Hardware controllers and recordable automation
Learn about the support in Audition for hardware controllers — including full envelope automation — with Latch, Touch, and Write modes for the Mixer.
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One of the features I've been waiting for most eagerly in Audition CS6 is this one: Automation control inside of Audition, but not just automation in terms of envelopes in the timeline here, in the Editor.
Yes I can if I want.
I'm just zooming in here on my tracks.
If I want to, I can expand the track controls and I can now make adjustments here, track bass controls to my audio.
Yes I can do that, But I can do it using the Audio Mixer with the Latch, Touch and Write Modes.
Hurray, at last.
And, if I want to, I can go into my Preferences and I can go to the Control Surface Preferences and I can set up a device.
Now I'm actually using the AC iPhone App configured as a midi device on Mac OS here.
You can do this with Windows as well.
And this is creating a virtual desk for me.
I'm not even connecting via USB.
This is just set up as a Wi-Fi device.
It's very easy to set up in the operating system.
And now I've just told Audition that this is a Mackie type control.
We've got Red Rover support as well.
And if I configure this I just set up the controller type.
If I just show you, adding another one, you can see here I've created a Network Session to connect this to in the operating system.
This isn't something that you can figure in Audition.
First of all you have to set up your hardware and then you're ready to go.
So now, if I want to, I can go into my Button Assignments and I can assign every button here, anything I like.
I can match up to a command inside of Audition.
It's a massive list.
And the application I'm using on the iPhone actually has a lot of buttons available.
But I'm just going to keep this really simple for now.
Now that I have the controller set up, you can see here in this session, each of these tracks has been named.
So we've got Bass, Electric, Hammond, and so on.
And if I just play this back for a moment...
So it's a layered piece of music, lots of different instruments playing.
And if I just go to the Mixer you can see on each of my channels here - right now I'm set to Read Mode so it's not really going to do anything to the audio.
But if I just drag the fader - there we go - on my iPhone app - this works on a tablet computer as well - and now I can adjust the individual levels on the fly.
Now in this mode I'm not really going to change the output.
I need to set it to Write Mode to update the envelope.
Let's say I'll pick a track that's got a fair amount of consistent sound on it.
I reckon probably the Hammond Organ there, is probably a good bet.
So here, if I solo this track and start playing... you can see I can adjust the overall level.
In fact if I switch over to the Mixer you can see as I drag here.
Now what you can't see, is on my application, my iOS device I've got levels being displayed through this track and I've got the names of the track being shared.
There's fantastic compatibility now between these applications.
Now if I go to my Editor panel here, I'm just going to expand a little bit more.
And down on the track header I'm going to expand - where it says Read here.
And now in the previous version of Audition this was Read-only, which was great, you could get the faders to update and adjust the level over time.
But now I'm going to expand this display.
And you can see under this Latch, Touch, Write menu, I've got the option to show any of the envelopes that relate to this media.
Here I've got Volume displayed, I can add to that if I want.
Maybe I could add...
Well let's say I'm going to add Pan.
And now under this menu, I've got the option to switch between Pan and Volume control.
There you go.
And there's my Volume and there's my Pan.
So you can add envelopes for anything you like to a track here, just toggle between the option that you want.
Of course, if I want to, I could set this to Volume and I could just click and click and click and add some envelopes.
There we go.
If I right-click on one of these I can choose to have Spline Curves so I get nice curves.
That's fine.
But really where the power comes in is in the combination of an external hardware device and the Audio Mixer.
Now I'm just soloing this track so you can see this in a nice simple way.
But of course the benefit of using a Mixer is that you can have multiple tracks adjusted at the same time.
You can move your fingers in opposite directions, which is something you can't do with a mouse.
It's a single point of contact.
But, here we go, if I now set my mode to Write and start playing, I can start to adjust the level.
You can see the level is changing here for the track header.
If I stop that there are my keyframes added.
I'm just actually going to zoom in using the new pinch controls on the trackpad of my laptop here.
There we are.
And if I go back to my Mixer you can see that the Touch Mode has been selected automatically now.
It was on Write Mode.
It was writing keyframes from the beginning.
But once you've added keyframes in that mode Audition CS6 is automatically switching back to the default Touch Mode.
Here again, if I put this on Write, you can see if I play I can drag the fader up and down using the remote device.
It's absolutely fantastic.
So that's the new Latch, Touch and Write Mode support added to Audition CS6.
You can now add your envelopes to the Editor, using the mouse.
Or if you have a desk, you can connect it up, configure it in Audition, and write the audio and produce a mix on the fly.
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