From time to time, envelopes have to be managed, checked for mistakes, removed, activated & armed.
I handle about 1.000-10.000 envelopes in my mixing sessions, and most of them are pre-configured. I keep a toolbar button visible that tells me whether the option "Automatically add envelopes when tweaking parameters in automation write modes" in Prefs/Automation is on or off. Most of the time you don't need the solo-band parameter of a multiband compressor or the Listen function of a DeEsser to be an automated parameter. Trouble lies that way.
Troubleshooting the various problems that can occur is becoming hard in Reaper.
For example, in a 120 track project, checking for the existence of an envelope is tough because there's no project-wide way to search. It only exists for the envelope windows of individual tracks.
Checking the envelope of a particular parameter on all tracks on which this parameter has an envelope is impossible right now. Again, you only have per-track access. A few select track parameters have "toggle visibility" actions, but plugin parameters are difficult to manage that way.
And then there's the problem of activating and arming a set of parameters before you start your project, or in the middle of it for that matter.
The solution is a project-wide envelope manager.
I need it to do the following tasks.
- Search for parameter and plugin name in typical live-type search fashion. Reaper is great at this.
- Display plugin name, fx number in chain, parameter name, activation, arming, UI button, visibility, where to be visible(track or envelope lane) and value.
- One-click activate/deactivate and arm/disarm all displayed parameters, one parameter or selected parameters.
For example, the envelope for the frequency of a highpass filter on all tracks on which the plugin and that parameter exists could be- activated or deactvated
- change it value across all/selected instances(latching them in Latch and LatchPreview)
- displayed on their track(s)
- Display the all visible in displayed list or just selected envelopes on separate envelope lanes.
People dealing with automation items would have a great time copying automation items around between envelope lanes they don't have to hunt down in many different track envelope windows.
An Envelope Manager view could function as a display for just selected tracks too.
What say you gentlemen ? When you can, I’d certainly love to see your solution to these problems, whether they’re comon to your workflows or not.