Quote:
Originally Posted by
henriquestaino
โก๏ธ
Mattias, I know you are very experienced, as opposed to me who is akin to a baby in the post universe. Are you saying you are always working with automation when changing track levels (or any other parameters)? I never thought of it that way, but at first it strikes me as a lot of extra work...
would you mind to elaborate?
Thanks!
Yes that's correct. Every track has a volume automation point written at the beginning of the timeline.
My work goes as follows; After loading audio from an AAF onto my template tracks I first edit dialog and production sound. As I edit I get level in the ballpark using clip gain at first, I apply EQ and cleanup as needed, and then I level the clip(s) out by applying automation. Even though the automation points the faders are "stuck" at "unity" it's ok, because dialog target level is clear in post for TV and I'm close to it using clip level. So I use automation
Touch + Trim to ride levels. All faders thus 'offset' unity gain up and down using trim. The faders aren't following automation and the whole procedure doesn't make it "feel" like they're "locked".
Then after all that is done as well as sfx and music editing I can do a mix pass on the whole show which means balancing music & fx under dialog. In this case, because of deliverables, I typically switch automation (all tracks "global") to "Latch". With "latch" on I then write automation of the rest, although I occasionally switch between that and the other automation modes (Touch, Trim and Crossover mainly).
So because of what I do my 'experience' isn't that the faders are "locked" or that it's a lot of extra work or cumbersome or anything, it actually all makes sense.
One type of exception is if I have for example a scene where backgrounds need to be balanced statically and I choose to not use clip-gain for it and instead use faders. In that case I engage Preview, Touch, Fill To Loop, set the loop range across the scene, and press play. I have a macro for that. When Nuendo plays back the faders can move to any point with no restriction because the automation system is set to "Preview". And once I'm happy with the balance I just press "Punch" and automation is written within that loop range. So again it doesn't feel like faders are locked when I'm actually using them.
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I know from my past in music mixing that it's of course a bit different. If I wanted to just balance out a drum kit plus percussion plus bass for example I'd want faders to be "free". One way to get around this if you have an automation point at the start of the timeline is to enable Fill To both Start and End. If you punch automatically when you release the fader, and lock the fill options, what will (should?) happen is basically that the faders move without restriction and the automation point(s) just follow accordingly. They're now being written as you touch the faders, but the faders offer no restriction.
If you haven't already I recommend looking into assigning key commands (and macros if needed) to your automation options and getting used to switching between them. Speeds up work a lot.