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

Yes, I'll do something with all the details for the Friday tip. It will be a video with captions for each step.  

gheesh .....forgot all about Melodyne. Of course that should be the tool of choice I would imagine. I'll try both ways when I get back to the music computer.. Thanks for all the help. Great forum don't you think?😊

Sanderxpander
 
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...[snip]...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?

I usually use Melodyne (see above). However if the vocal only needs a few touch-ups, I sometimes use destructive gain for a couple reasons. 
 
1. After a song is done, I export every track as a WAV audio file to have a fail-safe backup suitable for being opened in any DAW, now or in the future. Adding gain to a track that's reaching the limit of its available headroom won't cause clipping during playback within SONAR, but will clip when exported because the extra gain is applied as part of the rendering process. Of course I could always exempt the export from automation, but then the clip will not follow the correct levels.
2. For vocals that only need a little bit of a touch up, I have Normalize (not always set to 0, of course) and Gain Change on keyboard shortcuts. So the clickstream to make one predictable change is: Click+drag to define area to be normalized, keyboard shortcut, enter. 
 

Because as you know, clip gain is pre-fx, it makes little sense to use it as actual automation most of the time.

 
Actually being pre-FX is why I do use it for automation. Clip automation makes it easy to fine-tune the amount of drive with distortion, as well as hit a compressor a little harder or a little softer. 

scottfa
gheesh .....forgot all about Melodyne. Of course that should be the tool of choice I would imagine.

 
Please note that functionality is not in Essential, which is the version that ships with SONAR and Studio One, so that may be why Jeff is hung up on using traditional gain changes. However IMHO the upgrade is from Essential to Studio is worth it for myriad reasons, not just easy vocal leveling.
 
Of course there's also Waves' Vocal Rider...there are many ways to skin this particular cat, choose the one that's most comfortable for you. 
 

Anderton

Sanderxpander
 
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...[snip]...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?

I usually use Melodyne (see above). However if the vocal only needs a few touch-ups, I sometimes use destructive gain for a couple reasons. 
 
1. After a song is done, I export every track as a WAV audio file to have a fail-safe backup suitable for being opened in any DAW, now or in the future. Adding gain to a track that's reaching the limit of its available headroom won't cause clipping during playback within SONAR, but will clip when exported because the extra gain is applied as part of the rendering process. Of course I could always exempt the export from automation, but then the clip will not follow the correct levels.
2. For vocals that only need a little bit of a touch up, I have Normalize (not always set to 0, of course) and Gain Change on keyboard shortcuts. So the clickstream to make one predictable change is: Click+drag to define area to be normalized, keyboard shortcut, enter. 
 

Because as you know, clip gain is pre-fx, it makes little sense to use it as actual automation most of the time.

 
Actually being pre-FX is why I do use it for automation. Clip automation makes it easy to fine-tune the amount of drive with distortion, as well as hit a compressor a little harder or a little softer. 

Well yes you COULD use clip gain to regulate the drive to distortion and compression more but that strikes me as a rather specific/unique use for it. I don't mean to argue who is using a feature more "as intended" than the other person but I dare say it's not so strange to want to use clip gain to even out clip levels and track volume automation for volume automation. This is the way it works in most DAWs. After all, if  you want to automate clip gain to drive distortion/compression you could just as easily automate the gain on your distortion/compression plugin.
 
I realize, again, that there are ways around the limited amount of gain you can get from clip gain automation but it would certainly be useful for those of use that use clip gain to even out clips to increase the boost range. I don't recall if this is a standard shortcut but CTRL+B is bounce to clips for me, I could even use that to destructively alter clip gain really quickly if the envelope allowed me a bigger range. That would allow for almost the same workflow you have right now except that you could quickly drag the desired amount up or down (or even an envelope) and bounce it for a destructive edit.
 
Melodyne is an interesting choice, I should try it more often for these duties. It's not always just a vocal though, and not always on a per note basis, so again the use is pretty specific.

Does Melodyne Assistant have the functionality needed? If, not does Melodyne Editor? Cannot see me affording Melodyne Studio.

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. But that's something for the feature request forum. 
 
Thanks for the video, I'll check it out.

To me, this is like gain staging... stage the gain before using clip gain. Ha ha. I like the range of clip gain. Maybe I'm just used to it.

I suppose there are cases where I split a clip around a range and normalize it into range with fast fades around the clip boundaries.

Would it be better without those fast fades? Maybe, but I've never been able to hear it. Even after I mix it, listening later I have no idea where I did it.

Sanderxpander
 
Well yes you COULD use clip gain to regulate the drive to distortion and compression more but that strikes me as a rather specific/unique use for it.

 
Well it strikes me that way, too
 

After all, if  you want to automate clip gain to drive distortion/compression you could just as easily automate the gain on your distortion/compression plugin.

 
True, but if you want to try a different amp, you can't always assume the drive control will be mapped the same way.
 

I dare say it's not so strange to want to use clip gain to even out clip levels and track volume automation for volume automation.

 
Not strange at all, I just happen to prefer making destructive edits for the practical reason cited above re: exporting, and because when I use it as described for touch-ups with normalization and key commands, I can do it faster.
 
There's also a more abstract reason; if something needs to be changed, I like to bake it into the track. The fewer audio elements that are dependent on a particular DAW, the more transportable it will be if you have to open it up in something else, or re-visit it years later. Having been in this business a long time, I realize I should have made this a priority much longer ago. Live and learn...for example I also render all my Melodyne tracks after making any changes, and convert soft synths to audio. 
 

Melodyne is an interesting choice, I should try it more often for these duties. It's not always just a vocal though, and not always on a per note basis, so again the use is pretty specific.

 
Percussive mode is very different. It's also what allows you to transpose entire chords, even if you're only using Essential. Based on your description of how you like to work, I think you might find Melodyne "the best of all worlds."
 

maybe this could be talked about in the new cake tv that Dan is doing

thornton
maybe this could be talked about in the new cake tv that Dan is doing

Full details in tomorrow's Tip of the Week. Stay tuned...