Issues with plugin automation recording

[Stefan Bornhorst]

Dear all, today I've come across another problem with automation. Hope that somebody can help me this time... I'm using version 2021.01 on Windows 10.

What I'd like to do is absolutely simple: I'm using the AudioThing Outer Space echo on a vocal track and would like to add echo only to some words at the start and at the end of the song. The Outer Space has an on/off switch to activate/deactivate the input to the echo machine - I want to use this because it doesn't switch off the echo itself, it only mutes the input. There are many switching points, so I've decided to record the automation of this switch "live" instead of drawing an envelope.

I know that there are 3 different modes to record automation - Touch, Overwrite and Latch - but I've got problems with all three of them. At least Overwrite and Latch only seem to be useful with continuous controllers but not with on/off switches.
- Touch is the only mode which records the on/off messages correctly (see below) but it's impossible to record the automation in more than one take. What I'd like to do is to record the automation in the first part of the song, then stop the recording, jump to the part at the end and record the automation there. But as soon as the recording is stopped and started again, the automation recording in the first part is gone. I really wonder why this happens and if there's a way around it. The record mode of the project is set to "overdub", so this can't be the problem I think...
- Overwrite and Latch seem to record correctly - the first part of the recording is not being deleted and during the recording the envelope looks like this:
 
But as soon as the recording is stopped, the envelope changes and looks like this:

Of course with this envelope the echo doesn't switch on/off at the appropriate times anymore, so it's useless.

Any ideas...? Thanks a lot in advance!

Edited April 27, 2021 by Stefan Bornhorst

[John Vere]

It funny that you brought this up because a while ago I tried to do the same thing. I wanted a repeat echo in time with the tempo at the end of the song. I tried a few automated things and none worked so I made a second track and copied the phrase to that track and pasted it a few times using the time grid. I then used clip gain to make each repeat slowly get quieter. Perfect. 
But another option for you would be to make a second track and move only the parts you want the echo on there. Then put the effect only on that track. 

Edited April 28, 2021 by John Vere