Using the External Control & Automation tab

Use the External Control & Automation tab to set up and customize control surfaces. From the Options menu, choose Preferences to display the Preferences dialog. Click the External Control & Automation tab. For more information, see Configuring a Mackie Control Universal on page 229.

Note: From the Options menu, choose External Control to enable your selected control surfaces.

Preference

Description

Smooth and thin automation

When recording automation or drawing envelope curves, ACID software creates as

data after recording or drawing

many envelope points or keyframes as possible to represent your control

 

movements.

 

Select this check box if you want to reduce the number of envelope points/

 

keyframes after recording or drawing is finished.

 

For more information, see Recording automation settings on page 147.

 

For more information, see Adding effect automation envelopes on page 140.

 

 

Set controls to default values

Select this check box if you want controls to return to their default values when set

when automation is turned off

the track's automation recording mode to Automation Off. Automated effect

 

parameters do not have default settings and will retain their last-set values when

 

you turn automation off.

 

When the check box is cleared, controls will retain their last-set values when you

 

turn automation off.

 

 

Available devices

Choose a device from the drop-down list and click Add to choose the control

 

surfaces that will be available to ACID software. Adding a device loads its default

 

profile.

 

For information about configuring specific MIDI controllers, see Setting up a

 

Mackie Control Universal on page 269, Using a Frontier TranzPort on page

 

283, or Configuring a generic MIDI controller on page 285.

 

 

Active control devices

Lists the control devices that you’ve added. Double-click a device name to

 

customize its behavior.

 

 

Default all

Restores all control surface preferences to the default settings.

 

 

Note: You can connect one Mackie Control Universal (with up to four Mackie Control Universal Extenders), one Frontier TranzPort, and up to five generic MIDI controllers.

Customizing keyboard shortcuts

From the Options menu, choose Customize Keyboard to customize the keyboard shortcuts available in the ACID interface.

The Keyboard mapping box displays the currently assigned shortcut keys. Click a tab in the middle of the dialog to choose which shortcuts you want to see.

Editing or creating new shortcuts

1.Click a tab in the middle of the dialog to indicate the type of command you want to assign to a keyboard shortcut.

2.Select a command in the list.

Tip: You can type a word in the Show commands containing box to filter the list of commands to display only commands that contain the word you typed.

3.Click the Shortcut keys box and press the key combination you want to assign to the selected command.

4.Click the Add button to assign the key combination in the Shortcut keys box to the selected command.

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