M-AUDIO Pro Tools Recording Studio - Manual (Page 945)

Chapter 42: Automation 927
Using Pencil Tool Shapes
You can draw automation for audio as well as
MIDI tracks. For example, use the Triangle pat-
tern to control continuous functions, or the
Square pattern to control switched functions
such as Mute or Bypass.
Since the Pencil tool draws these shapes using
the current Grid value, you can use it to perform
panning in tempo with a music track, or on
frame scene changes when working in post pro-
duction.
Resolution of MIDI Controller Data
When using the Pencil tool to draw MIDI auto-
mation, the data is drawn as a series of discrete
steps. You can control the resolution (or den-
sity) of these steps to help manage the amount
of MIDI data sent for a given MIDI controller
move.
To set the resolution for the Pencil tool:
1 Choose Setup > Preferences and click MIDI.
2 Enter a value for Pencil Tool Resolution When
Drawing Controller Data . The value can range
from 1 to 100 milliseconds.
3 Click OK to close the Preferences window.
The illustrations below show the same MIDI
controller automation drawn with different
Pencil tool resolution settings.
For better performance, consider selecting a
smaller value for MIDI controls that need higher
resolution (such as MIDI volume), and a larger
value for controls that may not require a high
resolution (such as Pan).
Editing Automation
For all tracks in a session, Pro Tools provides sev-
eral ways to edit automation data—including
Trim automation if it has not been coalesced
(Pro Tools HD only). You can edit automation
data graphically by adjusting breakpoints in any
automation playlist. You can also cut, copy, and
paste automation data in the same manner as
audio and MIDI data.
For more information on MIDI continuous
controller data, see “Continuous Controller
Events” on page 592.
MIDI Data drawn with resolution of 10 ms
MIDI Data drawn with resolution of 100 ms