On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 3:16 PM, Tim E. Real <termtech(a)rogers.com> wrote:
I disagree.
Automation, especially audio automation, is extremely important.
Some examples:
When recording real musicians playing real instruments, you don't just
record one take, you record several takes, then pick the best one and
use the others to patch up the odd mistakes within the best take.
Without automation, it is impossible to do this.
It is easy to say "just cut and paste the corrected takes into the best take",
but this is not good because you cannot just place the tail end of one
wave up against the beginning of another wave - you will get a 'pop'.
(Advanced apps might do the joining for you, with averaging or filtering).
With audio automation, you do a quick, but not sudden, fade out of the
best take at the correction point, and simultaneously do a quick,
but not sudden, fade in of the corrected take. Then you do the reverse
when the end of the corrected take arrives.
This makes the transitions sound smoother.
You can do all of this in Ardour *without* automation.
--p