When recording & mixing midi: Automation or MIDI ctr input?

Cubase
1

Hi guys,

Do you use regular automation or MIDI controller input when recording MIDI? recording regular MIDI puts the controller info in the regular track lanes and then you can edit them on the key editor, but the automatization goes into its own domain and works a bit different.

Coming from other DAW I always worked with regular MIDI for MIDI info and automatization for audio, but I wonder what people usually do here, especially for film scoring, since you need to move things around much more due to revisions, change of pictures, etc. Also, editing the automatization seems a lot more limited than what the Key Editor can do. On the other hand, when using a hardware mixer or iPad you get a nice feedback from the standard automatization which you can’t get from MIDI (as far as I know), which is really cool for mixing.

What do you think?

2

I’m very curious of how other works, opinions? :slight_smile:

3

I use both, although I’ll start with MIDI control, such as the Mod wheel for some things like expression.

Then I’ll use automation to fine tune & finalize it from there.

4

I use midi control for raw musical stuffs and automation for balance/transitional or fx kinda stuff.

Ex, I play an instrument and velocity is a part of the musical performance, I do not use automation like that, I use it to balance or effect the performance. I have no rules about it though. They work well in tandem.