[LAD] automation on Linux (modular approach)

[Tim E. Real]

On March 19, 2010 06:33:32 pm fons at kokkinizita.net wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 10:54:24PM +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> > fons at kokkinizita.net wrote:
> > >And don't forget that 90% of all music that is still
> > >popular today has been produced without any form of
> > >automation, and even without the editing facilities
> > >that e.g. Ardour provides - just using 16 or 24-track
> > >tapes (and in many cases even less). If you can't do
> > >a decent fade-out manually you just have to learn and
> > >do it. Agreed, it's easier with a real P&G fader than
> > >with one you have to move by mouse.
> >
> > Full ACK and IMO it's not up to the audio engineer to fade, but it's
> > the task of the musician to play the instrument dynamically. In most
> > cases an audio engineer makes a mix that is kept for a whole song,
> > loud and silent passages are done by the artist, not by the
> > technician.
>
> That's certainly true for most of the music I love,
> but OTOH in practice as an audio engineer you are
> supposed to solve problems created by circumstances
> out of your control. If a singer wants to redo one
> phrase of song and it ends up being a few dB louder
> than the rest you'll have to accept that - you can't
> ask to do it again just because of that. 
My problem exactly. Two takes are often not played the same way at the
 same volume, especially considering the volume of each note played, 
 compared to another track. Also, guitarists like to double-track.

Ralf is saying, if you flub a note, you haven't mastered your part!
A recording is: The artist plays, you record. End of story. 
It's a much more 'live' affair, like recording an orchestra for example.
Tweaking notes! That's for pop, eh?

It's only Rock and Roll... But I like it... Like it... Yes I do... 
Solos are hard. Sometimes many takes, just to get that bad note or phrase.
So I do need cross-fading (and other automation goodies). 
So in MusE it is supplied via audio automation. I agree it is a pain having to 
 input the events. There may be some advances on this front coming soon from 
 Robert... I hope...

> But it's no
> big deal. Either you just remember to push the fader
> at the right time, or today, using Ardour, you can
> just cut out that fragment and move it to a separate
> track with its own EQ and level. I find this a lot
> easier than using automation.
In MusE you can leave the fragment alone and just do some automation 
 tweaking for it, or move the fragment as you say to its own track with 
 a different volume, but you must supply any desired cross-fade automation 
 events, it's not as advanced as Ardour.
>
> Ciao,