Hey everyone! I had a quick question which I'm sure has been answered somewhere before, but I couldn't find another thread. Sorry if this is a repeat.

When I'm mixing, I'll often use volume envelopes on a number of tracks. The envelopes themselves are of course very useful, but man are they a pain when you're trying to turn the volume of all of your tracks down at once. If there were no volume envelopes I would simple hold down CTRL+Shift and select all of the tracks I wanted to alter the volume on. Then I would hold down CTRL as I adjusted the volume using one of the faders. This would cause all of them to move up or down by the same amount. The ones with the volume envelopes can't be adjusted this way and I find myself having to manually move the envelopes on each track separately, one by one. This itself is rather bothersome, but the worst problem is when I have a perfect mix (in terms of relative volume of tracks) and all I want to do is bring all of the tracks down by a certain amount to give myself some more room before I bounce them all down for mastering. What happens is, I'll have already moved all of the tracks' faders by some amount, and then realizing afterwards that I have tracks with envelopes that now have to be adjusted separately, but I can't remember exactly by how many dB I adjusted the faders. Suddenly my perfect volume balance has to be redone since you can't use "undo" for fader adjustments. 

Anyway, if any of you have any techniques to help make this type of adjustment easier, I'd be really grateful. Thank you!

Check out offset mode in the documentation. This is designed specifically to do what you want; it's a feature I use all the time.
 
The example given might be somewhat confusing, so here's mine: If you go into offset mode and pull down a track's fader by 3dB, the envelope won't change but that track's level will be pulled down by 3dB. Think of it as a "master volume control" for the automation. IF you go out of offset mode, the setting will be retained.
 
You can offset up to a maximum of 6dB, and a minimum of -infinity dB. 
 
Also read all the way through to the end for the section on displaying envelopes as a percentage. This is somewhat esoteric but can be helpful.
 

Anderton
Check out offset mode in the documentation. This is designed specifically to do what you want; it's a feature I use all the time.
 
The example given might be somewhat confusing, so here's mine: If you go into offset mode and pull down a track's fader by 3dB, the envelope won't change but that track's level will be pulled down by 3dB. Think of it as a "master volume control" for the automation. IF you go out of offset mode, the setting will be retained.
 
You can offset up to a maximum of 6dB, and a minimum of -infinity dB. 
 
Also read all the way through to the end for the section on displaying envelopes as a percentage. This is somewhat esoteric but can be helpful.
 

Thank you very much! You're always full of useful knowledge. I'll check that out :)

Oh, one more thing: You can Quick Group the faders in offset mode so that changing one changes the others equally. This is good if you want to bring down everything by a certain amount.
 
Quick Group is one of Sonar's truly great features.
 

Another thing I've found useful to adjust Volume Envelopes rather than Offset mode, is to select the whole Volume Envelope, and drag the whole volume envelope level all at once. 
 
In Track View, with the automation lane turned ON, there is a "sweet spot" just to the left of the automation read button (R). When you click in the blank space there it turns red, and selects the whole envelope.
Then, while holding the SHIFT key, the entire envelope can be dragged up or down in small increments. (Using Select tool, not Smart tool)
 
Even better, if you turn on all your automation lanes, and select multiple tracks using that "sweet spot" (by holding down Control key) . . . multiple Automation Volume Envelopes can be adjusted.
 
I use this quite often, when I need to tweak the levels of tracks after volume envelopes are already in place.

And while we're on the subject...if you position the smart tool just below the top of the automation lane, dragging up and down changes the envelope level. And if you follow noynekkar's tip about control-clicking the sweet spot (although I do think he means turn blue, not red...yes?), you can adjust multiple automation curves simultaneously.
 
 

Anderton
And while we're on the subject...if you position the smart tool just below the top of the automation lane, dragging up and down changes the envelope level. And if you follow noynekkar's tip about control-clicking the sweet spot (although I do think he means turn blue, not red...yes?), you can adjust multiple automation curves simultaneously.
 
 

Turns red for me, since I've never been a fan of the Cakewalk Blue / Grey colour scheme.
 . . . but hey, didn't know about the Smart Tool positioned above the automation lane, that's even better, faster, thanks for that !

Or you could use busses...  Do all the automation on the individual tracks and send each track (or group of related tracks, guitars, keys, drums, etc) to busses where the overall level is set.

Karyn
Or you could use busses...  Do all the automation on the individual tracks and send each track (or group of related tracks, guitars, keys, drums, etc) to busses where the overall level is set.

Absolutely!
 
Regards,
Dan

Karyn
Or you could use busses...  Do all the automation on the individual tracks and send each track (or group of related tracks, guitars, keys, drums, etc) to busses where the overall level is set.

 You know, after posting this I was thinking about that. I've heard people talk about a "Pre-Master Bus". I was never really sure what that would be good for. But actually, I could route all of my tracks or groups of tracks to individual busses as I always do. But instead of having all of those busses go to the master bus, I could have them all go to a pre-master bus and then have that go to the master bus. That way I can easily adjust the overall volume of the tracks without affecting their relative volume to each other. 

Are there any other good reasons to have a pre-master bus? To people who use one, what kinds of things go on on it?