Hello and welcome to the Sound On Sound Recording & Mixing podcast channel. I am Eddie Bazil. [music] Automation with regards to DAWs is the ability to record and play back the movements and processes of various mixer and plug-in parameters. Traditionally, we have used automation and MIDI controller lanes to realise all automation tasks. However, and in today's world of clever and creative processing plugins, automation has evolved into using source modulators to control the same selected parameters. More on this later. The difference between the two is that automation takes control of the targeted parameters, whereas modulation adjusts them relative to their current state. In the days before man buns, essential oils and kelp, audio engineers would ride console faders to manually adjust channel gains at the mixing stage. This was the earliest known form of automation and it was confined to simple chores like controlling volume and pan on mixer channels. Nowadays, and in the DAW, we can automate any parameter we wish, be it for software and or hardware and we can do this in a number of ways - using automation lanes, using controller lanes via the DAW's key editor, and using modulators. Automation is an invaluable process that allows musicians, mix engineers, producers and so on to fine-tune their projects and apply dynamic motion, control and expression. It has gone far beyond the standard vocal automation that so many are familiar with. It is an absolute must if you want to micro-edit your mixes to sound polished, dynamic and true. Let's start by using standard automation lanes provided in all DAWs. Before you can record or manually add or edit automation data, you need an automation track. Almost all automation lanes reside under an audio, instrument, group channel, MIDI, or effects channel track. The automation track or lane will then house all the recorded or manually input data required to manipulate targeted parameters. I will steer away from the standard volume and pan automations and explore more interesting ways to process MIDI and audio. In the first example, I'm using DS Audio's Thorn, a juicy soft synth aimed at EDM genres, but perfectly adequate for all manner of epic synth sounds. I've dialled in a nice deep bass sound and laid down an eight bar basic pattern. I've created an automation lane in Cubase and assigned the target to be the built-in arpeggiator in Thorn. My aim is to add some arp movement at the start of the second sequence to afford not just a different vibe to the existing bassline, but to add some shuffle feel to the added drum beat. First, the dry version. [music] and now the arp automated version. [music] And now with the drum beat. [music] And now with the automation. [music] The automated arp trigger adds a lovely shuffle and fill vibe to the sequence, which takes the existing staid pattern to a whole new level. In the next example, I'm using the controller lanes via the key editor in Cubase to instigate a few controller changes to a piano line I've put together. Nowadays, it can be even more intuitive and accurate to use control surfaces to instigate these CC changes, but the key editor is still a powerful way to microedit controller data. Cubase offers all the necessary continuous controllers for the user to assign and edit. MIDI controllers can be divided into two main types, those that are variable or continuous like a knob and those that are either on or off like a switch. Continuous controllers reside in the 0 to 63 controller slots, whereas switches sit in the 64 to 95 slots. Undefined controllers which can be user assigned, sit in the 96 to 121 slots. Controllers 122 and upwards are reserved for selecting the various MIDI modes - local on off, all notes off, omni off, omni on, mono on and poly on. The latter are actually modes and not controllers, but they have always sat with all controller charts. But it doesn't end there. Cubase offers velocity, aftertouch, pitchbend, and poly pressure along with all the usual continuous controllers. In the next example, I'm using a controller lane to draw in velocity values per note for the piano line I have recorded. First, the piano line with equal velocity for all notes. [music] And now with the adjusted velocities. [music] The result is a more natural sounding piano line. Pianos are acoustic instruments that are dynamic in nature and we need to express them as such. Sometimes, especially when excited, it can be easy to apply too much velocity to a note and mar the whole passage. This is where key editors come into their own. Being able to edit the dynamics of individual notes or entire sequences can be a huge help when refining mixes. In the next example, I'm going to go a little out there and use all manner of modulators to affect the vocal line. I must confess, I love modulator specific software because they concentrate on providing a ton of user defined source modulators that can affect any target destination within the software. Different manufacturers provide different target destinations, but you can use their modulators and bypass their own effects and dynamics and use your own third-party plug-ins. But for now, I'm going to concentrate on the provided target destinations. I will continue using the previous drums, bass and piano sequence, but with the addition of a vocal phrase sample I've dropped in using Steinberg's Groove Agent. Have a listen to the whole sequence with the vocals. [music] And for the sake of reference, here's the vocal phrase without any of the modulated effects I've applied. [music] In this particular example, I want to add some spice and variety to the repeating delay reverb vocals. I'll start with one of my favourite plug-ins, Devious Machines Infiltrator 2. Infiltrator 2 is a modulator-based multi effects and dynamics processor on steroids. It has endless capabilities thanks to its detailed and well thought out modulation matrix. Modulators come in all shapes and sizes, from custom-drawn shapes to sequencers, from MIDI triggers to parameter-driven modulators. In fact, the list is endless. Destinations are equally impressive and it would be futile to list them all. My suggestion is to give this amazing plug-in a spin. It doesn't matter if you're into sound design or production. With a little thought and prep, this plug-in can literally do anything. Here is