Smoothing Automation

I’m a relatively recent convert from Pro Tools and have been loving things so much more on Cubase. One feature I really miss though is the automation smoothing key command in PT. I’m wondering if something like that exists in Cubase and I just haven’t found it yet. It would work like this: if you have two (or more) nodes in an automation lane, you could select a range outside of these nodes and hit x on the keyboard and it would delete all nodes leaving only two remaining - one at the value at the left boundary of your range, and one at the value at the right boundary with a straight line in between. This was especially nice for changing sudden jumps in automation to ramps. I’m loving the automation modes in Cubase, especially the fill loop mode, but inevitably this leaves a bunch of sudden jumps that I often want to go back over and smooth out. Does anyone know if there’s a way to do this similar to the workflow I’ve described above?

If I’m understanding your methods and terminology correctly, you can accomplish the same thing in the Cubase automation lane by lassoing the nodes inside the extreme end ranges to select the middle ones you need to get rid of then press delete. (probably the same as ‘x’)
Optionally, you could delete them all in the same manner, leaving the left node as your start point then clicking where you want the right node which will appear wherever you click. Either way should create the ramp you’re looking for for a smooth transition.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. Let me use this example. I’m mixing a live album currently and everything is in one session, since it was all one show. Using fill loop automation mode in combination with song by song cycle markers, I’m able to tweak each individual song and basically just print a static level for any given parameter before going in and doing finer automation. Maybe too much background, but the end result is that there are a lot of sudden jumps in automation when one song ends or begins, like in this screenshot.


Now, the client has expanded what he’s after and wants to include some of the interludes between songs, so I’m going to need to be able to ramp maybe a hundred different automation lanes to ensure there isn’t an audible jump when things change for the next song. I’m looking for a way to do this as a batch. The workflow I’m used to in Pro Tools looks something like selecting the range over which I want the ramp to be, like in the picture below.

Then hitting “x” on the keyboard creates a node at the beginning of the range at the initial value and a node at the end of the range at the final value with a line in between and deletes any nodes that were inside the range. Resulting in something that would look like this picture.

Is there a way to do this in Cubase or am I stuck adding/deleting/nudging nodes on a lane by lane basis?

I hadn’t done any multi-lane automation but these tutorials are pretty helpful and you may find your answer for smoothing.

Posters have also asked similar questions that have been answered so check out the responses below the video.
The vids are relatively short but informative.

Hey thanks for this reply. Unfortunately this doesn’t show me how to do what I’m describing. It’s certainly possible that Cubase doesn’t do this. If so, that would be helpful to know, and if not I’d love to know how to best approach this.

Its a bit of a work around but I think if you ‘inserted silence’ you’d find it created a ramp for you.