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Automation Paradigms and Mixing System Design

by Larry | Mar 10, 2006 | Articles, Electric LarryLand, General, Mixing, Music Production

Not so many years ago the only mixing automation available to engineers was a group of people gathered around the mixing desk awaiting their turn to
move a fader, pan or EQ at the right time at the proper level. It seems almost unbelievable today compared with what we do commonly with computers
today. Im sure if someone told me back then that I was going to be able to someday have a system that would remember EVERY move that I made, I would
have laughed at him/her but secretly dream it would come true. After years of trials and many disappointments, engineers and designers came up with a
system that could record the fader moves for you then play them back in real time. This was not a small task. I still remember the early MCI automation
systems that used to encode fader moves on audio tracks. One was supposed to record the rst pass of fader moves onto track 1, then for the second
pass, one would add those moves plus any additional moves onto track 24 this process of bouncing data back and forth between tracks 1 and 24 would
continue until the mix was perfect (well almost). Unfortunately, designers forgot to gure in the fact that there was a few milliseconds delay every time you
bounced tracks from one analog track to another. By the time the mix was done, ones fader moves could start several milliseconds late!!!! After talking with
Rupert Neve several months ago, I asked him about the early days of Necam (one of the rst moving fader systems). He told me of early prototypes that
could rip your ngers o because there was no such thing as a touch sensitive fader back then. One was forced to tell the computer when you wanted to
make an automation move, grab the fader, move it, then tell the computer you were done. If you forgot to tell the computer you wanted to make a move,
and you grabbed the fader rst, the fader was strong enough to cut your ngers!!! (ouch!) We both laughed when he told me of this Today, we would
never dream of designing a system where you had to tell the automation EVERYTHING you wanted to do BEFORE you did it or would we?

Common concepts
Punch-In Mixing
Not too long after the early days of automation, and during the beginnings of digital mutli-tracks, engineers gured out that one could use 2 tracks of a
multi-track recorder to mix to. Since the 2 mix tracks would inherently be in sync with the multi-track data, the engineer could punch-in sections of a mix
to get the mix sounding perfect. But this scenario doesnt take into consideration those situations where
someone might want the EXACT same mix but with the vocal up 1 db or 2 or maybe do the EXACT same
mix WITHOUT the vocal Oops, this blows this idea. Since the mix data was written onto the 2 mix tracks as
AUDIO data, any punch-ins would ERASE the previous audio data and he/she would be have to try and
duplicate the settings of the faders for that time period on the tape. This was unacceptable. BUT THE IDEA
OF PUNCHING-IN LEVELS WAS GOOD.

SMPTE based automation.

SMPTE is an acronym that stands for Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers. These guys are
responsible for dening STANDARDS in the Motion Picture and Television industry. One of the standards that they came up with is SMPTE timecode. This is
a method of writing time information into various formats. One of the things it allows for is time to be written as an AUDIO track on a multi-track tape
recorder. The ramication of setting this standard was to allow the synchronization of separate devices via an audio signal. This meant the days of bouncing
data between tracks 1 and 24 to store fader moves were gone and one did not have to re-create fader moves and positions when one did punch-in
mixing onto 2 tracks of a multi-track. It also meant that one could store fader moves onto some kind of storage device (a disk drive, for example) and
those moves could be read back at a later time and be used to make the fader move at the appropriate time without engineer intervention.

