I typically use two layers of volume management:
- static mixing using the “outside” volume slider on my racks
- dynamic mixing using the rack output volume inside the rack
I balance the levels between my racks with the outside sliders in table view - this makes it very easy to access and easy to see at a glance where things are.
If there’s just a volume boost for one or two states in a song (boosting the piano for a piano solo section), I’ll mostly just activate state behavior for rack output gain and push it up for this state.
For “manual” (actually typically “pedal”) changes to volume, I use a binding within my racks that translates CC7 to (internal) output volume. So all manual changes I am making are relative to the stativc level I have set with the outside volume slider.
But if I have automated volume changes for an instrument throughout a song (e.g. my hammond organ in With A Little Help), I’ll use a mechanism that changes the inside rack volume instead of automating the outside gain level. These days, I use a “Smoothie” rack that I put alongside the specific instrument rack, with its Internal (smoothed) output gain bound to the internal output gain of the target rack with a binding. So it’s one Smoothie rack for every instrument rack I want to fine-automate.
Now I define the state specific level boost or reduction with the output gain slider on the Smoothie rack, and it will propagate to the output gain of my instrument rack - but SMOOTHED… So no more volume jumps…
And if I find that my Hammond doesn’t cut through, I can still increase the overall level of the Hammond rack across all states by adjusting the output gain on the actual Hammond rack.
That’s my implementation of @brad’s idea:
So essentially, I am using outside rack output gain for static mixing, and inside rack output gain for dynamic mixing - great that every rack has two levels of output gain!
Since I have Smoothie (thanx, @Hamlen!) , I find myself using this a lot for my volume (and Expression) automation. The big advantage to this is that this is very visible: I see both volume levels (static and dynamic) at a glance on the two racks; no need to jump between routing and bindings view all the time, as I had to do with my previous methods of automating levels (state specific sending of CC7 to the racks).
(And if I didn’t need levels to smoothly fade between song states and accept jumps, I could also insert a simple embedded rack that does nothing and bind its outer gain to the target’s inner gain. This would still give me two faders, one for static and one for dynamic mixing).
Cheers,
Torsten