There might be a certain place in your mix where you want something very specific to happen. Perhaps you want an effect to turn on, or you want a knob to turn up. In that regard, writing those instructions into the arrangement is what's referred to as automation. Where giving the computer instructions. At this point in time, you're going to turn this on. We can do this both at the clip level and in the automation lanes inside of the arrangement as well. So we can do this in session view and arrangement view. Let's start by doing things in a clip here. So I'm over back in session view here, and I'm going to open up this cord clip. I'll just stop everything for a minute here and we'll just listen to this one clip. [MUSIC] So there's some really interesting things happening up top, especially with that distorted part of the frequency spectrum. So what I want to do is filter sweep. So the first thing I need to do is put a filter onto the track. So moving over here to the audio effects category, I'm going to grab what's referred to as an auto filter. So I'm going to press play, and move this around but the basic mechanism behind this device is that, here's the frequency spectrum represented, down here are the lowest frequencies we can hear, and these are the highest. So as I pull this frequency parameter over, I'm filtering out these highs, and as I move it back over, I'm filtering them back in. [MUSIC] Classic DJ move, classic electronic music move here. So I'm going to automate this directly into a clip. So over here on the left, what we need to do is open up the automation lane or the envelopes, is what they're referred to in this regard. So first things first, I need to dictate the parameter that I want to automate. Which knob do I want to turn, at what point? So up top, we get to choose at which level the automation is happening. Are we doing things to the mixer? Are we doing something to the paddle effect, to the clip itself? In our case, we want to be adjusting a knob on the auto filter. So I choose the auto filter. Then below, I have all of the parameters that are available to me on that particular device. So I want to adjust the frequency, the cutoff frequency. Here, I have this red line that's dotted along the top here. Dotted means there is no automation written in yet, this is just the place where the knob sitting. So I'm going to create breakpoints. At any point in this red line, I can just click to create a breakpoint. So I'm going to create one in the beginning, middle, and the end. Then as I go towards this dot. You can see that I'm getting a lot of flashing blue. So if I approach something and it turns blue, that's what's currently selected. So if I were to move this, this entire section moves down. If I went over here and did the same thing, this whole side of the automation in the clip would then decrease. If I approach this automation lane, and I have only the dots selected, only this dot is going to be moving. That's what I want to do in this particular instance, I'm going to click and I'm going to drag down. So now we have this frequency parameter going all the way down, it measure three and then coming all the way back up for the end of measure four. So let's give this a listen. [MUSIC] It's just going to keep repeating, so I don't want to go that low. [MUSIC] All right. So I've recorded automation directly into this clip here. You can see that now a little red dot exists on the side of the boxes here, where I've chosen the parameters to automate. If I go back to the effect itself, you can see there's also red dot next to the knob that I've automated at the parameter that I've automated. So that's how I know that there is automation happening. So let's remove all this automation. I'm going to use the command, a shortcut here to select it all, and I'll just delete it, and we're back to a dotted red line here. So things that happen on the clip level are only happening in these clips. They're not existing over here, because this is the arrangement, and I am now putting the automation in after the fact, right? If I had put the automation into the clip first and then pull that into the arrangement, it would also be in the arrangement, but there's a pretty clear distinction between automation that's happening in this session, and automation that's happening in the arrangement. So now let's do this exact same filter sweep, except we're going to do it in the arrangement. So to open the automation lanes in the arrangement, I need to toggle this icon here, and it's two breakpoints that are connected via a line of automation. You'll see the same thing here, where now I'm seeing these dotted lines across the lane. I'm going to navigate to the chords track here. Then the process is the same. I'm going to choose the device that I want to automate from this drop-down menu. So here's the auto filter again, and then the parameter on the device. So now I'm choosing frequency, and I've got the whole thing, I got this red line ready for me to automate right away. So I could do the same thing. I could create these break points here, and then pull down. There we go. So let's press play, and listen to this one. [MUSIC] Filter sweeps are great for prepping someone for a transition to the next section, so I just moved over these courts so they come in at the end of the filter sweep. So I can write this automation in, I can also create a curved line by holding down the option key as I approach it, and pulling left and right, and I can change the contour of the line from street to curved, or however I want to do this. So there's another way to record automation in here, and that's to record it in. So again, I'm just going to delete the automation. You can see as I highlight this area, this top bar of the clip is not highlighted. So if I press delete now, the region will stay, but the automation will go. So I'm now starting over. I'm going to open this up so I can see the device here, and have access to the perimeter. I'm just going to move it back and forth using my mouse. So up here this is the automation arm button, and as long as this is on, if I press record here, any move that I make throughout the whole process is going to be recorded directly into the arrangement. So let me show you that in action. I'm going to press record on the global transport here. [MUSIC] All right. So you're seeing a lot of automation UX. I didn't just automate the auto filter. There is that filter sweep, and it looks a lot like what I drew originally, except it's way more granular in detail. If you zoom in, you can see there are so many breakpoints here, versus before we only had three, but additionally, I adjusted some volumes as I was going along also, and you can see that reflected here in the high Hz and in this arpeggiated pattern as well. So I can go back in and delete this, or do whatever I'd like depending on whether you meant to do something, or you did it on accident. There's a lot of flexibility with this, drawing things and deleting things. The one thing that can be a little tricky here is that, if I'm playing on this track. Let's say, just do that right now. Then I decide I just want to change the frequency cutoff at a later part of this trial. [MUSIC] So you can see that that automation lane went from red to gray. So this should be really similar to the difference between session and arrangement, and how when we wanted to be listening to what was in the arrangement, we had to press the back to arrangement button. Well, the same is true for automation. So if I override the automation, Ableton's is assuming that that's what I want to have happened in that moment, because it's always thinking I'm performing live on stage, and if I want to go back to the automation arrangement, I need to press this button up here, which is the equivalent of back to the arrangement, except for the automation component of things. So if I click it here, it turns off and then my automation is back. So this works a little bit differently than a dozen other DAWs. If you want to write in more automation here, you're going to have to either recorded in, or click it in, however you want to do that. If you change a fader, or something that you've automated, just have to remember that if you want to go back to it, you're going to have to click this back to the automation equivalent of back to arrangement.
