Pro Tools: Automation

You can automate almost everything in Pro Tools, but for plug‑ins, you’ll need to enable those parameters first.

Could the humble mouse be the only Pro Tools controller you need?

Automation can really make a difference to your mixes — and Pro Tools has a particularly deep and sophisticated automation system. But how you control that automation system makes a difference too.

The obvious choice is a hardware control surface. People who successfully incorporate a control surface into their workflow usually have nothing but praise for the benefits. However, not every experiment with a control surface is successful. To make a difference, a control surface has to work better than the already familiar keyboard and mouse, and for many tasks it’s just too easy to keep using what you already know.

The best control surfaces represent a significant expense, and take time to learn properly. If your first experience of a control surface is slower and more difficult than the point‑and‑click simplicity of the mouse, it’s not surprising if it doesn’t stay part of your studio for long. With practice though, you might eventually reach the mix nirvana of the dedicated EuCon devotee who can mix with console‑like speed, bringing parameters and tracks up using custom layouts and ultimately being so comfortable on the surface that the screensaver kicks in on Pro Tools without them even noticing. It happens!

However, the majority of Pro Tools users rely solely on drawing in automation. For editing existing automation, it is the most accurate and detailed method available. But for writing a first pass of automation it’s less effective. It’s ideal for certain tasks such as controlling switched parameters like plug‑in bypass or mute, but it’s slow for the majority of mixing tasks compared to either using a controller or a mouse to input automation in real time. Drawing directly into the automation playlist is often the first way new users interact with automation, and many users stay with it exclusively.

Point & Click

Clicking automation data into a playlist can be very efficient if you know exactly what you want to do, but it has a down side: you can only audition the adjusted values after you’ve released the Edit tool. This leads to time‑consuming auditioning of material in a tweak, play, re‑tweak, replay cycle.

That said, getting to know the available Edit tools really helps speed things up. The Pencil tool is obviously the one to use for freehand drawing, but the Line pencil is useful too, and don’t overlook the Triangle and Square tools for grid‑based panning and tremolo/gating...