Automation

Showing lanes

Toggle Automation Mode with its view button (or the A key). While it's on:

• Touching any fader, pan, or device knob reveals that parameter's lane on its track (click-to-reveal). A parameter with no automation yet still reveals as a flat line at its current value, immediately editable.
• Each track header grows a target dropdown under its name bar showing the active parameter; click it to pick any automatable target.

What can be automated: track volume (in dB) and pan; every device-chain scalar the chain exposes — compressor threshold, saturator drive, send levels, gain, width, limiter parameters, EQ band frequency/gain/Q, gate and de-esser thresholds, and so on; and rack macros. The Master has its own automatable lanes. Device-parameter rides are evaluated inside the native engine itself, so what you hear live is exactly what the export renders.

Editing points

• Click the envelope — add a point.
• Drag a point — move it (grid-snapped; ⌥ bypasses snap; ⇧ constrains to the value axis so you can't accidentally shift timing). A live value readout follows your drag — it belongs to the lane band, so it never strands itself over the ruler or the tempo lane when you leave upward, it follows the cursor along a flat envelope, and leaving Automation Mode takes it with the mode.
• Double-click or ⌥-click a point — delete it.
• A segment is straight by default and can be bent — see Curved segments below. (There is still no automation clipboard.)

While Automation Mode is on, the crosshair appears only where a press really would edit an envelope. Everywhere else the ordinary clip cursors are back — clip moves, trim edges and fade handles all still work in Automation Mode, and the pointer says so again.

Draw Mode

Toggle the pencil and drag across a lane to sketch:

• With snap on, drawing lays flat steps per grid cell (a stair-step draw), replacing whatever the stroke crosses.
• Hold ⌥ for continuous freehand.

Recording rides

Arm automation on a track (the automation.record toggle, or the Arm button in the arrange-tools row), press play, and move a fader: the ride is written as points at the playhead — audible immediately, visible live in the lane, and part of the export. A new ride replaces what the lane had across the span you write; nothing before the point where you grabbed the fader changes.

Record mode — right-click the Arm button (or Preferences ▸ Recording ▸ Automation record) to choose how a ride ends:

• Touch — writes only while you hold the fader; on release the lane glides back onto whatever was written before.
• Latch (default) — writes from your first move until the transport stops, holding the last value after you let go.
• Write — from the moment playback starts, every write-armed fader lays down its current value; releasing a fader punches that track out.

Curved segments

Every segment between two points has a shape: straight by default, or bent. In Automation Mode, ⌥-drag on a segment (away from its points) to bend it — the curve follows the cursor at the segment's midpoint, so pulling toward the line's bulge bends it that way on a rising or a falling segment alike. Positive shapes hold, then move late; negative ones move at once, then settle. Both lane kinds bend: fader/pan and device rides. The agent can bend a segment too (automation.set_curve).

Overrides and Re-Enable

Moving a fader by hand while its lane has automation (and you're not armed+playing) overrides the ride — you're in manual control from that moment. Two lamps tell you:

• The AUTO lamp on the transport bar lights jade whenever any lane is overridden; click it to re-enable everything.
• A Re-Enable icon in the arrangement's head band lights for the same state.

Re-enabling snaps playback back to the written automation.

Automation vs clip gain

These are independent: clip gain is a single per-clip scalar (Normalize, the Audio Clip View's GAIN well, or clip.gain) that scales that clip uniformly; volume automation is a time-varying ride on the track. Use clip gain to level material, automation to perform.

The agent and automation

The agent reads every lane (including which parameters are automatable on each track) and writes rides through the same commands (automation.write, automation.clear) — a buried-lead vocal ride is a one-sentence request. Its moves land in the same undo stack as yours.