I’d like to propose a new concept of automation I thought about, called Automation clips.
The goal is to have a more pattern oriented style of automation against the recent pure timeline-style and to provide often-demanded LFO functionality.
This would be a separate window like the meta surface, the purpose is to trigger automation lane ranges. That’s the way it should work:
The Clips window features a number (probably unlimited) of nameable automation clip slots. These slots are equipped with an assign button, a go to range button, a trigger button, a loop option, a write to automation button and a list box with several quantization options to choose from (snap value, beat bar, immediate).
The automation clip can hold a arbitrary automation lane range. To assign a clip, mark a range in the automation lane and press the assign button in the according slot. You don't need a separate “pattern” store, the existing automation lane is used, this makes other concepts about assignable jump markers/ranges in automation obsolete. The automation lane is long enough to hold it all. (you could reserve bar 500+ for it or so ).
To edit a clip, just go to the according automation position. The clip loop state is equivalent to the loop state in the automation lane. Assigned clip automation ranges should have a labeling in the lautomation lane.
You can trigger the automation (looped or one shot and quantized). by pressing play in the according slot (has to be MIDI controllable though) .This is realized by temporarily copying all automation events from the assigned range into the automation lane at cursor position while the clock is running. (mix copying, to be accurate, leaving existing events unchanged). It takes the quantize option into consideration, e.g. snap to beats copies the assigned range to the next start of a beat.
Depending from the Loop state of the clip, the copying is done one time or repeat, until the clip is released (or the clock stops). (The trigger button is a toggle button, gate function is realized via parameter mapping as in file player ). The temporary automation events will be removed anyway or kept, when Record was active .
The write to automation button is a shortcut to copy automation clips to the main automation without recording it.
The crux is, that you can trigger several automations at once, e.g. some looped ones, providing LFOs, envelopes and stuff.
Comments appreciated, especially from Ross :)
Why did nobody gave any comments on this? Is the idea too far-out? Or too silly?
have you used ableton live?
Sure. But we're talking about Audiomulch here.
I see there are some littles similarities between the session clips / arrangement concept of Live and my idea, but nevertheless is ableton a completely different program with audio/MIDI clips as central functional element. Besides of this there is no function to capture arrangement automations into clip envelopes in live (and cannot, because they work additional, not similar).