Write a snapshot of Automation to a selection?

[sco]

I am on 6.9 and it doesn't seem to work any more...
This is what I do
-Set my faders with Auto Suspend 'on'
-Select 'apply to all channels' and 'write'
-Make the selection that I want to write Automation for
-turn 'automation suspend' off
-press play
-press 'write automation to end'

It says all of the usual guff like "you are about the write bla bla do you want to continue?"
But I have noticed that it does not put break-points at the start ond end of the selection!!??

And yes, automation enable is on for faders, pan, mute etc...

Can anyone help?

[sco]

I think I have found the problem...
Protools doesn't write automation breakpoints at the top and tail of the selection if there has not been any automation put on that channel before.

Its actually a bit more complicated than that, which is...it doesn't write automation to the channel if you don't change the value of the setting that is already there!!!
And as we all know, if you have no breakpoints already on channel when you move the parameter, the automation line automatically moves to that setting.
Which is why I say it doesn't write automation to a channel if there is not already breakpoints there!!!

I regard this a a BUG, as in version 6.7, if you wrote automation to a selection, it would always put breakpoints at the start and end if the selection regardless!

Any other ideas?

[filmixer]

This is a really bad bug. What bugs me the most is I like to write my EQs flat from beginning to end (most of them anyway). That way, if I EQ something, the EQ retuns to flat after I'm done. It doesn't work that way anymore. Even if you "Write to End", without a break point at the end, the EQ will remain at it's last known position after a "Write...enabeled Parameters". To make it work right, I have to manually put breakpoints in at the end of the session. That's not horrible for a fader, but for an EQ with twenty controls? What a nightmare. They have to fix this.

[sco]

Thanks mate, I thought I mightbe going crazy.
It is good to see that others think it IS very important...I think it is.
cheers
rosco

[CCash]

That's not horrible for a fader, but for an EQ with twenty controls? What a nightmare. They have to fix this.

Place your curser at the end of the session and hold down Option and Command and hit / . It'll put a breakpoint on all automation-enable parameters.

Somehow I think you already know this and I've missed something about your work flow... but just in case...

[filmixer]

>It'll put a breakpoint on all automation-enable parameters. <

I think the problem might be that Pro Tools doesn't put in a break point unless the parameter is in a different position than it was before. What happens in 6.9.1 is that when you change a parameter, make a selection and do a Opt-Cmd-/, There's a break point at the start (since I've aready written a "null pass") but not at the end of the selection. It might be a change they made to make "Auto Join" work properly. I'm going to investigate this more today. It's not out of the question that it's operator error though.

[filmixer]

OK. I just talked to a high level Digi guy and found out this isn't a bug, it's a feature! I guess they took out the old behavior so that if you hit stop with parameters writing, they won't snap back to a previous setting at that point but will continue until you change them to something else. I hate this. I think it's dumb because with "Auto Join", you can always have everything that was writing punch back in automatically if the system has been stopped during a "Write" pass. I think this needs to be one of the many preference choices that have been suggested on the DUC. What works good for some people is a pain in the a** for many others.

[Eric L]

This exact problem just bit me today. I put a Q10 Eq on my DX submaster, for additional eq after my first few passes. I have Q6 on all my dx tracks already. I wrote automation across the entire track, as previously posted, and then went back to mix. I made a few eq adjustments using the command + opt / write to all parameters early in the mix. But then had to keep "normaling" the Eq after that as it was screwing up other spots that I did not want to update.

This could be user error on my part as I was already distracted by this behavior, but I swear this same workflow, that has always worked for me, was re-writing automation in places it shouldn't have been.

If this is a feature, and not a bug, it is the worst feature I have ever seen. Put it back the way it was.

[filmixer]

>This exact problem just bit me today. I put a Q10 Eq on my DX submaster, for additional eq after my first few passes. I have Q6 on all my dx tracks already.<

Well, you're using Waves plugins, that was your first mistake. Seriously though, this new "feature" does exactly what you say. It bites you in the a**. You have to be careful with your technique. I think this new behavior was to make the automation behave like other large format consoles and that style of mixing. If you're mixing, make EQ changes and write the changes by rolling through the scene, then match out, you're fine. This is the traditional way. However, many of us expert ITB mixers that work a lot by setting levels and parameters, then do a Opt-Cmd-/ to write initial mix settings without having to play through an entire four minute scene, get our workflow messed with. I'll figure out a workaround, but it's still a pain in the butt. Did I mention this needs to be a preference?

[sco]

Maybe, if this new function is a feature, there should be a 'snapshot' function added!?

As it was, to do a snapshot of a selection in version 6.7 was a total pain-in-the-but, with all of the keystrokes you had to do. My old system (was called a 'DSP poststation') had an awsome feature where, to do a snapshot, you would make a selection and tap the record button twice(while no tracks were record enabled).
How easy is that!
And you didn't have to put up with any stupid questions like "Are you sure you want to blah blah" because you know what you are doing, and you didn't tap the record button twice because your an idiot?!?!?(sarcasm)


Here are some other examples where the 'snapshot' (a feature which puts breakpoints on all automated settings all of the time) feature is needed...
1...doing 30 quick retail ads in a row and you need to have slight V/O level adjustments for each ad. (yeh you can do it with a mouse but I dont like to)

2...quickly setup a scratchmix so that you can keep editing and build a mix on to of it.

3...If you have already mixed a commercial and you start a second commercial after it on the time line you will most likely be working with automation turned on. If your second commercial is a totally different script, you once again need to setup a 'scratch mix' for it and take a 'snapshot'.

I'm sure there is hundreds more that you-all have too!