the processed version. [music] And for the sake of context, here is the short sequence with the processed vocals. [music] I have literally loaded a preset in Infiltrator 2 and used it as is. A modulator is used to time stretch the audio and maximize it for dynamic control. A simple AHD envelope with attack and hold set to zero and decay set to around 30% is used to shape the triggered effect, which is also synced to tempo at half speed. The result is a well-controlled robotic effect which adds some colour to the staid sample. Very cool. But why stop there? For the next vocal mauling session I am using Cableguys ShaperBox 3, a weapon. Cableguys have cleverly structured a set of destinations using all manner of source modulators from time based modulation to stereo widening and everything in between. Just about every modern-day flavour destination is provided. The GUI is large and easy to follow and navigate, a godsend for an elderly like me. And to top it off, there is a compressor that can be used both as a destination or a global dynamic to shape the overall result and a very useful oscilloscope, which comes in handy when analysing the effect of each destination or the global resultant waveform. Source modulators can be selected from shape-based menus, or the user can simply draw in a shape to taste. There are multiple trigger modes, multiple sync division modes, multiple this and multiple that. To be honest, it would take me the whole podcast to cover the features on offer and the detail manipulation of every feature. Here is the same vocal line run through ShaperBox 3. [music] And in the sequence. [music] It would take too long to explain all that is happening within ShaperBox's routings, but basically I'm using the stutter band pass filter strings preset edited to taste. This is a great starting point preset if you want to work with pitched scrubbing effects. The destinations used are reverb, to allow for a more spatial effect, filter, which is where the band pass comes into the equation and time, which is where the overall colour comes from. I'll leave reverb and the filter alone for now and concentrate on time. A stepped LFO is used as a source modulator to alter the timing, or pitching and scrubbing effect of the audio. The pitching down effect, which results in the female vocal sounding like a moody bloke is highly effective in affording a novel variation on an existing vocal phrase. But it doesn't end there. I have run ShaperBox through Eventide's Black Hole reverb, a monster of a reverb. It allows for creating endless reverbs that evolve into an abyss of pure reverb joy. This final effect gives a wispy and ethereal texture to the vocal line. I must say, it's so easy to get creative with software-housed source modulators that can affect just about any target destination and both Cableguys and Devious Machines offer some of the best source modulators and target destinations to experiment with. In the final example, I'm harking back to the days of joy with one of the earliest examples I created for a Sound On Sound podcast, the phase of vocoder madness. I will be using MIDI note expression or MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression), to add variety and motion to an existing vocoder sequence. MIDI note expression is a feature provided in DAWs that allows you to edit controller data on a per-note basis. It is particularly powerful when working with dynamic compositions like orchestral music, as each performance articulation can be addressed and processed note-by-note. However, using note expression to control CC values is not exclusive to any genre or instrument plug-in, so long as the instrument plug-in can support this protocol. I'm going to use note expression to create a step-modulated filter effect on a vocoder phrase I laid down and lots of automation to control specific parameters on the pad phaser effect. I won't go into the phaser automation settings as I've already covered that in a previous podcast entitled Using Phaser Effects. I'll play the sequence, which includes a drum beat, a monster evolving phasy pad sound and a vocoded phrase. I'll leave the pad muted for now so you can focus on the vocoded passage. Here is the beat and vocoder phrase without any expression applied. [music] And now with the expression applied. [music] As with all music, everything is about context and if I now bring in the evolving phasy pad sound, the expressed vocoder phrase suddenly sounds even more musical and adds a nice change to a repeated sequence. Here is the whole thing. [music] The vocoded effect is achieved using Waves OVOX which is side-chained and triggered by the kick drum and this sits as an insert in the channel the pad resides in. The pad being vocoded is GForce's Oscar 3, a Sublime synth that I've endorsed in previous podcasts and it is this synths filter amount which is modulated using the mod wheel, which I am modulating using CC1 modulation as the target in Cubase's note expression section. As the LFO is also modulating filter frequency and bandwidth, both being destinations, I can create evolving textures just by altering these destinations. I have manually drawn in modulator shapes, stepped in this example, for all the notes I want affected. I've made sure to vary each modulator shape so that each note has a slightly different modulated effect. This makes the phrase sound more natural and expressive. The effect is quite interesting in that it starts off syncopated and ends up shimmering thanks to note expression. Coming from a sound design background, modulators are the tools that govern how a synthesiser, sampler, drum machine and so on sound behaves and how it is expressed. In fact, most synthesiser parameters i.e. destinations are governed by source modulators and it is refreshing to see that these tools are offered in DAWs and music software. I can't stress how important automation, modulation, note expression and controller lanes are in both composition and production and of course in sound design. That's it for now, thanks for listening. This has been Eddie Bazil for Sound on Sound. [music] Thank-you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all the other episodes. And just before you go, let me point you to the soundonsound.com/podcast website page, where you can explore what's playing on our other channels. [music]