Working with envelopes

Hello again,

I’m still trying to get the hang of this whole DAW thing, and have been running into some difficulties in working with envelopes. When I learned about recording there were no DAWs (digital recording processing and recording was just starting to come out), and there certainly was no digital automation, so this is totally new to me.

I was able to get my first mix done in Sonar, and used automation liberally throughout the project. I was able to record changes in level and panning, and even automate some of the controls in some of the FX processors. I was even able to successfully edit the automation envelopes after the fact. So far, so good. However, it started to give me fits during finishing and mixdown. The first problem I ran into was that, once the envelopes were recorded, I found that I was no longer able to do basic editing to the clips (such as to knock down the gain on a peak). Whenever I tried to select a part of a clip, the cursor would show the three little dots that indicates that it’s ready to edit the envelope, and wouldn’t let me do any editing to the clip itself. I couldn’t figure out how to switch this OFF so that I could do other things, besides editing the envelope.

Then, when mixing down, I realized that I wasn’t able to change the level of a track or bus that had any automated changes in volume. No matter what I did to the fader of that channel or bus, it would revert to the setting of the automation envelope. I couldn’t figure out how to raise or lower the level of the ENTIRE ENVELOPE by a certain amount, to increase or decrease the level of the track while keeping the places where I wanted it to get louder or softer with the envelope. I ended up changing the level of those overall tracks / buses using the gain knob, which seems like a screwy way to mix. There has to be a way to raise or lower the entire envelope by a certain amount, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I finally DID discover the "Offset" function which did what I needed it to do, but I'd still like to know how to change the entire envelope up or down by a given amount.

Speaking of which, coming from the analog era, I’m used to worrying about proper gain staging. I know that an analog signal sounds best at a certain level everywhere in the signal chain, whether it’s at the preamp, or the ins or outs of a processor or whatever. I’m assuming that, in the digital world, this is just an anachronistic idea that no longer has any relevance. Since we’re just dealing with ones and zeros, I suppose it doesn’t really matter if I change the signal three or six db up or down, no matter where it happens in the signal chain (i.e. with the gain knob, the fader, or whatever). It should sound exactly the same no matter where you change things. Is this a correct assumption?

Thanks,
Brad

BLUtunes


Then, when mixing down, I realized that I wasn’t able to change the level of a track or bus that had any automated changes in volume. No matter what I did to the fader of that channel or bus, it would revert to the setting of the automation envelope. I couldn’t figure out how to raise or lower the level of the ENTIRE ENVELOPE by a certain amount, to increase or decrease the level of the track while keeping the places where I wanted it to get louder or softer with the envelope. I ended up changing the level of those overall tracks / buses using the gain knob, which seems like a screwy way to mix. There has to be a way to raise or lower the entire envelope by a certain amount, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I finally DID discover the "Offset" function which did what I needed it to do, but I'd still like to know how to change the entire envelope up or down by a given amount.

You need to enter Offset Mode by pressing the letter O

Look in the help file under "Envelope mode and Offset mode." That will explain it.

BLUtunes


Can anybody tell me how to get out of "envelope editing mode" after an envelope has been created so that I can do basic editing of the clip itself?

Shift+Click anywhere on the clip where there isn't an envelope and you will be in clip editing mode. You can also shift+click an envelope to edit that envelope.

If you're uncomfortable using either offset mode, or moving entire envelopes, you can implement a simple workaround by placing an fx plug like the Sonitus EQ as the last plug in your chain and use the final gain control to raise or lower the entire volume. This si completely in dependfent of your applied automation.

Someone may suggest using the trim at the top of the track, but the problem with this approach is that this directly affects the input level feeding your plugs. For some plugs which don't care about what level they're being driven at, this isn't a problem, but other plugs like compressors which have a threshold control, you'll have to adjust the threshold accordingly.

Which of the two approaches are usually used if you need to change the level of an entire track that has automation in it? I assume that it won't sound any different either way, right?

I would just get my envelope right - then use offset mode to raise or lower everything. I stay in offset mode all the time.


Here's a tip though. Every once in a while it's worth coming out of offset mode and making sure everything is on "0" (except for tracks that have envelopes drawn in). Sometimes when you delete an envelope - a track is set with a volume of -inf db (ie no sound). You can fix this by coming out of offset mode and putting the track vol back to 0db.

I keep forgetting that it's the O key for offset mode - as it was different in SONAR 8.5.3...

John and Josh, great feedback! Thanks for the pointers.

I'm not sure that I understood Josh's approach. So, you're saying that I can go into Offset mode, do all the automation that I need there, and then switch to regular mode and be able to raise or lower the individual channel faders without them automatically "snapping to" the envelope settings? I either need to do that or get used to doing the mixing in offset mode. Like you said, it seems like one way of doing it is just the inverse of the other. I'd just have to decide which way feels more "natural for my work flow."