Mr Anderton:
That video you provided is at least halfway there!
How do the Nodes get generated? I thought I had to place them but the video shows them being created without all the mouse clicking. It would be nice to see the waveform change though.....
 

scottfa
Mr Anderton: I'll check it out.
what I saw in the video was the user picking an area and then adjusting the gain. No Nodes, and the waveform display shrunk or grew as the gain was changed. Seemed smooth and easy that way......

The display will not shrink or grow as you change the gain, and there's no workaround for that. However, look at the video I posted again. It's only a few seconds. Defining the region creates nodes automatically, and you don't even need to click on them or the automation line to change the gain, just drag while holding a key. I think it's pretty slick.
 
What's more, if you change your mind later and need to return to the automation lane, because the nodes were inserted automatically you can edit the exact same region you had specified originally.

You can drag select along the bottom portion of the clip too, no need to use the time ruler.
 

Anderton

Sanderxpander
I think that first part is a bit of a cop-out :) 
I get where you're coming from and obviously there are easy ways to work around it, but you can't pretend you've never had a situation where it wouldn't be quicker if you could extend the envelope to 9 or 12dB.

 
Actually...no, I've never felt the need to go above 6 dB, and many times I use clip gain more to attenuate than amplify. The reason is that by the time I've gotten to the automation stage, the levels among the clips are pretty consistent so automation is about tweaking levels, not adding lots of gain or attenuation.
 
Standard disclaimer of "This is not to negate that some people would benefit from this function and I am not saying that SONAR is perfect" but I have no need for more gain that what clip automation currently offers, and even then, I rarely need 6 dB. 
 

This must simply be a different approach to evening out clips within a track then. I use the clip gain envelopes mostly for that, and the track volume envelope for actual volume automation. Because as you know, clip gain is pre-fx, it makes little sense to use it as actual automation most of the time. Do you use the destructive gain adjust process for that then? I can't see how that would be in any way quicker than clip gain envelopes. Or maybe some other way that I'm not considering at the moment?

Mr Anderton:
Thanks for the responses. You mentioned " only a few seconds ". Maybe the video got cut off or something, but I see three sections picked and the gain envelope changed but that it. Last for 18 seconds. Also, can you tell me the key combo to do this( alt, shift or whatever)?
thanks.

You need to change the track/lane edit filter to clip envelope/gain using the mouse. On the track header. I believe shift+right click or ctrl+right click switch back and forth between the last two edit filters (eg clip gain envelope and clips). 

By the way......maybe a candidate for friday tips?

Studio One does it the same way as Pro Tools now and it is better to see waveform changes as well.  After a while you can do it by eye quicker again.
 
The actual waveform raw data is still not changing but what you are seeing is temporary changes in clip gains on the arrange window.
 
It is handy being able to add or subtract any amount of gain as well.  I recently recorded a very dynamic female singer and some soft little words within a phrase needed 12 dB or more of boost before they sat well in relation to words either side.  Even the visual height barely changed with that amount of boost but it sounded much better in the music.  Sometimes when you do it by eye that tiny little word ends up too loud in comparison with other words so you have to back it off again to make it natural sounding.  When the waveform height is changing, after a while you learn to get word relationships very right quickly. You miss out on that by editing clip gain via automation alone.  You do have to be slightly careful editing individual words within a phrase anyway. 
 
It is great to edit vocal takes manually like that and with the VU meter of course.  That helps keep everything in line.  All this before your vocal track even hits its processing.  Compressors will be used much more lightly after a good edit like that and they sound better doing it too.
 

scottfa
Mr Anderton:
Thanks for the responses. You mentioned " only a few seconds ". Maybe the video got cut off or something, but I see three sections picked and the gain envelope changed but that it. Last for 18 seconds.

 I meant that the video was only a few seconds, you wouldn't have to sit through a lot to see it happen.

Jeff Evans
Studio One does it the same way as Pro Tools now and it is better to see waveform changes as well.  After a while you can do it by eye quicker again.
 
The actual waveform raw data is still not changing but what you are seeing is temporary changes in clip gains on the arrange window.
 
It is handy being able to add or subtract any amount of gain as well. [etc. etc.]

If evening out vocals is the main reason for using clip gain, I find Melodyne's Percussion algorithm in conjunction with the Amplitude tool generally superior to using clip gain in any program. I wrote an article about how to do this. This is because you can see and hear the level as it's changing, elements like sibilants are already isolated as blobs, and of course you can apply as much or as little gain as you want.