Read/Write/Update
One of the rst paradigms to appear in mixing systems was the read/write/update paradigm. This is a paradigm used by many automation systems that can
separate the moves of a physical fader from the moves of the device that changes the level that one hears. (Usually a VCA Voltage Controlled Amplier,
but with Digital Audio Workstations it is more than likely a number controlling the Digital Audio Level, or a DCA Digitally Controlled Amplier, or even
more likely, a DAC Digital Audio Converter). By contrast, in a MOVING FADER SYSTEM, the fader IS the component that determines the level of the audio.
This is because the audio signal actually goes THROUGH the fader before it reaches outside of the console. And the PHYSICAL POSITION of this fader
determines the AUDIO LEVEL which is heard. Note that in a VCA based system, however, the faders physical position doesnt have to be the same as the
audio level that you are hearing. This is because the faders physical level merely sends a signal to the VCA to be at a particular playback level. An
automation system that uses the read/write/update paradigm usually has 3 buttons for each and every fader that would determine the status of a
particular channel for mixing. The buttons are usually labeled as follows: read (vca looks at disk information only) write (vca looks at fader move
information only) update (vca calculates and uses an oset derived from both fader and disk information) The advantage of this system are twofold the
user/engineer has instant access to any channel at any time to change a fader level. But most importantly, It was easy to learn. The disadvantage of this
system is that the user/engineer was LIMITED to moving only the number of faders that he/she could grab at one time. This is ne when one doesnt care
how long a mix takes, but NOT good when things have to be done in an expedient and ecient manner.

MIX REVIEW / MIX RUNNING

One of the least understood but MOST POWERFUL paradigms is the MIX REVIEW / MIX RUNNING paradigm. This is used mainly on high end console
automation systems such as SSL and others. But there is NO BETTER automation on the planet than this that I know of. This paradigms allows the engineer
to move multiple faders (more faders than he/she has ngers) with great ease and WITHOUT using groups! It is intuitive (once you learn the basics) and
extremely powerful. How is this done WITHOUT telling the computer what to do? Its done with MIX REVIEW / MIX RUNNING status. MIX REVIEW simply
means were in a mode with the automation that simply plays back the automation moves that have already been written to disk and were LISTENING to
the moves that weve already done MIX RUNNING means were actually MIXING right now and recording new fader moves. (and these moves either
DIRECTLY correlate to the levels we hear, or they are OFFSETS to ones already written to disk)

