With the introduction of Pro Tools 10, we had access to a new feature called Clip Gain. In essence, you could change the gain of a clip, pre-fader and pre-insert, right on the clip itself. This was cool for a number of reasons, but there's an aspect of clip gain that I hadn't used until very recently. Basically, you can insert a compressor on a track and use clip gain to drive that compressor harder during different parts of a song.

Adjusting Dynamics with Volume Automation

These two screenshots show the same guitar parts, with my Clip Gain adjustments highlighted in the top photo, and the automation moves that I made in the bottom photograph. On the surface, all I'm doing is adjusting the level in two different ways, but it's a lot more powerful than that. Both these tracks have a compressor on them, and I wanted to bring out more excitement and power in specific sections of the song, so I used Clip Gain to drive the input of the compressor harder, and the resulting tonal changes I could then ride using volume automation.

Try it out for yourself, and see if you can't use both Clip Gain and volume automation in your work.