hey Sklawlor...Howz it going ?
Its really awesome to hear that you make electronic music...
I read your post.
Regarding Automation lanes - I suppose you have used automation before. If you have not, Automation is basically a way to record changes made to parameters on your synth. By doing this, your sounds can have more movement and variation. For example a simple volume fade in, would be recorded by turning the volume knob from low to high and recording this as midi events.
Each time you play back that part, the volume knob will do the same thing, only it will do it automatically.Once you record certain changes as automation data, the DAW will tell the synth to repeat that change each time you playback that part of the track. Automation data for a certain parameter is recorded in the DAW in automation lanes, represented somewhat like a graph. on the X axis is time and on the Y axis in the amount of change to the parameter in 128 increments. Low to high or left to right on the knobs. This automation data can be edited according to your requirements...and changed as many times as you like till you end up with a result that you like. you can also smooth automation to make it more precise .
Anyway. have you thought about getting a hardware controller for your DAW like Maschine . This way you will have real knobs and faders and buttons to tweak instead of a screen. I'm Not sure what other sorts of hardware controllers are available but maybe you would find it easier to use hardware controllers.
regarding the TI . Chris already mentioned that it is a way to integrate your hardware synth with your DAW and offers many advantages. It even makes midi and automation easier than regular only midi synths.
You can also use the Ti as a stand alone and record its audio outputs if that is how you would like to use it.
Overall The TI is a great synth with a lot of flexibility and ease of use.
Hope that helps a bit...
Good Luck..
Do upload some links to you music when you can...
