Automation doesn't seem to work?

[greiswig]

I'm trying to start incorporating some automated events in my songs. So, for example, I want to make for an open-ended solo period partway through a song, and have the autoscrolling stop once the lyrics get to that point.

I've tried two different ways of doing it:

• "Recording" the scroll stop at the point in the autoscroll. When I go into "edit automation events," there are clearly things that were recorded, but the scrolling does NOT stop on reaching that point in the lyrics.
• Hand-writing a stopping point (Edit/add an event) by subtracting how many minutes in the point needs to happen and saying "Stop Auto-scroll" at that time. E.g. if it is a 3 minute autoscroll altogether, and I want it to pause and wait for me to restart it 1:45 into the song, I set time (Coarse) to 1, time (fine) to :45.  Again, nothing happens when I reach 1:45 into the scroll.

I'm not sure what the "End" option is when editing that, but it seems to be set to .10, whatever that means. What does that mean?

[arlo]

The coarse and fine settings are for seconds and hundredths of seconds, not minutes and seconds.

You can leave the End event alone unless you want to trigger something at the end of the song and you need to adjust the timing of when it ends.

I can look at what you've recorded if you submit a help ticket and then submit the troubleshooting info from the app:

https://helpdesk.arlomedia.com/arlomedia

[greiswig]

Thanks for the help, Arlo. I figured out at least part of the issue: I didn't realize you had to enable the automation every time. So that means I can't do this easily using a foot pedal to trigger the start of scroll, then have automation stop it. Is there no way to tell a certain song "Yes, this song has automation and I want it to run every time"?

[arlo]

When you say "enable the automation" do you mean "start the automation track"? You can start that automatically from a layout action (Repertoire > Layouts > [layout name] > Edit Details > Actions) or a remote control action (Settings > Remote Control).

[greiswig]

That's what I meant, Arlo. Thanks again. I think that's the last piece of the puzzle, except for maybe...

• What is "End" and why does it default to a tenth of a second?
• Why is it the only piece of the automation track that you can't remove?

Just trying to understand.

[arlo]

The End event triggers the Song Completion layout actions if you have any defined. If you don't, you can ignore it, but you can't delete it.

The End event defaults to a tenth of a second after your last event, and as you add or edit events, that should update automatically. You can move it to a later time, which is usually needed to trigger a Song Completion layout action, but you can't move it earlier than the last event.

[greiswig]

Lord, I do love this software. I'm just starting to scratch the surface of what it can really do with a complete band. Thank you! Money well-spent.

[arlo]

You're welcome! 

[greiswig]

OK, I spoke too soon. I have one other question:

I have an AirTurn PedPro that I use. One footswitch is set to Pulse/Up Arrow. I use that to bypass any pre-scroll I have and jump down a bit, then start the scroll. However, that seems to also shut off the automation track if I have not started the scroll using the on-screen control on the iPad.

Is there a way to make it such that the automation track isn't disabled when I use the PedPro that way?

PS - what's strange is that hitting the same button again makes the automation toggle from blue back to orange. But it doesn't seem to accept the automation anyway.

[arlo]

What actions are the foot switch mapped to on the Settings > Remote Control page? If you map it to Scroll Document Down, that should bypass the auto-scroll pre-roll without affecting the automation track. However, it might be better to adjust your auto-scroll settings so it does the scrolling you want without needing this manual override. The timing of your performance will have to be locked in anyway if you're using automation tracks.

[greiswig]

Yup...it's mapped to Scroll Document Down, but it still shuts off the automation. With or without a pre-roll.

Scenario where I need this: Song has intro of undetermined length before lyrics start to come in. So in this case, no pre-roll at all. Go to song in the set list, and automation track is enabled on selection (orange). Soon as I hit the AirTurn to start the scroll, the automation track goes blue, and all automation is ignored.

IFF I manually tap the automation icon again, turning it orange, it starts following the automation track again. But if I double-tap the AirTurn button (bumping things down twice, but toggling the automation icon from orange to blue to orange again), it HAS re-enabled automation, but because it is time-based and not position-based, the automation I set up to stop the scroll until I restart it stops N seconds later, not at the spot where I need it to.

[arlo]

It sounds like you have the Start/Stop Automation Track action triggered from the same foot switch button that is triggering the Scroll Document Down action. That would alternately stop and start the automation track each time you scroll, which is not what you want.

[greiswig]

I think that was it. Since that list is not alphabetized, I didn't even realize/remember that Stop Automation option was down there.