Here is an example.
Assume we are mixing 32 channels and weve made our rst pass of automation and have made our faders move in their appropriate positions for most of
mix. We re-wind the tape (or hard disk) to the start of the mix, and push play. The intro goes by all is well (lets assume we dont need to change the
intro). The verse goes by oops, we need to turn on the vocal track, lower the guitar track, change the mix on the drums, and lower the piano track. This is
more moves than we have ngers! And unfortunately these tracks are spread across the entire console and in order to change their levels we would
normally have to make multiple passes to adjust these levels on most automation systems. But with a MIX REVIEW / MIX RUNNING system, all we have to do
is move the faders of interest (no need to stop the tape/disk just keep it rolling) and when we get all of the faders/mutes to the appropriate levels/states
for the verse that we are currently passing, then re-wind the tape/disk to just BEFORE the point where the verse starts. Push play and as the beginning of
the verse ROLLS BY, press a button (its called a join button) and ALL of the channels will change to their new appropriate oset levels thats it no
groups, no buttons to push on each fader, and since we were listening to the mix as it went by, we already know weve written the correct levels to disk. This
is NOT the same thing as recalling a scene or static fader levels (as an O2r does). But instead, this is doing what is called in SSL terms a JOIN mix We are
JOINing a new mix to an existing disk mix in real time. In a MIX RUNNING / MIX REVIEW situation, when the tape/disk is stopped, the SMPTE timecode stop
point is remembered as a CROSSOVER POINT Fader moves made BEFORE this CROSSOVER POINT are considered already written to disk, and the system
simply reads those disk levels as the automation levels sent to the faders/DACs. The part of the mix AFTER the crossover point are considered NOT written
to disk and the system will go into a write or trim mode state when the system crosses over this point. Continuing with our example from above, at the
CROSSOVER POINT (just b4 the verse in this case) the user presses a key which simply moves the crossover point to the beginning of the verse. Simple and
elegant! The user could have changed EVERY FADER on the console and the system would have updated ALL of those faders for the user with the push of a
single button. All WITHOUT the user having to tell the computer ANYTHING. It is inherent in the design of the system and is ALWAYS available. It is the MIX
REVIEW / MIX RUNNING paradigm. This system is far superior to having to tell the computer to remember this or remember that. It is inherently intuitive
and once the concept is grasped, extremely FAST! There are no buttons to tell the computer to read this or write that it is elegant. Finer points to
consider Once I have spent an hour or so riding a vocal track to smooth it out, the last thing in the world I want to do is re-do my automation moves. But
MOST moving fader systems REQUIRE that you re-do your moves, or work OFFLINE to do updates to levels this is because MOVING FADERS are
CONNECTED to their audio controlling devices (real faders). They do not provide for doing updates to a previous pass because the audio level is
DETERMINED by the physical position of the fader. Touching a fader on a moving fader system (placing that fader into write mode) inherently HAS to
over-write previous moves This is the big drawback for moving fader systems. There is no easy way to update a moving fader mix without having to
re-do previous moves. (unless youre using a system that has BOTH moving faders and VCAs like in an SSL ULTIMATION system) This is because the
PHYSICAL position of the faders IS the audio level that we hear. I will return to this topic after I explain the following Absolute, Trim, and Auto-Takeover
What is needed in many mixing situations is the ability to get in and out of a fader move easily and quickly. There are many ways to do this. In read/write
/update systems, you simply hit the button you are interested in at the appropriate time, move the fader, then hit the other appropriate button to get out of
a move. A much more elegant way to deal with updating a fader move is to reduce the number of buttons that the user has to hit to a minimum. (How
about just one? and lets call it a STATUS button). In addition, wouldnt it be nice if we only had to hit that button ONCE and the system knew what to do
when we hit it? The solution is to add modes of fader operation. Wouldnt it be nice if we could do writes on some faders, reads on others, updates on
others and make absolutely sure that some other faders are not changed at all? Also, wouldnt it be nice if the MUTES were treated ENTIRELY separate from
the fader moves? The answer to the above questions is YES to both! This is done with the following modes for each channel fader/mute combination

ABSOLUTE
 UPDATE/TRIM
READ
AUTO-TAKEOVER
PLAY MUTES ONLY
PLAY FADERS ONLY
DISCONNECT

Each fader can be in its own mode and this paradigm only requires ONE status light to know what mode youre in for each fader.

