DigiDesign Digidesign Pro Tools 8.0, Reference Manual

Page: 932 / 1112

Pro Tools Reference Guide 914
After the first automation pass, you can write
additional automation to the track without
completely erasing the previous pass by choos-
ing Touch mode or Latch mode. These modes
add new automation only when you actually
move a control. (See “Automation Modes” on
page 904.)
To write additional automation to a previous pass:
1
Enable
Options > Link Timeline and Edit Selec-
tion
.
2
In the Edit window, make a selection or place
the cursor in the location where you want to
start writing automation.
3
In the Mix or Edit window, click the Automa-
tion Mode selector on each of the tracks you
want to automate, and set the Automation
mode to Touch or Latch mode.
4
Start playback to begin writing automation.
5
Move the controls you want to automate.
6
When you have finished, stop playback.
Storing an Initial Control Position
When you create a new audio, Auxiliary Input,
VCA Master, MIDI, or Instrument track, it is au-
tomatically placed in Read mode. Even though
the track is in Read mode, you can set the initial
position of any automatable control, and it is
saved with your session.
In this initial state, only a single automation
breakpoint appears at the beginning of each au-
tomation playlist. If you move the control with-
out writing automation, this breakpoint will
move to the new value.
You can permanently store the initial position
of an automatable control by doing any of the
following:
• Place the track in Write mode and press Play
to write a few seconds of automation data to
the track
• Manually place a breakpoint on the automa-
tion playlist somewhere after the initial break-
point. (See “Graphical Editing of Automation
Data” on page 928 for more information.)
Automating Switched Controls
When automating switched controls (such as
mutes, plug-in bypasses, or switched controls on
plug-ins) Pro Tools treats them as touch sensi-
tive controls. Automation data is written for as
long as the switch or button for that control is
pressed or touched.
For example, if you have just written a series of
mute on/off states on a track in quick succes-
sion, the manual method for clearing this auto-
mation data would require you to move to the
Edit window, choose automation playlist for
Mute, select the mute automation data, and de-
lete it. In Pro Tools, this can be done automati-
cally.
If you write automation in Touch mode
with Loop Playback enabled, writing of au-
tomation will automatically stop at the end
of the looped selection. At the beginning of
each successive loop, you can then touch or
move the control again to write new data.