i personally miss it a lot:
the ability to copy/paste seperate parts of automation envelopes.
realworld scenario:
i’m busy on a tune where i use automation to steer simple synth related events like filter cut-off, reso and LFO frequency.
i want the automation sequence to repeat 4 times within a single pattern, but it really has to repeat 100% and accurately four times within a single pattern.
so the 1st quarter of the pattern sounds great with the automation applied. now, if i want the remaining three quarters to sound absolutely identical, i’d have to draw the same automation sequence again and again and again… until i’ve managed to draw it four times within that one single pattern with the same percentage values.
this task is very annoying, time consuming and uncomfortable (try to draw 58.625%, 25.525% and so on four times in a row with your mouse).
a feature which allows the user to mark individual “blocks” of an automation envelope in order to copy/paste them within the pattern’s envelope, would be highly appreciated here.
Block copy in the Automation editor is a good idea, but even more improvements can be made (in order of importance):
undo/redo of automation edits
text editing of automation point values to solve mouse inaccuracy
vertical up/down shifting and scaling of point values
horizontal automation curve shrinking (to the length of half pattern)
horizontal curve expanding times n with an option of overwriting automation curves of following patterns - this way an automation shape (like the generated exp curve) could be easily made for example 4 patterns long
multiplication of automation curve by a curve from the clipboard - imagine you have some sort of cyclic automation over a parameter, but you need a linear fade over it, so that the cyclic character is preserved, but a gradual change is made. This could be easily achieved by creating a linear fade curve in a spare pattern, copying it and multiplying the existing cyclic curve by the linear one in the clipboard.
horizontal scrolling and zooming in the automation editor so that curves for a sequence of patterns can be edited - this would be the best way of creating multipattern sweeps.
yes, all of these suggestions are useful and i’d personally use them all quite frequently i guess.
however some of them might (will) take a lot of time to be implemented, so prioritizing these suggestions would make sense (granted the devs regard them as useful anyways).
so if it was me to decide, i’d go for the block copy feature (ye, of course eh? ) and your suggestion #2, first.
Ctrl+Left mouse might not exactly be text editing, but it’s really accurate, so I guess it’s enough. And you’re right, Alt+Right and Alt+Left Mouse Button do exactly what I meant in #3.
Thanks a lot for the tip, Johan - I didn’t know about those!
Guess that leaves us with block copying, curve multiply and multi-pattern automation editing/viewing issues.
Edit: I would be quite intuitive if Alt+Right Mouse Button+horizontal drag worked like functions from #4 and #5.
i’m aware of the ctrl+lmb combo for higher accuracy mouse editing and always use it, but try to hit values behind the comma, and you’ll know why entering numeric values would be more pleasant via keyboard.
