PT Automation

 I had a decent week #1 of listening to "I Miss You Most at Nighttime" and made quite a few notes here and there upon each listen.  I spent the weekend fooling around with various computers, programs, and interfaces, trying to get some new items setup that I recently purchased.  It's not my favorite way to spend a weekend but it did have to get done.  I finally got around to working on mix #2 of the album yesterday and I actually made quite a few changes to it, more than I had initially planned on.  I won't know how it sounds per se until Tuesday when I once again listen to it on my stereo system.  Will it be closer to done or further?  One never knows but always hopes for the first option, of course, and this is why we save every rendition along the way...just in case.

I finally got around to doing a bigger deep dive into Pro Tools automation.  You'd think that after 10 years of using the program that I'd be close to an expert, no?  Well, a bit to my shock, I actually didn't really know anything about how to use it, and instead I was once again doing it the old fashioned hard way without even realizing it.  I mean, no wonder I found it ridiculously hard...(sigh).  Old habits die hard.

In the end, PT automation IS actually super simple and there's no reason for me to keep from doing my pans and such to the very end.  They also make auto panning plugin's which I wasn't at all aware of, although the verdict isn't quite in yet for the one I've got available to me, but it is amazing how simple most of these tasks are.  Doing it the old way, or quite frankly manual "player piano" way, is actually quite absurd when you have this functionality available to you.  There, I've said it...I'm a bit absurd.

I got all the pans and various buss send changes all automated and in place so it should be interesting to hear the difference this week.  I did a lot of tightening up of the bass which is pretty much always the biggest issue in any mix so the real question is how that sounds and if it threw everything else out of whack in the process.  I have high hopes; fingers crossed.