Ive watched countless videos and read even more threads and nothing shown seems to work.

it just seems as if you cannot automate any 3rd party fx plugins in studio one 3 or 4 (yes I downgraded just to be sure)

Ive tried every 3rd party effect I have and none show in the parameter controls. if anyone answers please be very specific in what you mean. Ive read a few times that "you have to activate the plugin/effect" whatever that means.

the plugins work, my delays, delay, my distortions, distort. so its fair to say they are activated. Id really love to be able to automate my unfiltered audio stuff but I can't even do that in my backup DAW.

Im not using a controller, not sure that would be a wise investment if I can't even route it in the DAW.

 

For me the fastest way is to drag the "hand" from the upper left corner. It registers the last parameter that you touched, dragged, turned.. on an instrument or fx. Then is just the matter to drag the blue hand icon to track/arrangement, where it creates a new lane for you to automate. Screencap:

Just be careful you dont go with your mouse over the track buttons, as this will change the target parameter.
This is the easy method esp when you have only a few things to automate. Then you can start looking deeper into the matter, like in the post above.

Ed.: The automation switches to "Read" (green) mode, when you start adding nodes etc

 

Last edited: Nov 14, 2018

The only thing I've had real problems w/ are some Kontakt libraries. Also sometimes assigning certain parameters to my controller, but it'd an old M-Audio KeyStudio so I think it has more to do w/ that. The hand thing mentioned above usually works for me...or right-click then write (if I'm not mistaken).

 

Might help to know what 3rd party plugin you are having issues with, or is it all of them (which wouldn't make sense, seeing as you have some idea of how to do it.)

But the short of it is open the FX window, in the upper left click "Auto Off" and choose add/remove. You can then add every parameter you want from the plugin to the automation pool.

If it's just a handful or a single parameter you want to automate, just left click on the parameter, and then in the main S1 window, in the upper left, you will see a black box with the name of the parameter you just clicked. Just click the "A" in that window and it will add the automation lane to the track.

Now, some plugins, like Omnisphere for example, you have to right click on the parameter and enable "Enable Host Automation," for it to work, so it might be an issue with whatever plugin you are using.