Just curious really.
 
It doesn't come up very often that I want to automate gain, and when it does, usually clip gain is fine, or alternatively the fudge where you can automate the input on an FX chain PC module.
 
However, both of those only allow +6dB of gain, where the gain control on the channel allows up to +18dB. I'm just working on an unusual case where I could do with having around +15dB on an automation lane.

I can already think of workarounds, so I'm not stuck, just wondering why it's never been something we could automate.

Gain is automatable on buses but not on tracks. I agree that maybe it ought to be. Sometimes you want to vary the level of signal pre-fx rather than just the overall level of the track.

I agree this is something that should be possible but isn't. I don't know why not if it's possible on buses it should be possible on tracks.

Maybe it's designed just to tweak without  affecting the the established automation. 

I suspect it's because of SONAR's signal flow model, which emulates a classic mixing console. You can't automate gain on a hardware console, either.
 
Being able to automate gain, however, is very useful. For example, when doing volume leveling on a vocal track that has a lot of variance in levels. Because you probably have a compressor on the track, automating volume rather than gain doesn't work as well because the loud and quiet parts are hitting the compressor differently.
 
That's why I use a gain plugin (the free gain suite from Blue Cat) inserted at the top of the fx bin for manual leveling.
 
I'm not even sure being able to automate SONAR's gain control would have the same effect, because of where that adjustment sits in the signal flow. On a hardware mixer, the gain control is the very first thing in the signal chain, even before preamps. In SONAR, it's something like the sixth or seventh stage.

I wish the clip gain envelope could go up to +18dB. Or that every clip had a non-destructive blanket gain adjustment that also shows in the waveform, like in ProTools or Ableton (and probably more DAWs). That's really helpful when quickly leveling out tracks. At least I can use Melodyne for that on some things, even if that's kind of the long way around.

bitflipper
I suspect it's because of SONAR's signal flow model, which emulates a classic mixing console. You can't automate gain on a hardware console, either.

Sure, but typically you can't automate EQ, dynamics or effects either, and they've done that. It's that there are so few things in Sonar that you can't automate that makes gain stand out as an odd omission.

Im guessing the reason is because;
 

John T
I'm just working on an unusual case....

 
It probably doesn't come up often enough where they would change it.
You do bring up a good point though John.

Yeah, it's not a real top priority feature.

I'm not at my DAW, but I'm pretty sure you can use Gain Envelopes on audio clips.