Beginner music producers may initially be wary of using automation in digital audio workstations such as Cubase, Reaper, Logic, and others. It seems mysterious and sometimes even completely baffling. Home studio producers will often procrastinate with learning about automation. They’ll put it off for years while the industry changes around them. People even resort to outdated recording techniques just so they don't have to deal with automation subtracks. Meanwhile, these tools can actually save tons of time during music production.
Automation in DAWs is a great gift given to us by developers of music software. In the golden age of pop music in the 1960s and 1970s, producers and sound engineers had to physically manipulate faders and twist knobs on mixing consoles during recordings or overdubs to achieve simple effects like panning sounds from left to right, increasing volume, or creating frequency cutoff effects. Back then, analog mixer consoles lacked memory devices; these were invented at the end of the 1970s.
Legend has it that Brian Wilson, the iconic musician, composer, arranger, singer, and all-around genius behind The Beach Boys, would enlist anyone who was present in the studio to turn knobs on the console during recording and mixing sessions. One story even says that once Wilson invited cleaning ladies to operate the controls under his supervision, resulting in a whole crowd gathered around the console moving various controls. We can't confirm the part about the cleaning ladies, but the stories circulated because, according to colleagues' recollections, back then, Wilson was willing to take any path—even the most eccentric ones—to reach his producing goals.
Fortunately, modern musicians don’t have to deal with such studio tribulations. They’re still reluctant to fully embrace automation, though. What exactly frightens them about automation? We believe a lot of it is based simply on the visual complexity and perceived overload of the project window in a DAW when a producer starts actively utilizing automation capabilities.
Let’s look at just one quick example. If we take the free soft synth Surge XT and apply only volume automation, frequency cutoff (using the built-in DAW equalizer), and reverb automation (built into the synth itself) to a relatively simple musical part, we already get an intimidating visual picture in our project. What’s going to happen when automation needs to be applied to 50-100 tracks?
In reality, there isn’t really anything truly scary or confusing happening here. You just need to get accustomed to automation in DAW gradually, studying it through simple examples. For most people already familiar with the basic features of popular DAWs, understanding the basics of automation shouldn’t take more than a few runs at it.
Play and record any simple virtual synthesizer part in your DAW (we’ll use Cubase as our example going forward). Then enable automation recording on the recorded track (in Cubase, press “W”). Access the volume fader by opening the virtual mixer (F3) and while playing, move the fader randomly up and down.
Your DAW is smart enough to record all your movements. A subtrack for volume automation will appear below the track with the synthesizer part. It will be called “volume.” On the subtrack, you’ll see a graphical representation of the automation curve depicting the fader movements. To hear the result, start playback again and ensure the track’s green “R” button (read automation) is pressed. And voila – we’re making magic happen!
Nothing super complicated, right? The volume automation curve looks understandable in a fairly intuitive way. If you're done with it, you can always temporarily hide the display of the automation subtrack to prevent it from cluttering your screen. Although some producers enjoy seeing everything simultaneously and aren't bothered by juggling multiple project screens in their DAW.
Now for the best part! The automation curve can always be edited. Every bend can be changed. In your DAW, you can literally draw automation events with your mouse and achieve incredible precision in their settings. This applies to all types of automation in digital audio workstations.
In reality, most producers don't record automation by moving a fader. We demonstrated this method for clarity and simplicity. People usually issue commands like "show used automation" on a track where it hasn't been applied yet. Typically, the first thing that appears is an empty subtrack for volume automation. Producers will then immediately begin drawing on it with their mouse.
Do you want the volume to increase in one place, decrease in another, and disappear entirely in a third, creating a "dead pause"? It’s easier than ever in a DAW!
Fast (lazy) way: if you decide to create the classic effect of sound panning from left to right, enable the "record automation" button, start playback on the fragment of the track you're interested in, and move the pan controller left and right.
Your DAW will record all your movements. An automation subtrack for panning will appear under the instrument track (vocals, guitar, etc.) and you'll be able to edit the curves of panning changes however you like.
