PT automation volume question

[jman1986]

hey guys,

Just curious to see what users of pro tools do when you automate a section of a track within a song (volume automation), and when it comes time to change volumes of multipule tracks at once.

What i mean is lets say i automate 5 out of the 25 tracks i have and the master fader is hitting pretty high, in PT when u click on the "all" button on the left menu side and it selects all the tracks, you can bring them all down together. The 20 tracks that are not automated move down, but the 5 that are automated stay where they are.

How do I change that so when i bring my master fader down with all the tracks selected (even the automated ones) ALL the tracks move down together and the automation just gets re adjusted?

It's quiet easy what i am trying to explain, i just hope it doesn't sound to complicated.

thanks in advance!

 

[Mikaël-ange]

2 words: VCA fader

 

[jman1986]

i think VCA faders are only in pt LE and HD, i'm using pt 8 m-powered.

Unless i could use just a stereo aux and group the tracks?

 

[AudioGeekZine]

VCA faders are only in HD or LE/9 with complete production toolkit. (I never upgraded to 9 so I could be off)

The problem is that once the automation is written it has to be manually edited. There are several workarounds for LE/MP systems.
1- view the volume automation for those tracks, use trim tool after the last breakpoint (end of project) to move all breakpoints evenly.
2- insert a trim plugin on each of the tracks and reduce level (shouldn't add much cpu
2- pulling the master fader down actually does the same thing as what you're looking for. Keep in mind it's pre-FX but in this case that's what you want. You can't create a fade out with the master fader automation because it will change the input level to bus compressors or limiters.
3- trim plugin on master fader
4- You can make as many master faders as you need, anything other than the one assigned to your main out can work as a VCA trim. If you drums are output assigned to bus 3-4, you have a master fader for 3-4 and a stereo aux with input set to 3-4. The master will actually adjust the output of the tracks before it goes into the stereo aux. It's floating point math so you can actually remove clipping there.

Choose whichever method works best for you. - Usually I'm so anal about gain staging from the start of the mix that I'd use option 1, I usually automate by trimming anyway.

 

[jman1986]

wow thanks so much man, i'm suprised someone answered me back!

I deff will go with option 1, makes total sense. I'm suprised i didn't think of this eariler!

 

[BLUElightCory]

Yes, go with option 1.

One thing - if you're using busses, don't change the level of the tracks AND the busses. If tracks are being bussed, turn down the bus rather than the tracks.