and the grid. I hope that will count toward penance for having set such a bad example here on what should be considered the flagship of all DP websites. I should have just written that in the first place.

But if the upshot is that you guys are grabbing this stuff yourselves and turning it around and helping others, then maybe the results weren't all bad.

By the way, you guys might get something out of the post in the Tips Sheet regarding the making of Automation and Control Points.

Best wishes to all, and happy Digital Performing,

Shooshie

[Kubi]

Don't think anybody here questioned the incredible range of automation drawing tools - DP is by far the best-equipped DAW in that regard. I use them all the time, they're AWESOME. (In fact it's in a list of DP advantages over the competition that I sometimes post on forums around the web when folks ask what are advantages of certain DAWs over others...)

Still doesn't change the fact that asking for a "re-assign" tool to be able to *perform* any and all automation parameters with a live controller makes perfect sense, certainly does for me, and would be a very cool and musical addition to DP's feature set.

For those who aren't missing the ability to perform automation data with an external controller, well, uh, good for you... Some of us would still like to see it...

[erikjamesmusic]

One more thing I'm hoping someone can clarify as I'm setting up a new template in DP7.2:

There is no automation in V-Racks, correct? In other words, if I want to automate a VI parameter in any way, that VI can NOT be in a V-Rack, correct? If this is true, and given the fact that I want to work with VI automation freely, then I should host my VIs in my Sequence, right? Is there any disadvantage to hosting VIs in my Sequence, other than if I'm using multiple Sequences in a project? (like CPU issues...)

I hope this was clear.

[Shooshie]

Any VI that accepts automation will receive it in the V-Rack as well as anywhere else. It's just based on MIDI controllers.

Shoosh

[erikjamesmusic]

Really? The manual says, in regards to V-Racks: "They do not hold track data or automation."

When I have a VI loaded in my V-Rack and click Snapshot, an alert pops up saying "V-racks have no time dimension and cannot be directly automated". Also, there's no automate dropdown list on the top right of my VIs when hosting them in V-racks. Am I an idiot here? what am i missing?

[Kubi]

You're not missing anything. Folks keep mixing up MIDI data with (direct host-based) automation. Automation data can NOT be sent to V-Racks, since automation data lives in the time dimension in instrument tracks, and V-Racks do not have a time dimenstion. Obviously you *can* send MIDI data to V-Racks using a MIDI track targeted to the VI in the V-Rack, and you may be able to automate some or even all parameters that way, depending on the plug. But you can not send DP's automation to VIs or plugs hosted in a V-Rack.

And there's no disadvantage to keeping VIs or plug-ins in the sequence. The main reason you want to use V-Racks is if you have multiple sequences in a project targeting the same set of VIs or plug-ins (i.e. pre-mixed in Aux tracks) and you want to avoid reloading every time you switch, or duplicating sample data if you combine sequences in a song. But for a single-sequence project keeping all VIs in the same sequence is often times more convenient than using V-racks.

[erikjamesmusic]

Thanks, Kubi. Goodbye, V-Racks...

[Shooshie]

Kubi's right, and I apologize for responding when I had to run out the door to take my wife somewhere. I intended to come back and clarify that, but I'm just now getting back to the forum. Also, like Kubi, I don't use V-Racks when there's just one sequence in a file. Not much advantage to V-Racks then, unless you just happen to have it set up that way in a sequence you're using as a template.

Since I almost always have multiple sequences, I almost always use V-Racks, and since MIDI automation is all that works, I sometimes forget about MOTU plugin automation also being an option for VI's if you just use them in the sequence. But I really did mean to come back and differentiate that point later. Sorry for the confusion.

Shoosh

[Kubi]

Thanks, Kubi. Goodbye, V-Racks...

You're welcome! But don't knock V-Racks completely... when you *have* multiple sequences in a project they can be an AMAZING, life-saving feature... and more often than not I find I *can* use MIDI for automation in those situations.

[erikjamesmusic]

Cool. I think while setting up this template I'll keep my VIs in my sequence by default until the need comes to have multiple sequences. Then, I can easily throw my VIs into a vrack and continue. It's not as easy to have them in vrack by default and transfer them OUT of the vrack into a sequence.