Automation clipping
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Wallengard
Manipulator of energy
Send the tracks to a bus and put a filter plugin on that instead, send as many of your layers as you'd like to it. How you go about doing that depends on which daw you use.
bandcoach
Zukatoku - Mod Scientist
like wallengard says, use a group to combine them into the filter
however there are problems with doing this if you are using them in different ways in different parts of the song/track/beat
most of this comes back to how else you want manipulate the synths collectively or individually: i.e. separate reverb/dely/chorus/flanging/whatever for each synth but all through the same filter
i.e. you need to plan out your tracks, sends, inserts and automation to minimise issues at mixdown time
however there are problems with doing this if you are using them in different ways in different parts of the song/track/beat
most of this comes back to how else you want manipulate the synths collectively or individually: i.e. separate reverb/dely/chorus/flanging/whatever for each synth but all through the same filter
i.e. you need to plan out your tracks, sends, inserts and automation to minimise issues at mixdown time
Wallengard
Manipulator of energy
And I usually prefer to tweak my filters using the module on the synthesizer itself with the desired envelope control for it. I have yet to found a really good way to do this other than to globally assign the cutoff on them all to the same midi cc and record the automation this way. If anyone could shed some light on that for me without hijacking the thread along with it, that would be swell. 
bandcoach
Zukatoku - Mod Scientist
I think you are orthogonal to the op there wallengard - the filtering they are talking about is a song level filtering like we hear in swimming pools or poor boy
so it is what would normally be applied as master buss type effect but in this case op says only the synths not the vox or drums (as far as I can tell)
so it is what would normally be applied as master buss type effect but in this case op says only the synths not the vox or drums (as far as I can tell)
Wallengard
Manipulator of energy
You're probably right. But I would've wanted to do automation of many different layers of synth sounds using the module filter, essentially you could use that as well as a bus if there was only an easier way to do that.. As I feel the in built filters give better results.. At least for my tasks
steffeeh
New member
Good ideas above, but it may not work all the time, depending on what you have after the filters in processing-chain in the synths, sometimes it can end up dull rather than giving a nice lowpass effect for example (I'm especially thinking of a pluck sound consisting of several layers as an example).
Since you mention automation CLIPPING, I assume you work in FL, since that's the only DAW that uses the term "automation clips" and not just "automation" to my experience (correct me if I'm wrong).
If you do use FL, one thing you could is using the "link to controller"-function. Rather than automating all filter in all synthlayers, simply automate 1 filter on 1 synth, and then you rightclick on other just as you normally would, but instead you click on the Link To Controller, and a box shows up. In the box you see the section "Internal Controller", click where it says "(none)" and select in the list that pops up the name of the automation clip you want to link it to, then click accept, and bam, your automation clip now controls several knobs at once. This is pretty handy, but I bet it can be a bit unhandy if you deal with different types of synths whose filter respond differently.
Buuut if you dont use FL and I'm wrong, just ignore this.
Since you mention automation CLIPPING, I assume you work in FL, since that's the only DAW that uses the term "automation clips" and not just "automation" to my experience (correct me if I'm wrong).
If you do use FL, one thing you could is using the "link to controller"-function. Rather than automating all filter in all synthlayers, simply automate 1 filter on 1 synth, and then you rightclick on other just as you normally would, but instead you click on the Link To Controller, and a box shows up. In the box you see the section "Internal Controller", click where it says "(none)" and select in the list that pops up the name of the automation clip you want to link it to, then click accept, and bam, your automation clip now controls several knobs at once. This is pretty handy, but I bet it can be a bit unhandy if you deal with different types of synths whose filter respond differently.
Buuut if you dont use FL and I'm wrong, just ignore this.