Automation Filters; Faders; Mutes; Pan - Mackie Digital 8 Bus Owner's Manual

As an example, an automation pass is made
that consists of a smooth dynamic fader level fade-
in from –30 dB to Unity gain (0 dB), over a five
second period. Subsequently, a snapshot is re-
corded in the center of that fade-in, with a fader
level of +10 dB. When you play this section back,
you'll notice an audible jump in fader level at the
timestamp where the snapshot was taken. A frame
or so after the +10 dB event played, the volume
would jump back to continuing its smooth fade-in.
Therefore, as a general rule, we don't recom-
mend following dynamic automation with
snapshot automation. If you want to mix and
match, we suggest that you use snapshots to set
up a rough mix, then superimpose dynamic events
in between the snapshots to fine-tune the mix.

Automation Filters

The majority of your dynamic automation will
involve fader moves, pans and mutes. These can
be accomplished quickly and easily by pressing
their corresponding buttons in the Automation
Section.
These buttons provide selective Write Automa-
tion filtering for specific moves you want to write
into automation. They also serve as a safety to
prevent you from accidentally overwriting previous
moves, such as accidentally writing over a fader
move when you were only intending to change the
channel's pan setting.
Perhaps less often used in automation are
changes in bus assignments and aux send levels.
You can dynamically automate these changes by
pressing the ALL button, or consider changing
these parameters with single timestamped snap-
shots. The ALL button opens the door to a wide
range of parameter control, and should be used
with caution until you have a good handle on what
you're going to be automating.
For more advanced users, EQ, compression,
gating, and internal effects can be dynamically
automated, too. However, this kind of automation
requires more attention and care. This will be dis-
cussed further in Chapter 8, "Advanced Techniques."
Note: Just because you can automate something
doesn't mean you should. Most of the time EQ, pan,
compression, and gating are "one-time only"
events. You set them once and then forget them.
Chances are you'll settle on EQ, pan, and compres-
sion settings and leave them that way for the whole
mix. This is where taking a snapshot at the begin-
ning of a mix would act as an initial "set-up," and
then dynamic automation would include fader and
mute changes.

Faders

Engaging the FADERS button makes it pos-
sible to write automated fader moves when
channel WRITE buttons or AUTO TOUCH are en-
gaged. When writing fader automation in this
mode, any previous fader moves will be replaced.
When the AUTO TOUCH button is engaged, Fad-
ers mode is similar to a null function: moves are
only written when the fader is moved by the user.
This is known as "Touch Updating."
When FADERS is off (and ALL is off), fader
moves are not recorded to automation. FADERS
may be toggled on and off regardless of whether
tape is rolling (i.e., time code is being received),
which allows this filter to act as a real-time
write safety operation.
Note: Auto Touch will only engage faders that
are in a static (non-moving) state or position. If
the fader is under motor control (i.e., moving),
the only way to enable Write automation on the
fader is to manually engage the Write (pressing
the WRITE button with the Master RECORD
button engaged) to allow takeover of the fader
from the OS.

Mutes

When MUTES is selected in the Automation
Section, engaging/disengaging any write-enabled
channel's MUTE button writes the mute informa-
tion as part of the current session. All other
moves are ignored, unless their corresponding
buttons are turned on (i.e., FADERS, PAN, ALL).
When MUTES is off (and ALL is off), mute
on/off events are not recorded to automation.
The channel MUTE buttons may be toggled on
and off regardless of whether tape is rolling,
though. They just won't be written into automation.

Pan

When PAN is selected, all write-enabled
channel pans are written as part of the current
session. All other moves are ignored, unless their
corresponding buttons are turned on (i.e.,
FADERS, MUTES, ALL). When PAN is off (and
ALL is off), pan moves are not recorded. The
channel pan controls may be used regardless of
whether tape is rolling, though. They just won't
be written into automation.

All

When ALL is selected, all write-enabled
channel moves are written as part of the current
session. Automatable parameters include:
faders, mutes, pans, aux sends, bus assigns,
phase reverse, and all parameters associated
with EQ, gate, compressor, and internal effects.
When ALL is off, fader, mute, and pan moves
may still be recorded (when their respective
filters are selected). ALL may be toggled on and
7-3
Automation