Can anyone help me with volume automation options?

[LazerBeakShiek]

Nothing in front of the input.

Except like tube screamers and OD's , Wah wah's , some modulations, or Compressor pedals.

Once you get everything working right, it all comes together.

 

[TimOD]

I have a friend who does this routinely. We both use cubase and we send stuff to each other to work on. He is a guitarist, i might get 100 guitar tracks, each little twangy bit on a new track. A three minute track with two seconds of guitar. Many even have their own eq for that short bit. I just cannot work with that many tracks, so my first job is to find the ones with the same eq and effects and move them to one new track ‘guitar with fx1’. Then i do the same on the others. 100 guitar tracks down to maybe ten? I can work with that. He also has hundreds of plugins active. For me, i hate hearing something and not being able to see it. Scrolling down through so many tracks is awful. Volume matching is then also way, way easier and no automatic levelling needed.

Why on Earth would someone do that? (I mean your friend the guitar player.)

 

[rob aylestone]

I really dont know. Perhaps its because they never used tape? Zooming out, my way of working is very much like the tracks on a tape. If i record at the start of the song, then the middle and the end, i always join up the three clips into one track. My friend would have one track for each recording, so his guitar tracks might easily be thirty or forty!

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

i always join up the three clips into one track. My friend would have one track for each recording, so his guitar tracks might easily be thirty or forty!

Yeah, I can easily get to 30-40 tracks getting a song down in my DAW. It happens.

 

[TimOD]

I really dont know. Perhaps its because they never used tape? Zooming out, my way of working is very much like the tracks on a tape. If i record at the start of the song, then the middle and the end, i always join up the three clips into one track. My friend would have one track for each recording, so his guitar tracks might easily be thirty or forty!

I've never used tape, and I do have fragments of guitars sometimes, but never is there more than ten guitar tracks (and that's a lot to me) in one song. Many, many little pieces of tracks, whether guitar or voice or whatever, just really gets out of hand and out of control very easily. I've rarely had songs with more than 45 tracks, and that's including AUX sends--there's usually ten of those--and busses. There's usually 6 or so busses. While I've never used tape, there's something to be said for the old ways, where one was limited to 16 or 24 tracks. I try to keep things down track-wise, because I know it leads to massive aggravation at the end.

 

[Dusty Ol' Bones]

I really dont know. Perhaps its because they never used tape? Zooming out, my way of working is very much like the tracks on a tape. If i record at the start of the song, then the middle and the end, i always join up the three clips into one track. My friend would have one track for each recording, so his guitar tracks might easily be thirty or forty!

Now I am way at the bottom of the noob totem pole, so what I say may not be accurate at all.

I use Cakewalk and I thought there was a setting somewhere that would allow you to control what happens when you stop recording and then start again. I have it set where the second start stays on the same track, it's just split where the break was. I think there is a setting where, instead, each time you stop recording and start again, it bumps the new clip onto a new track.

Or maybe I'm getting all this confused with the video editing software I use. The two programs have some similarities and mostly big differences.

 

[TimOD]

Now I am way at the bottom of the noob totem pole, so what I say may not be accurate at all.

I use Cakewalk and I thought there was a setting somewhere that would allow you to control what happens when you stop recording and then start again. I have it set where the second start stays on the same track, it's just split where the break was. I think there is a setting where, instead, each time you stop recording and start again, it bumps the new clip onto a new track.

Or maybe I'm getting all this confused with the video editing software I use. The two programs have some similarities and mostly big differences.

You should be able to record to any track at any time by selecting the track's inputs. If guitar is coming in on, say, input 13, then it should be a simple matter to route input 13 to any track that's in the arranger or mixer in Cakewalk. I don't use Cakewalk, but I'm sure you can do this--it's a very common thing in a DAW. You seem to be saying that a "second start" (take) records on the same track as a previous take. In Samplitude, that 1st take stays put, and the new take is recorded "over" the previous take, unless I change the destination of the input, or move the "clip." The original is kept, automatically, and it can be retrieved using a Take Manager. I can take that "clip" (an "object" in Samp talk) and move it to any track I want at any time by dragging it and dropping it anywhere, or copying it, etc.