Automation

Automation changes a track's volume or pan over time. Each track keeps its own points, so they move, copy, save and undo with the track.

Press Space to play. Click the ruler to move the playhead, then split and drag the pieces. Drag on the ruler to pick a range to loop, or on the tracks to select clips. Drag the Keys volume curve, and right-click the ruler to add a marker or tempo change. The library button opens the browser: listen to a sound, then drag it onto a track. Arm a track with R and press the red button to record over the music. The sliders button opens the mixer, where + adds an Echo or Drive plugin to a track. Double-click the Lead or Beat clip to edit its notes in the piano roll, where Sound opens its instrument's knobs.

Drawing

Open a track's menu (click its name or right-click its header) and pick Show volume automation or Show pan automation. A lane opens under the track:

Gesture	What it does
Click the lane	Add a point there; keep the button down to place it
Drag a point	Move it. It snaps to the grid; hold Alt to move freely
Double-click a point	Remove it
The lane's name	Switch between volume and pan, clear the points, or hide the lane

The value at the playhead shows beside the lane's name, in dB for volume and L/C/R for pan. Every change is one undo step.

How it plays

Straight lines join the points. Before the first point the track holds the first value, and after the last it holds the last one. A track with no points plays as it did before.

Automation runs on top of the mixer: volume automation is a gain after the fader, from silence to +6 dB, and pan automation is a pan after the pan knob. The fader and knob keep working as a trim, so you can still balance an automated track. Playback, loops and engine.render() all follow it.

From code

Points live on the track as automation: { volume?, pan? }, each a list of { time, value } sorted by time. Volume is linear gain from 0 to 2 and pan runs from -1 to 1.

timeline.setAutomation('keys', 'volume', [
  { time: 4, value: 0.15 },
  { time: 8, value: 1 },
]);
timeline.showAutomation('keys', 'volume');

setAutomation(track, param, []) clears a setting, removeAutomationPoint(track, param, index) drops one point, and automationView(track) says which lane is open. The automation event fires when a lane opens, switches or closes. Pure helpers for servers and tests: setAutomation(state, track, param, points) and automationAt(points, time, fallback) from @toneflix/studio-core.