Using the mixer for track-level automation

As well as manually adding control points to a rubber band here to create an envelope, adding key frames, as it were, to this line. You can also use the Audio Mixer to ride the audio and create key frames on the fly. Now, just to demonstrate this, I'm going to pull this mixer over. And I'm just going to resize the display a little bit. So, you can see a little better what's going on. I'm going to rename this track, Vocals. So, we can see here in the Audio Mixer we've got those Vocals set up. And I'll just pull the Play Head through a little bit, so we're part way through it.

I've got this set to the Read mode. Notice that if I change this to any of the other modes, it updates on this track in the Audio Mixer. I can probably just pull this over a little as well. I'm just resizing. So, the Off mode means that, well, let me show you. If I put this to Read, and I'm going to really make some dramatic changes to the level here. You can see as I scrub through, the fader is moving. If I set this to Off, the fader does not move. And this means that the level will stay at whatever level it's on, regardless of the existence of adjustments to the envelope.

So, Read is the default mode, and that makes this line do stuff. But then, we have these addition options, Write, Latch, and Touch. And I suppose we could work with these in order. If we start with Write mode, and notice I can change this over on the Mixer as well, it makes no difference. Now, as this is playing, I can grab the fader and make adjustments, and new key frames are going to be written as we go. So lets try that. I'm going to press the space bar to play, and I'm now dragging this up and down, and adding some key frames.

You'll notice that they don't appear until after I press stop. And now, look at that. I'm going to just zoom in a bit. I have many key frames. And frankly, it's probably more key frames than could possibly be useful. But if I go into my Edit > Preferences > Mulitrack options. This will be under the Audition Menu in Mac OS. You'll notice that under key frame automation, I've got this option, minimum time interval thinning. And at the moment, it's set to 30 milliseconds, which is a very very small amount of time. If I increase this to something like that, a 3rd of a second, 300 milliseconds and click OK.

Now, if we have another go, we're going to get bigger gaps. Now, I'll come to that in a second, before I do, I want to show you these two other modes. So, first of all, the Write mode is one where whatever happens with the fader, it's going to override existing key frames that are on the rubber band. And just to illustrate this again, let me press Play again. Notice the fader is not moving. I move, I let go, it stays where I leave it. I press stop, and look what's happened this time. Remember, I increased the distance between the key frames quite dramatically in the Preferences. And I've got much more manageable key frames here now. Notice also that the beginning of that adjustment is a flat level one. That's before I grabbed the fader.

Then, I've got the movement. And then, when I let go of the fader, and before I press stop, there's another flat area. So, the Write mode, which is the mode I was on just now, will ignore existing key frames completely and just put new ones down. If you have a controlled surface set up with Audition, of course, you can do this with manual faders connected to your machine. I'll come back to that in just a second, but the Touch mode is the opposite. It will follow the key frames all the time unless you're holding the fader. So again, the Write mode, whether you're holding it or not, the fader writes new keyframes.

With the Touch mode, you have to be holding it for you to replace the key frames that are there. So again, I shall press the space bar, notice the fader's moving. I'm going to click and grab it, put some new key frames in, let go, and it starts following again. When I press the Stop button, or the space bar in this case, you can see I've created some new key frames. The Latch mode is halfway between Write and Touch mode. In Latch mode, the fader will follow existing key frames until you grab the fader, and then it will stay wherever you leave it. So again, I'm going to press the space bar.

There's my fader, moving around with my fantastic audio mix. I'm now going to grab it and start making adjustments and where I leave it, it stays. Now, when I press the space bar to stop, you can see what's happened. I've got the original movement exactly as it was, then the new key frames that I just added. And then, it just stays where I leave it. These three modes are absolutely universal, you'll find them in pretty much, any audio editing application. Again, you need to have this on the Read mode by default or this envelope adjustment, this key framing inside your session, is not going to have any effect. So, that's working with automation using the mixer in Adobe Audition.