Automation

Automation makes a control move by itself as the song plays: a fade-out, a pan that sweeps, a filter that opens into the chorus. Each moving control has its own lane under its track, which you draw on or record into by moving the control while the song plays.

Showing a track's automation

To see a track's automation, select the track and press Show or Hide Automation (A), or click the round chevron at the right end of the track's header. The lane opens under the track's row. The Stereo Out row and a summing stack have the same button.

The lane's header, from left to right:

  • Power: switches this lane on or off. A lane that is off keeps its shape, drawn faintly, and stops moving the control.
  • Parameter: the name of what the lane shows. Click it to choose another.
  • Arm (the round record button): arms this one parameter for Write. It only works in Write mode.
  • Mode: READ, TOUCH, LATCH, WRITE or OFF. Click it for the mode and the lane's actions.
  • +: adds another lane below, so you can see several parameters at once.
  • x: closes this lane. Closing only hides it; the automation stays.

Drag the bottom edge of a lane to make it taller.

Choosing what to automate

Click the lane's parameter name (or + for a new lane) and choose:

  • Volume, Pan and Mute.
  • Send 1, Send 2 and so on, one for each send on the track.
  • A submenu for each plug-in on the strip, the instrument first, listing that plug-in's parameters.
  • A submenu for each Nebula MIDI effect, listing its controls (the Arpeggiator's Energy, for example).
  • Smart Controls: each of the track's Smart Controls that turns something. Its lane turns everything that knob turns.

A bus's row offers Bus Volume, Bus Pan and Bus Mute; the Stereo Out offers Main Volume, Main Pan and Main Mute.

Automating a plug-in knob

To automate a synth's filter cutoff, or any knob on a plug-in:

  1. Open the track's automation (A).
  2. Click + in the lane header, choose the synth's submenu, then its filter cutoff.
  3. Draw the shape you want in the new lane (see below), or record it: set the mode to Touch or Latch, play the song, and turn the filter knob in the plug-in's own window.

The lane then moves the knob as the song plays, in Read. Nebula's own plug-ins show their knobs moving with it. A parameter that changes the plug-in's latency cannot be automated.

Drawing and editing points

  • Click empty space in the lane to make a point; keep the mouse down to move it at once.
  • Drag a point to move it. It snaps to the arrangement's grid; hold Control while dragging to place it freely.
  • Drag a point onto its neighbour and let go to replace it. Points you would replace are drawn hollow first.
  • Double-click a point, or Option-click it, to delete it.
  • Drag the line between two points up or down to bend it into a curve.
  • Right-click between two points to give that stretch a shape: Step, Linear, Decibel, Equal Power, Slow Start, Very Slow Start, Fast Start or Very Fast Start. A mute lane only jumps.

Each drag is one undo step.

The lane's mode menu (or a right-click) also has Switch Lane Off, Copy Shape, Paste Shape, Paste Shape at Playhead, Reset to Control Value (removes the points, so the control stays where it is) and Delete Lane.

Automation modes

Choose a mode in the lane's mode menu, or in the AUTOMATION box on the channel strip. The mode belongs to the channel; its plug-in lanes follow it.

  • Off: the lanes are kept but do nothing. The controls are yours.
  • Read: the lanes play. Moving a control while the song plays lets you try a move; when you let go it glides back to the lane, and nothing is recorded.
  • Touch: records while you hold a control. When you let go, recording stops and the lane plays again.
  • Latch: records from when you touch a control and keeps the value you let go at until you stop the song.
  • Write: from the moment you press Play, replaces the lanes you armed with each lane's arm button, touched or not. Unarmed lanes are left alone. When you stop, the channel switches to Touch, so the next play does not write over your take.
  • Trim (on the channel strip): moves the ride that is already there up or down by how far you move the control, instead of replacing it. Use it to make a whole fader ride 3 dB quieter.

A pass only changes the bars it was played over. Stopping at bar 9 leaves bar 10 onward as it was.

Writing automation while playing

  1. Set the channel's mode to Touch or Latch.
  2. Play the song.
  3. Move the fader, pan, send, plug-in knob or Smart Control. The line is drawn under your hand as you go.
  4. Stop.

The whole pass is one undo step: one press of Undo (⌘Z) takes back everything you wrote in it, even if the loop went round several times.

Automation from a MIDI controller

A knob or fader learned with MIDI ▸ Learn Controller Assignment (⌘L) records automation just as the mouse does: in Touch or Latch, turning it while the song plays writes a lane. See Controller assignments in the Mixing chapter.

Automation that moves with a region

Track automation stays at its bar. When you move, copy or delete a region that has automation under it, Nebula asks whether the automation goes too: Move Automation or Leave Automation, Copy Automation or Leave Automation, Delete Automation or Keep Automation. Tick Remember my choice and stop asking to answer once for good.

A MIDI region also has controller lanes of its own (a CC, pitch bend, aftertouch) in the piano roll's lane strip, and an audio region has its gain line. These belong to the region: they move with it and repeat when it loops.

What Claude can do

Claude can draw automation for you: ask it to fade a track out over the last four bars, or to sweep a plug-in's parameter. It can read a channel's lanes, draw them, remove them, and switch a channel between Read and Off. Recording modes (Touch, Latch, Write) are yours to choose; Claude does not set them. It can also draw a MIDI region's controller lanes.