Multitrack screen

Automate a parameter

Draw volume, pan, send, pitch, EQ and insert changes on a part, or record them from a controller.

Automation makes a control move by itself while the song plays: a fade-in, a send that opens on the last beat, an effect that switches on for one bar. You draw it, or record it from a MIDI controller, in the block under the tracks of the Multitrack.

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1The parameter; the dot says it has automation. 2The three tools: Points and lines, Pencil, Line. 3Clear (the bin). 4A point: here the volume rises over the first part and falls at the end of the second. 5The dashed line: no points in these parts, so the fader's fixed value is used.

What can be automated

One parameter of the selected track is shown at a time. The menu at the left of the block lists them:

A dot after a name marks the parameters that already have automation on this track.

The idea: a fixed value, and a curve on top

Every control has a fixed value: where its fader or knob sits in the Mixer. Without automation, that is what you hear for the whole song.

Automation adds a curve: a line drawn over time that says where the control should be at each moment. Where there is a curve, the curve wins and the control follows it. Where there is none, the fixed value is used.

The curve is not drawn on the track as a whole. It is drawn inside a part, and it belongs to that part:

• move the part, and its automation moves with it;
• copy the part, and the copy gets its own copy of the curve, which you can then change separately;
• the empty space between parts cannot hold automation.

The reason is the way a song is built in Chop: by placing and copying parts. A fade that belongs to the intro stays with the intro's part when you move the intro, and a filter move that belongs to a fill comes along every time you copy the fill.

Automation belongs to a part

In practice this means you always automate a part, not a stretch of time. To automate bars 5 to 8, there must be a part there; and if you later move that part, check that the curve still does what you want in its new place.

Draw automation

1. Click the track's row to select it. The block shows its colour and name.
2. Turn on W (Write) on the track's row.
3. Choose the parameter in the menu.
4. Choose a tool (the three keys under the menu) and draw in the lane, inside a part:
   • Points and lines: click to add a point; drag a point to move it. Chop joins the points with straight lines.
   • Pencil: drag to draw a curve freehand.
   • Line: drag to draw a straight line or a ramp.
5. Press Return. The control follows the curve, and in the Mixer you see it move.

The Pencil and the Line replace the points under what you draw.

A fade-in: choose Volume and the Line tool, and drag from the bottom left of a part to the top right.

Place points exactly

• Points snap in time to the toolbar Grid; Pitch snaps to whole semitones. Hold Cmd to place a point freely.
• Hold Shift while dragging a point to change only its value, not its time.
• The numbers at the left of the lane show the top and the bottom of the range (for Volume, +6.0 dB and -inf dB).

Select, move and delete points

• With the Points tool, drag across the lane to select the points inside the rectangle (in one part). Drag one of them to move them all.
• Double-click a point to delete it. Or select points and press Delete, or right-click > Delete.
• Right-click > Clear Volume in this part (with the name of the parameter you see) removes that parameter's automation from the part.
• The bin beside the tools (Clear) removes that parameter's automation from every part of the track.

Each of these is one undo step.

Record automation from a MIDI controller

1. Map a knob or a fader of your controller to the control: see Map a control.
2. Turn on W on the track.
3. Press Return to play the song.
4. Move the controller. From that moment you hear the controller instead of the curve, and its moves are recorded. When you stop moving it, its last value is held until you stop playback.

Recording "latches": Chop starts recording a control only when you first move it, and from then on that control stays under your hand until you stop. Controls you do not touch keep playing their curves. So you can record the volume in one pass and the send in the next, without disturbing each other.

• The recording replaces what was there, in the parts the playback crossed. Nothing is recorded in the gaps between parts.
• The whole take is one undo step.
• The mouse never records while playing: with the mouse you draw.
• An effect's on/off cannot be mapped to MIDI, so it can only be drawn.

Read, Write, or neither

The R and W keys on each track's row decide whether its automation plays and whether you can change it.

Turn R on when you are done, so that you cannot change the curves by mistake. Turn both off to compare the song with and without automation.

How the value behaves around the points

• Inside a part, the value goes from point to point in straight lines. An effect's on/off jumps instead. Before the first point it has the first point's value; after the last, the last's.
• After a part, the value stays where the part ended, until the next part. The lane shows this as a dotted line.
• A part without points, and the time before the first part, use the control's fixed value in the Mixer. The lane shows this as a dashed line.

While automation plays, the Mixer's faders, pan, send and EQ gain knobs and the effect slots show the automated value: you see the fader move. If you drag one of them with the mouse, you change its fixed value, not the curve: where a curve exists you will not hear the change, and the fader goes back to following the curve.

Where automation plays

In the song: on the Multitrack, in the Mixer and in the export. It does not play on the Sample screen, where you hear the track with its fixed values.

When the lane does not let you draw