Automating in Pro Tools without Ultimate

Pro Tools is the industry standard when working with audio in post. You will invariably need to work with it if you work in audio and should familiarize yourself with it’s workflows.
I have tried out the non-Ultimate version of Pro Tools and it has some quirks for automating without a preview section. The non-Ultimate version of Pro Tools could almost be thought of as an “editing-only” version of Pro Tools but it’s also missing some key functionality of Ultimate for that purpose as well.
If you own all the plugins in your mastering chain then you may not need the comprehensive and complete series of plug-in’s offered within an Ultimate license.
I came across a a post that can make automating in PT a little easier if you find yourself in a bind. You can use the suspend function to allow yourself to dial in the settings of a plugin. You can then copy all of the settings, turn on latch or write, and then paste the settings in before hitting play. If you want to hold the parameter with your mouse button you can also use ‘touch’ mode.

It’s a pretty big pain to automate this way but if you have only the base version of Pro Tools at your disposal you can still get things done.
Having Clip Effects and automation preview modes are pretty indispensable in most workflows, so this won’t have you selling your ultimate license any time soon.