I am continuing with my post Production conversion diary to Nuendo:
I would like to talk about Touch Automation here. I want to select an area in the timeline on a track and punch in the set panorama. I am doing this as follows:
select track / Write enable (touch mode) / select region / cycle region / in automation panel enable Loop and Preview / set correct panning / hit Punch / disable Write
The result is the same as in latch mode: the automation hangs at the last written value. As a workaround i deactivated virgin territories and set an automation point at the end of the project. this way i get the touch-mode to behave like a touch-mode. but i can’t work with virgin territories this way. A second work around would be to draw another automation point at the end of the automation and enter the desired value. But I can’t do that for about 1200 events.
Now I read that this “behaviour” has been around for a long time (2018). Did I miss something? Maybe someone has found a better way. In any case, I assume that there is a conclusive solution in a post production software like Nuendo.
When working in Virgin Territories, “create initial parameter events” before you start working.
It’s in the automation dropdown menu.
I think this will solve your problem.
If I understand all of this correctly it’s just the same problem that I complained about years ago. When you locate on the timeline or stop playback the system reads the previous automation point and sets level to that. To me that defeats the purpose of VT conceptually. To me the system should never read and recall a value that it isn’t actually reading at its current location.
So locating from 23 minutes where there is no automation to 12 minutes where there is also no automation shouldn’t change levels at all (or panning)… because in neither place is there automation. But as far as I recall the system will recall automation if there is a point before either of those places. So going from 23 to 12 it’ll read the point at 3 minutes if the last written one is there.
To me that makes no sense. Better to just skip VT and use Preview and loop etc.
I must admit that I have not yet found a use for VT either. Maybe there is one in the music sector.
If I understand correctly, “create initial parameter events” transforms the VT into a temporary “non-VT” to circumvent the above-mentioned problem. Or in other words, it draws an automation line over the selected area. This works with pan automation, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work with plugin automation. I have tried it with Frequency and Pro-Q3. Without VT, by the way, it works perfectly.
I am happy to be inspired by ideas for the use of VT in post production.
I always looked at it from a song section or maybe post scene/environment perspective where you may want to have your faders all free to move around any way you like as you’re playing back that section. So you press play and balance things and then when you’re ready you basically settle for that section. With VT it seems reasonable as long as you write what you want when you’re rolling, but the thing that gets in the way for me is when you hit stop since that locates on the timeline and then read the previous automation point (I thin). So really all it takes is pressing play, balancing everything to where you want it, stopping for any reason, and your balance is gone because previous levels were written (again, pulling from memory and talking about fader automation).
Just feels like normal automation modes are sufficient.