While there is so much to do to make automation better, vertical snap is what stresses me most, because vertical area in automation is usualy very small and with drastic changes for eye snap.
I would say automation is very much like a design tool, so maybe should be a good idea :
to have “Guides” to snap per automation
example: i select an Automation Point and mark it has a Guide Point (color / symbol changes/ *), after this point height would be a possible snap as soon has i press a key modifier.
example2: i mark 10 “Guides” point on the volume with different heights i would have 10 “Guides” which i could snap as soon has i press a key modifier.
or while dragging a point when it reaches a similar value on the neighbours to have a visual reference which i could snap after pressing a key modifier
while moving / duplicating a point and pressing a key modifier , the height of the copied/moved point is not changable (fixed )
like having Read Write on Automation there could be a “Auto Snap” to Guide Points
example: i select LFO knob on a synth and say i created 3 Guide Points with different heights ( 1 bar, 1/2 bar, 1 bar doted) the Output would be forced to be in this values and so recording/Output would be automatically snaped to this values (useful for Quick Controls either).
like having Read Write on Automation there could be a “Set Range” to Guide Points (min and max values).
example: i select LFO knob on a synth and say i created 3 Guide Points with different heights, the min and max value of this automation track would be used has range, which would force the Output to flow between this 2 values. (useful for Quick Controls either).
select a point and have an option to select all events with same value
hope you get the idea, simple to implement and useful for many of us.
I was going to start a thread for the same thing. For me, the ideal would be a separate automation editor similar to the midi editor. Vertical snap for sure! What also might be useful is a scale for the vertical grid so that it would be quicker to find the point that you want to snap to. I envision something like Cableguys- Volume Shaper. It would be great to be able to specify a period length for periodic waveforms, and paste them in from presets (basic waveforms and user). Likewise, bezier curves, and maybe data thinning and smoothing tools would be handy. As stated above, having it laid out so that we can work with precision on the vertical axis would be a great improvement, imo.
i hope they may be available too however, it may be extremely difficult to programme the snap function into the automation lanes. One concern is that the height of the automation window is fully scalable by the user hence the programming for this parameter may be extreme; unless Steinberg uses some form of percentage in relation to the automation lane height. However, i could be wrong in this and Steinberg may have a better solution.
as for a specific value, it is possible to achieve without mouse movements; simply click on the automation node, it will be highlighted, and then on the Info Line, double click on the value and type in the desired value. The only draw back to this is when automating different parameters other than MIDI CC Values. Sometimes, the value comes with two decimal points…
+1 please. I’m often needing this especially for adjusting the pan where the centre should snap. But also would be great on all MIDI values, and if we had a pitchbend (as requested many times) we’d definitely need it there.
the developing is ment to solve problems and make easy solutions for complex tasks
Thank you, that’s what i use, just an extra hint on this is that if you select multiple points and edit the value in the infoline and pressing command in OSx you change all selected point values.
as described in the Original Post, there are many ways to implement i just gave sugestions. After making the post i discovered that cakewalk uses one them:
To snap nodes vertically
While moving nodes up or down, hold down the CTRL key to snap vertically to the previous node or two previous flat line segments. As the dragged node is snapped, the vertical snap target is highlighted. The global Snap to Grid settings are also active while the CTRL key is pressed.
Figure 326. The vertical snap target is highlighted.
A. Snap target (previous two flat line segments) B. Snap target (previous node) C. Node that is being moved
but i think it would be better to be able to make some nodes has “snap point” (becoming an * instead of the “dot”) and so dragging another node vertically after some key modifier the DAW would fix his y value to the existing “snap points”. This implementation plus an option to “select all nodes with same selected node value” would add huge precision and gymnastics on the Y axis IMO.
I don’t have ANY vested interest in promoting Cableguys (heck, they didn’t even respond to my last email). That said, I found myself using their product Midishaper the other day to basically impose a sine wave with a multi-measure wavelength to modulate a parameter for the entire duration of a track. It sure would be cool if I could just select “Sine” (or other basic waveform), and specify the wavelength (tempo synced or frequency-based) and starting point and have that automation track populate accordingly. The scale and skew functions that already exist in Cubase could then augment that in useful ways as well.
I’ll fully accept that I may be ignorant of better ways to do these things within Cubase. I’m not a power user quite yet. My comments are in the spirit of positive suggestions for consideration. Congrats to the team for getting my FXPansion plugs working properly with the latest release, as well as the looooong list of other fixes.
+1 to automation improvement, especially vertical snap.
For the record, moving a point while holding down ctrl is already doing what OP asks for in one of the requests, that is, keeping it fixed on one axis, vertical or horizontal, depending on how you started moving when pressing the modifier.
+1 to vertical snap ideas. Thanks to estrica2000 for that Cakewalk ‘insight’…
How about utilising a ‘long click’ on a node to bring up a textbox/tooltip to enter values directly, quickly, right there where you are working (more convenience than Info-line example)…?
