In a modern DAW you can automate just about anything - from volume to the cutoff of a synth, to compression ratios and axillary sends. But why would you want to? And what are the clever techniques you need to know? Sit back, as we take you through some of the options...Automation really has opened up a potential world of creativity that simply wasn't available to producers only a few years back. You'd hear about 'riding the fader' - where the engineer would manually move a fader up and down as the recording was going to tape. No need for that now, when you can program exactly what you want to happen. And on top of that, you can have a dozen other things happening at the same time.
Volume is perhaps the simplest and most obvious thing to automate; bringing something into the mix gradually, track fadeouts, and also taming peaks without resorting to a compressor. If you have an audio part that occasionally gets a little loud, then automating the volume for just those sections is usually a whole lot quicker than setting up a compressor, and will only affect the parts you actually want.
Alternatively, you can boost parts of a track for short sections to make them jump out of the mix, for instance when your synth crescendos at the end of a build, or if an instrument player drops in a little flourish. It's not a good idea to automate the actual fader level, however - as this means you can't use the faders to set levels in your mixdown later (as they'll change with the automation!). Instead, try putting a 'gain' plugin at the end of your signal chain and automating that. This way you can automate the level of a part without affecting the overall mix.
While we're on the subject of boosting things, one useful trick to emphasise parts of a track is to use auxiliary sends. Imagine you have a big build-up with plenty of synths and sound effects. You can increase the effect of the build by having a big reverb on a buss, and gradually turning up the sends from your synths to that buss, so that the track becomes drenched in a huge reverb space. Then, when the track kicks back in, you snap the sends back to zero and mute the reverbs to create a strong contrast with the spacious build. Or you can use a send to a reverb for just a short fill - use a small 'room' preset, and send your drums or vocal to that for one bar at the end of a phrase, for a distinctive but unobtrusive effect.
To expand on the previous tip regarding builds, why not take it a stage further? Set up an auxiliary channel in your DAW so you can automate the buss that you're sending your synths to. Now you can automatically change the parameters of your reverb, or even - send that buss to another buss with more plugins on it! The potential for creating a huge mess of your mixdown is undeniable, but the capacity for sonic experiments and transforming a sound mid-song is very exciting.This leads neatly onto dub mixing. Once upon a time, good dub mixing required a large desk and an engineer who knew it inside out. Again, software has brought this capability to us all. A great way of introducing variety and detail to tracks is to automate a number of auxiliary sends. Create several busses, each with different effects; some with delays (all with different delay times and feedbacks), some with phasers, reverbs and so on. Then whenever you want to add some sonic interest, briefly send your drums, vocal, or other key element to one of the busses. Remember that you can automate everything else at the same time; for instance you may wish to turn down your main drum track while a crazy delayed version plays over the top for a bar or so.
Dubstep fans will no doubt be aware of the possibilities for assigning the cutoff on the filter of their bass sound to an LFO to make 'wobbles'. Automation can dramatically increase the creative possibilities here - most notably by changing the LFO rate to alter the speed of the wobble, but also by changing the depth of the modulation (for switching from deep throbs to high squeals) and on some synths, even changing the waveform of the oscillator.
There is more than one way of recording automation, of course. The most immediate is usually to open up the appropriate lane in your DAW and just draw it in. This works well but it is not always the most intuitive method. Instead, it's often useful to record your movements via MIDI (assign the thing you want to automate to a fader or knob on your controller keyboard) and 'play' the controller movements in as you feel they the fit to the track. This should give a more natural feel, while still giving you the potential to go back in later and edit the data.
Used well, automation can really bring your mixes to life. It can help you correct problems, bring new sounds and elements into play, and introduce new creative avenues that were unknown just a few years ago. So maybe it's time to fire up that sequencer, and see how far you can push those sounds!
