MACKIE HDR24/96 - Manual (Page 115)

HDR 24/96
Pressing the [S HIFT ] key when the Node tool is active turns the pencil cursor into a double-
headed vertical arrow. This tool allows you to drag a segment of envelope line vertically, parallel
to its previous position. In reality, it’s dragging the pair of nodes at each end of the line segment.
If the envelope line is still horizontal for the whole region, [S
HIFT +click]ing and dragging the line
adjusts the overall playback level of that region.
Here’s a region with some node action:
This region's volume is muted then faded out
The track starts playing at normal volume, at 21 seconds, it’s muted for 5 seconds, then it comes
back in, but 3 dB lower than normal until 41 seconds, where it starts a slow fade, being all the
way down to zero at 1 minute.
There’s no shortcut to moving a pair of vertically aligned nodes horizontally, for instance to
change the mute time in the example above – you must move each node individually, and you
have to do it in the right order or you’ll run into a node that won’t move in the direction you want.
To move the mute time earlier, first move the top node to the left, then move the bottom node
over to match it. To take the mute off earlier, move the bottom node first, then the top node.
This makes sense when you realize that the volume envelope represents a time line and you can’t
move backwards in time. We’re just mentioning it here because some time you’ll probably run
into this “wall” and wonder what’s happening.
We’ll get into the Region Editor and its dialog box in another page or so, but if you’re sitting at
your recorder, double click on a Region with the Hand tool and note the Envelope ACTIVE
button (or flip a couple of pages ahead and see it described). That button turns the volume
control action on or off. Make the Envelope ACTIVE and even on a region on which you’ve
inserted no nodes, and with View Envelopes on, you’ll see the unity gain envelope. If you want
to deactivate the volume changes on a Region, open the Region Editor and turn Envelope
ACTIVE off.
If you remember making some volume adjustments in a Region and you aren’t hearing them,
check that button. You may have inadvertently turned the Volume Envelope off.
A few more things to know about Volume Envelopes:
• Node placement isn’t really an editing operation, so it doesn’t go on the History list.
If you want to undo a volume change, erase the node.
• The maximum gain you can add to a region is 6 dB, but you can attenuate all the way
to minus infinity (and that’s pretty quiet!).
• Volume adjustments can be made in only one region at a time. You can’t select all
the Regions on a track and adjust their level all at once. Sorry.
• You can’t copy the Volume envelope from one Region to another. If you have a
stereo pair of tracks that need volume adjustment, we suggest that you do this on the
Technical Reference 115