Automation lanes in Studio One could be much more versitale, flexible and better for usage.
How?
Here are the reasons and how to fix it:
1.The visibility:
If you have many automations on top of each other and there is no automation in a specific area, it is hard to differenciate the lane borders if the lanes are expanded. Solution: Make the automation like the audio clip volume envelope, with color below the automation graph.
2.The editing options:
If you want to copy&paste, duplicating saving or transfer automation areas to other tracks or even projects, it is not that handy. Solution: automation events, which can be freely drag&drop wherever you want, duplicating it, deleting it, or saving it for other projects!
3.The versitality of cycled repeating automations and their editing:
Now you can add different cycled wave forms and you can edit them with the transform tool, but the editing is not that versitale. Solution: add modulators to the automation lane, which can be changed in the automation lane inspector with form, sync on/off, speed and intensity. The automation graph controls the intensity of the cycled LFO waveform. Advantage: As example you can add a random LFO which you can not program with the standard automation because it is fixed. So you can add in this way sligt or strong variations of your instrument, insert effects or sends to make the music more organic and interesting by adding different intensities of random modulations with the automation graph. In combination with macro control knobs this feature is really strong.
4.The stepped automation is not versitale by now.
Solution: Add a real stepped automation mode, where you can add and edit steps which have the lenght of the quantisation. The advantage of a specific step mode: You could have a smooth parameter in the automation lane inspector, which change the steps from hard to smooth seamlessly. In this way you can create complex wave forms for automation if the smooth parameter in the inspector is high.
With the mentioned improvement, the automation lane could be much better.