I always kind of assumed that you should only use pan and volume automation for effects and fade ins/outs. I figured doing otherwise messes with the balance of your mix. But I've never seen anybody say anything about this.

Let's say you have an arpeggio that sounds balanced in the build-up of your track. But later on, when there's much more going on, it sounds too quiet. My assumption is you would fix this with EQing or sidechaining (assuming the problem isn't a frequency clash), or maybe even modulate it differently so that it has more presence. But to what extent is it ok to change the volume or panning of something so that it sits right in different parts of a mix?

Thanks peeps.

^ Interesting. I figure it's something you have to be careful with because if you used it too often you would end up noticeably bumping the overall volume of your track. Thanks for the tip!

That happens to me a few times in the past, and now it's becoming more common as i do more volume automation and consider it.

There's nothing wrong with changing it's balance in the mix as the song evolves. I would even suggest rendering out a few clips of that sound and depending on how it fits in the mix, should have different settings.

The point is this, you have to make things fit and work. You gotta solve the problem as a sound engineer.
There's several ways to skin a cat, but this concept you're asking about is the beginning of the infinite nature of many concepts that lead to true self expression. It's way past the basics and fundamentals. Which is probably why it's not common.

Basically, make it sound good at the problem areas because it's part of the mix. It may require duplication, rendering, volume automation/settings, eq automation/settings, or not even have it in that spot.

I asked my music teacher about this sort of question, and he basically said "That's up to you man, it's taste." He couldn't give me any more "technical" advice because that's where your problem solving skills and taste as a producer/engineer start. That's where the real fun begins.

Oh, there is this funny piece of advice I heard in one episode of Pensado's Place: "Of course faders need to move. That's the reason why "to mix" is a verb."

...if you study how mixing was done before digital age, you find out that they had this big analogue mixing consoles with usually a 4 band eq, simple compressor and panning on each channel. Nothing more. They needed to get away with it. Also, they needed to record it to tape. No undos, no saving etc... So they got in the room with the musicians and they (not kidding) rehersed the mix as the band was playing. They took notes over fader volume changes they needed to do throughout the song and eventually made a final version on the last take.

Another example: Professional studios still do what's called "riding a vocal" which means to record an automation over vocal to emphasize good parts and supress unwanted ones. (Essentially do what compressor would do, but manually, so you can decide over each detail of the performance yourself.)

So yeah, volume automation something you shouldn't fear. I get that with tons of layers and complex structures, achieving that balance is prescious, but that shouldn't scare you off when some automation is needed.

Pan is difficult. I'm usually not a fan long term pan change (quick effects are ok), but that's subjective. It might work for you.

I watched this video with steve duda last night and he was saying how the faders are the most (by a long shot) important part of mixing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjvrHOARC00

Theres the video, i watched all three parts and instantly learnt stuff that improved my mix on a wip instantly.

Is "producer crush" a thing? Because if is, I do have it for Steve Duda. That sentense about outmixing students without external plugins ... this should be carved into a stone! ...especially on forums like this where everyone's searching for all that "magic plugins" that make their mixes professional. There. Are. Not. Any.

Sombody invite this guy on this forum.

I use volume automation on just about every track. I feel like I have more control over the whole song to make certain parts stand out over others at certain times. It gets tedious as hell though if you ever have to move all of them.

Quote from: gd4223 on January 18, 2016, 06:12:59 pm

It gets tedious as hell though if you ever have to move all of them.

Doesn't it!


I like what Logic has done with splitting automation into absolute and relative, but it's still not a perfect solution.

What drives me crazy in Ableton, and maybe Im doing it wrong, but when you select a group of automations to move, it doesnt do them precisely. If all are on an even db, say -10db and others at -15dn & -12db on one track, when I move them they adjust weird. I want it to move them all 5db or whatever and they will be from say -10db to -14.33 instead of going from -10db to -15db. Drives me nuts.

What drives me crazy in Ableton, and maybe Im doing it wrong, but when you select a group of automations to move, it doesnt do them precisely. If all are on an even db, say -10db and others at -15dn & -12db on one track, when I move them they adjust weird. I want it to move them all 5db or whatever and they will be from say -10db to -14.33 instead of going from -10db to -15db. Drives me nuts.

I've been wondering about scaling volumes at different levels and how DAWs handle this.


To use an extreme example, imagine you have an automated fade from -36dB to -30dB. That's a pretty subtle difference. If you select the two automation points and drag the -30dB point up to 0dB, depending on how your DAW handles it the other point will now be at -6dB (this is what Logic does anyway). -6dB to 0dB is a BIG difference, so you can't alter the overall volume of the track without affecting its balance. It *might* be that Ableton is actually adjusting your automation to compensate for this difference. I don't know the maths of it though (maybe somebody does?)