Visually, the automation subtrack will also make sense in an intuitive way. You'll see a central line (the position of the sound in the center of the pan). Your automation curves will undulate around it. Above the central line means the sound is shifted to the left ear. Below the central line means the sound is shifted to the right ear. The higher or lower the automation curve goes, the stronger the panning deviations from the center.
By applying both volume and panning automation to a single track, you'll end up with just two additional automation subtracks.
You know how to do this: create an FX track in your DAW and blend the processed signal onto a chosen track in the "Sends" section. But what about the idea that the parameters of an effect applied via sends can be automated? Imagine getting real-time effect changes on a specific sound.
Let’s imagine your synthesizer part is delayed. The delay plugin is applied in the "Sends" section, and naturally, an FX track has been created for it in the project. Let's say we want to create the aforementioned "dead pause." Using only volume automation on the synthesizer part won't be enough because the delay effect will still sound during the silence.
And so, we have to shut off the delay effect during the pause, but how? It’s actually easy! While playing the fragment where the pause is needed and the "record automation" button is enabled (W in Cubase), you can just hit the "mute plugin" button (Mute) and "enable" the plugin in the open delay plugin window.
An automation subtrack will appear under your FX track. It will likely be named "Mute," and you'll see a curve showing the activation and deactivation of the delay effect. Naturally, you can fine-tune the mute points along the project's tempo grid by dragging them with your mouse.
Today, VST effect plugins are used in digital audio recording, often in the VST3 protocol version (or other functionally comparable formats). These allow almost every parameter to be automated in modern DAWs, including those for virtual instruments.
You can twist the knobs of synthesizers, reverbs, distortions, and so on while the "record automation" button is active, and for each movement of each knob or fader, automation subtracks will appear in your DAW project.
Then, you can easily edit the automation curves, getting remarkable sound design samples. Moreover, the "grid snap" feature, which is activated during editing, ensures that effects occur exactly in sync with your song's tempo and precisely when needed.
Imagine you want to create the classic effect of a frequency cutoff filter. For instance, having your instrument start rumbling on low and mid frequencies before gradually "opening up" across the entire frequency spectrum.
With the "record automation" button enabled, start turning the stock parametric equalizer in your DAW, and… uh oh… three automation curves appear beneath the track. Seems too many. But, actually, there's nothing to worry about.
The first curve represents gain – the amount by which you amplify or reduce the signal level. The second curve shows the actual cutoff frequency. The third curve represents the activation/deactivation of the equalizer knob involved in the process. Nothing too confusing. Visually, it resembles volume automation curves and plugin activation/deactivation curves.
If it was easy for you to grasp single automation subtracks, such as for panning, there shouldn’t be much of a problem understanding and working with multiple subtracks. They all function more or less similarly, look similar, and are edited similarly.
First: consumers of popular music in recent decades have grown accustomed to extensive sound design, even in the simplest of pop songs. If you don't want to lose out in the brutal competition that is the music market, you need to learn how to create musical sound design. Without automation in DAWs, creating sound design becomes a lot more difficult.
Second: automating plugin parameters, even those with less obvious effects like tape saturation plugins, allows you to craft mind-blowing sounds brimming with originality. This is especially prevalent in production music (for films, TV series, and ads) and in music for movie trailers. Sound innovation in contemporary music is a little bit like a secret ingredient. Listeners crave it, A&R specialists crave it, filmmakers, advertisers, and everyone else does too. If a music producer has strong sound design skills, they can find demand in a lot of different fields.
Third: automation in digital audio recording saves a ton of time, even in straightforward mixing (let alone creative production and sound design). New producers may not realize just HOW much of their time they can actually conserve by not fearing automation and instead making a little effort to understand it. Automation isn’t a gimmick. It’s a legitimate tool in a music producer’s toolkit and all it requires is overcoming fears about having to learn something new.
Fourth: Automation in DAWs grants a music producer virtually limitless creative freedom. Imagine if The Beatles and George Martin, or Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys in the 1960s had today's digital audio recording capabilities. Who knows what more they’d be able to try?
At the very least, there would be a lot fewer cleaning ladies with tired arms.
