Hi folks! I just learned about using clip gain automation and took my first run at it a few nights ago on a lead vocal track before I finished it up with compression. It worked fantastic! My question is that I have a folder that has like 6 tracks of gang background vocals chants yelling "Hey Hey Hey". A few measures later the same tracks have a softer "Oooooo" type of harmony. I need to bring the heys down and the oooos up so they match more in volume, (then I'll do some final adjustment with a compressor).
Can I apply one clip gain automation lane to the folder so I can adjust all 6 tracks in the folder at once? Or do I have to go into each track and apply the clip gain automation? Should I bounce the 6 tracks to a stereo stack and then apply the clip gain automation to the newly bounced tracks?
 
 

No, there's no applying automation to folders, and if there were, it wouldn't be clip gain. Clip gain is for adjusting individual clips in one track (and easily having automation move with a clip).  And I could be wrong, but I don't think the "clip groups" will allow you to apply the same envelope to each all at once, so clip gain shouldn't even be part of the discussion.
 
So your options are to create the envelope on one track, and copy it to the others or route them all to a bus, and put the envelope on the bus. But if you're going to have individual FX on the the tracks, and you need the level to be corrected before going into those FX, you'll need to use copied envelopes on the tracks.

Ah yes the overlooked (by me) copy and past of the gain enevelope onto the other tracks after I create the first one. Excellent!
Genius and super simple. Then I should be able to select all of the clips and by adjusting one clip's "red bar" automation level from the first track it should move the others up and down accordingly (you have to hold down Ctrl while adjusting).... Right?

I didn't think it was possible to quick-group automation for editing the way you're describing. I just tried it briefly, and was able to drag whole automation envelopes up and down together, but not group-edit individual nodes. But I might be I'm missing some clever modifier/gesture that allows it.

Thank you brundlefly,
I picked up doing this technique from the groove3.com's "mixing with sonar" video (Excellent video BTW.). I was too busy initially digesting the concept of this type of automation to get all of the details I now need. I'll revisit it tonight to see if he mentioned anything about it.

A "Background Vocals" bus, with bus automation, is perfect for what you are trying to do.  Adjust levels on tracks or clips to get the right balance among all the backing vocals, then use automation on the bus to adjust the overall volume for different sections of the song.

Nice! That does seem much easier than trying to adjust the individual clips all at the same time. I had totally forgotten about automation on the buss.