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Tyler Stowe
Back until the late ‘70s, virtually all multitrack mixing was done using analogue consoles. At this time, automation had not been created. If a change needed to be made or a fader had to be adjusted, it was done manually in real time while being bounced to a stereo tape machine. If the mix was complex or really elaborate, it would take additional people and sometimes the entire staff to pitch in and help make the adjustments. What made this even harder was that it had to be done correctly in one take. If one mistake was made, everything had to reset and started over. The only other option was to splice together the best bits from several mixes with a razor and sticky tape.
After the session was over, every fader move, send position, and every setting on an outboard piece of gear had to be written down and logged if it were to be recreated. The next day you would have to reconfigure all the settings before you could start anything else.
The first mixing console that offered automation was called NECAM. It was created in the mid 1970s by Neve. It offered moving faders based on VCA automation. The mixing console computer controlled the faders using small motors under the hood of the console that were attached to the faders. Another company that started to build mixing consoles with automation was Solid State Logic. They called their moving faders "Ultimation". They also coined a term called "Total Recall". It means that you can save all of your settings without having to write everything down. The mixing console would display the correct settings and that would let you know what had to be changed to get the settings you had.
Nowadays automation is available on all DAWs. In Pro tools, several parameters can be automated depending on the type of track you’re using. These parameters include volume, panning, mute, and plugins. The types of tracks that can be automated are audio, MIDI, and instrument tracks. There are two ways to create automation in Pro Tools. The first is in real-time and the second is by drawing it in with your edit tools. Pro tools have five different types of automation. They are all in the automation drop down menu and read in order of Off, Read, Touch, Latch, and Write. Each function in a different situation and have benefits depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.
