The ability to automate mixer and plugin parameters is among the greatest gifts bestowed upon the modern producer by the software DAW. Here are some suggestions as to how you can use it to your artistic advantage…

Master And Group Bus Control

The ebb and flow of dynamics throughout a track – building for the chorus, dropping back a touch for the verse, etc – play an important and often under-appreciated role in its overall effectiveness and sonic appeal, and automation gives you the means to really take control of that energy profile. At the most basic level, a 1-2dB master fader boost as you hit the chorus can ratchet up the excitement nicely; but apply the same thinking to group busses and individual tracks, and a range of ear-grabbing possibilities becomes apparent. Instrumental solos, drum fills and chorus vocals are obvious candidates for elevation; and as well as volume, consider automating EQ settings, too, for tonal emphasis – sharpening the snare in the bridge, separating keyboards and vocals at key frequencies, etc. Keep such adjustments subtle, though: the listener should appreciate these shifts in focus without consciously realising that they’re happening.

Laser-Targeted Dynamics

Taking the previous tip down to a more microscopic level, if your plugin compressor or de-esser isn’t getting the dynamics of a particular part where you want them to be, the unrivalled manual control of volume automation always will. Sure, drawing precise volume changes through an entire vocal performance to attenuate sibilance, plosives and overly loud sections, or shape the ‘attack’ and ‘release’ of single words and syllables, might be a time consuming process, but when you really need to get into the details, it can be far more fruitful than having a plugin do it for you.

Transient shaping plugins are similarly substitutable with volume automation. Bring out the snare in a drum track exactly when and by how much you want, for example, or dial down the tail of a printed synth bassline to emphasise the attack on a note-by-note basis. Again, no volume modulation plugin can compete with a freely editable automation track for precision and accuracy when it comes to this sort of thing – although it does come at the cost of convenience and speed, of course.

Automating Effects

One of the most compelling use cases for automation is animating effects plugins, whether in the interest of bringing individual parts to life, or working alongside master and bus volume automation to steer the overall energy of the track. Toggle bypass buttons or tweak dry/wet mix levels to spin delay and reverb shots into the mix; turn delay effects into dubby soundscapes with feedback, delay time and filter automation; crank up the overdrive on a guitar amp sim to energise a solo; draw your own tremolo, vibrato and auto-panning ‘modulations’; automate mix/depth levels to contour the processing as the track progresses… The only limit, as they say, is your imagination.

Morphing Synthesisers

Automation isn’t just about mixing and effects – it’s also a powerful tool for sound design. Some synths feature built-in systems for smoothly transitioning their parameters between two discrete states, but for truly complex, endlessly manipulable patch morphing, automation is the way to go. We’re not just talking about opening the filter up through a chorus or build, but rather, designing elaborate simultaneous sweeps of multiple controls, drawn and edited with the goal of creating a captivating morph from one sound into another.

You might, for example, start with a simple string patch, and transform it over any number of bars into an epic rising pad by automating oscillator shape and pitch, unison detune, filter cutoff and resonance, LFO rate and amount, effects depths and anything else you can get your hands on. And the advantage of automation over integrated morphing controls is that parameter changes can be entirely non-linear, and disconnected from each other in terms of start/end points, timing and rhythm, thereby enabling a degree of flexibility and control that no morph-capable synth can match on its own.

Use A MIDI Controller

If you’ve been making music since the good old days, when the only way to automate a mix was to record manually performed level changes into a suitably equipped digital hardware mixer, you’ll know that getting properly hands-on with those faders is much more fun and engaging than dragging them around with your mouse, or drawing automation curves directly into the arrange page. Bring back that sense of tactile authenticity by assigning the knobs and/or faders on your MIDI controller keyboard – or a dedicated mix controller such as the Akai MIDIMix, Behringer X-Touch or Mackie Control Universal Pro – to the mixer in your DAW and/or selected plugin parameters, and using them to record all your automation by hand.

Not only does capturing automation in this way yield less rigid, more ‘human’ results than drawing it straight in with a pen tool, but it also, of course, allows for the recording of multiple parameter moves at once – something obviously not possible with a mouse.

Know Your Automation Modes

Having realised the benefits of recording automation with a MIDI controller, you’re really going to need to get a handle on the various automation modes offered by your DAW. Consulting the manual will be necessary here, and DAWs vary in which modes they offer, but here’s a quick summary…

In Latch mode, the value of the knob or fader being automated stays where it is when you release it – you could kind of think of this as ‘default’ automation writing behaviour. Touch mode, on the other hand, snaps the parameter back to the value it started at (or follows pre-existing automation if there is any) when you release it, and so is ideal for making brief corrective changes – momentarily ducking a guitar out of the way of a vocal interjection, say. Write mode overwrites all automation for the parameter in question as the playhead progresses through the track, and doesn’t have much utility beyond erasing sections. And finally, Read mode simply sets the track to play back the automation thereon – don’t forget to switch to that one when you’re done recording.

Share your effects-related production techniques in the comments.

Photo by James Owen on Unsplash