Cubase 5--*relative* volume automation?

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Hey folks:

Quick question on Cubase 5. I've been watching all of the instructional video material I can find in advance of my order of Cubase 5 shipping (apparently it's backorderd from the retailer I ordered it from...). One of the videos--actually a Cubase 4 tip--was about volume automation.

The video warned that if you use volume automation curves on a track, making changes to the volume in the channel strip would be ignored because the volume curve would override the manual changes.

I guess this makes sense. But I'm used to Acid. Acid has a really nice way of doing this--you can add a volume envelope to a whole track (or buss) and fades to clips, etc. and they are all relative to the value on the channel strip. That way you can automate your relative volume changes within the track (e.g., singer a little quieter in one verse than another or introduction of a new instrument into the mix requires some extra emphasis for a few bars...) and still easily use the mixer or channel strip volume fader to then mix it relative to the other tracks.

Acid's way of doing this seems very logical and intuitive and makes more sense to me. Any way to enable volume envelopes to be relative to the channel strip volume position in Cubase so it acts like Acid?

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You can download a gain plugin like Sonalksis Free-G and write automation for it.

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cid has a really nice way of doing this--you can add a volume envelope to a whole track (or buss) and fades to clips, etc. and they are all relative to the value on the channel strip. That way you can automate your relative volume changes within the track (e.g., singer a little quieter in one verse than another or introduction of a new instrument into the mix requires some extra emphasis for a few bars...) and still easily use the mixer or channel strip volume fader to then mix it relative to the other tracks.

Acid's way of doing this seems very logical and intuitive and makes more sense to me. Any way to enable volume envelopes to be relative to the channel strip volume position in Cubase so it acts like Acid?


You can do the same with Clip volume\Fades\Envelope in Cubase (as long as you realize those are all pre-inserts).

If you need post inserts, you can always use the automation Trim mode, or just rout the track into a group channel and use the group fader for additional level adjustments.


Best,
midi.

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The automation curve does override the fader and routing the track to group or using a gain plug are reasonable workarounds. With the new automation you get some more "layers" to the automation, so in many cases it could be feasible to do all that in project window instead of mixer.
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Not sure about C5, but with the Cubase SX3 mixer, there is an input gain knob on each channel strip. This input gain is not automated by the volume fader automation curves. If I want to bring a whole channel, that has volume fader automation, up or down by a relative amount, then I work with the input gain. This is a simple way of making a global, relative change to the volume of the volume-fader automated track. In looking at screen shots of the subsequent versions of Cubase, it does not appear that the mixer has changed radically and so I would guess that this function is still in C5. If it is, then there is no need for additional plug-ins, the functionality is already present in the mixer.

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All the methods mentioned above will work but the easiest way to make a relative change is what Brent said, write trim automation.

I have ACID 6 and I'm not familiar with the method described above for automation, but I haven't really used it a lot. It seems it just takes the fader out of read/write. There doesn't appear to be a trim mode there.

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Thanks for all of the suggestons. When I (finally) get my copy of Cubase, I'll try them all out and see what works best for my workflow.
LawrenceF wrote:All the methods mentioned above will work but the easiest way to make a relative change is what Brent said, write trim automation.

I have ACID 6 and I'm not familiar with the method described above for automation, but I haven't really used it a lot. It seems it just takes the fader out of read/write. There doesn't appear to be a trim mode there.
With Acid, you simply right click on a track and choose Add Envelope-->Volume and it adds a volume envelope down the center of the whole track. You can add points/curves on the track, but they are only relative to the volume fader setting on the track strip. That's just how it works. I'm not sure if there is a way to automate the overall volume level, if it's possible it's harder to find than the default relative method. I don't know why you'd EVER want absolute the way Cubase does it. You can just set the channel strip to 0dB and then your relative fades are the equivalent of absolute ones. And then if you discover you need to change the level of the whole track because it is a tad too loud, you're not screwed.

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