LETS LOOK AT FADER MODES MORE CLOSELY

In all of the cases below, if the play position is BEFORE the crossover point the levels are read from DISK (also known as MIX REVIEW) The modes listed
below apply to the channels when the play position is AFTER the crossover point. (also known as MIX RUNNING. This crossover point is remembered for
EACH fader and not just the entire console (I will explain the reasons for this later on in this paper) When
a fader is in ABSOLUTE mode the PHYSICAL position of the faders IS the level that we hear (or more
correctly, the level that the VCA/DAC is operating at) Meaning that if the fader is PHYSICALLY positioned at
the bottom, the VCA/DAC is at its lowest level. If the fader is PHYSICALLY positioned at the top, then the
VCA/DAC is operating at its maximum level. Note: (see below) When a fader is in UPDATE/TRIM mode the
PHYSICAL position of the faders is RELATIVE to the level that we hear (or the level the VCA/DAC is operating
at) Meaning that if the fader is PHYSICALLY positioned at the bottom, the VCA/DAC maybe somewhere
else. The ACTUAL level that the VCA/DAC is operating at is determined by BOTH the PHYSICAL level of the
fader and the DISK LEVEL written to disk from an earlier pass. Moving the fader adds to or subtracts from
the levels written to disk. In other words, if at the start of this mix pass the VCA starts at 50 and the faders physical position is at 25, the actual VCA/DAC
level is 50. But if the fader is moved to 30, then the VCA/DAC moves to 55. This OFFSET for each fader is determined by the faders PHYSICAL position at the
start of the each mix pass. This essentially creates a moves on moves scenario. In SSL terms it is called a join mix. When a fader is in READ mode the
PHYSICAL faders is DISCONNECTED from the VCA/DAC Moving the fader while in this mode DOES NOTHING to the audio.. The VCA/DAC levels are
controlled TOTALLY by those written previously to disk. The dierence between READ mode and DISCONNECT mode is that in READ mode, fader levels are
still recorded, but are not used unless the join key is hit. If the join key is hit, then the disk levels are trimmed by the oset dierence of the fader moves
made during the mix pass. This mode is the most fun and one of the most useful. When a fader is in AUTO-TAKEOVER mode the channel starts out in a
mode similar to UPDATE/TRIM mode. In other words, if at the start of a mix pass the VCA starts at 50 and the faders physical position is at 25, the actual
VCA/DAC level is 50. But if the fader is moved to 30, then the VCA/DAC moves to 55. But after the user hits the status button on that channel, the fader
looks for the point where the VCA/DAC is currently. (this VCA/DAC level comes from disk). When the user moves the fader up to (or down to) the point
where the fader level matches the VCA/DAC level, the channel changes its status to DISCONNECT mode and from THAT point on, the fader moves are
IGNORED by the automation system. From that point on, toggling the status button switches between AUTO-TAKOVER and DISCONNECT modes. This
mode is fun because once the user has hit the status button to go into AUTO-TAKEOVER mode, the user/mixer can simply SLAM the fader in a direction
and the channel will go out of UPDATE/TRIM mode automatically. This makes for EXTREMEMLY fast times to get out of a UPDATE/TRIM situation while
mixing. It also makes for very smooth exiting from complicated VCA/DAC moves In other words, if previous passes produced VCA/DAC levels that are
moving continuously, one does not need to try to match levels to get out of an UPDATE/TRIM situation. Simply slam the fader in a direction and the
channel will go out of the UPDATE/TRIM condition as soon as it passes by the VCA/DAC level. Although not specically discussed earlier mutes and levels
are considered TOTALLY SEPARATE automation events (as they SHOULD be) In this mode, Mutes are ALWAYS read from disk and faders are ABSOLUTE or
UPDATED (depending on conguration). Although not specically discussed earlier mutes and levels are considered TOTALLY SEPARATE automation
events (as they SHOULD be) In this mode, Faders are ALWAYS read from disk and mutes are ABSOLUTE or UPDATE (depending on conguration). In
DISCONNECT mode, the faders and mutes are DISCONNECTED from the VCA/DACs. Any movement made to either the faders or the mutes is ignored by
the VCA/DACs. This is a must for those situations where the engineer is working with a hands-on type producer who just cant seem to keep his hands o
the console while he listens to a mix. It allows for the mix to be played without the possibility of anyone tampering with it by accidentally re-writing faders
or mutes. DISCONNECT mode is dierent from READ mode in that fader positions are completely ignored by the automation system. Mix join ignores
these fader levels.

ABSOLUTE
UPDATE/TRIM
READ
AUTO-TAKEOVER
PLAY MUTES ONLY
PLAY FADERS ONLY
DISCONNECT

Notes: This is the same mode that is used almost exclusively by most MOVING FADER ONLY systems. It is very limiting but has the advantage of showing
the mixer the current levels of each fader at a glance.

OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER NAMING CONVENTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS.

They should be stored as mix les with naming conventions similar to how you do tracks pass one is automix.1 pass two is automix.2 etc. This will allow
for unlimited undos of mixes. Also, keep SOLOs OUT OF MIX DATA!!! They dont belong there SOLOs are
dynamic temporary listening solutions for monitoring particular tracks They have NO BUSINESS being
written to disk. If a bunch of channels are supposed to be muted, then write the mutes dont use SOLO to
do it. This is all of the time that I have today to write about automation
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