Enuff Q: How about some tips!!!!

[Kenny Gioia]

That's right you guys. Lets make a thread filled with some of your best Pro Tools tricks.

Come on, hiding your tricks just stops you from learning new ones.

I'll put a new one on each day if you will.

OK

[Kenny Gioia]

1. Whenever I have a sound that I know where I want it to end, but I'm not sure where It needs to start (For EX. Reverse crash, Reverse Reverb, Reverse Guitars.)

I place the region's start where I want it to end. Then you hit the "K" key. It shoots it back. (You must be in the mode that connects the locater with the selector) TDM system only.

[lwilliam]

Any track that I KNOW will be a scratch track (like me working out a bass part before the session dude shows up), I immediately begin the track/filename with an "x". For example: "xBassGtr1".

That way, it's very easy to find and get rid of all of your scratch tracks later on.

[Kenny Gioia]

3. Making a Ping Pong panning delay with feedback that disentegrates over time.

Make 2 mono Aux's.

Pan Aux 1 Left and Aux 2 Right.

Set Aux 1's input to bus 1 and
Aux 2's input to bus 2.

Put a mono Medium or Long Delay Plug in on both aux 1 and 2. About 300ms.
No Feedback.

Put the Hi freq cutoff about 3Khz on both

Now on aux 1 set up a send for bus 2
Now on aux 2 set up a send for bus 1

Set both sends to about -8db
(This is your feedback level adjustment)

Now use bus 1 for your Ping Pong panning delay and it should pan and filter down each repeat.

For a more dramatic effect. Ad an eq in the second plugin slot on aux 1.
Set that eq to rolloff Lo's & Hi's and boost some 1Khz.

This will make every repeat thinner than the previous one. You can also add the Sansamp so that each repeat gets more distorted. Or Autotune so that each repeat gets more In tune? (I haven't tried that)

It seems like alot of work but if you just add it to your template like I do It's painless. Also add some reverb to the returns.

Let me know if you like it.

[zeeman]

i'm sure not a new trick but:

i love to take a far room mic(for me it's actually outside the door of where i cut gtrs,it's really the vox mic still setup from earlier) when mikeing gtrs, record that track along with the close mic, then slide the region up so it matches the close mic. it adds a nice space but it stays real nice and tight.
try it with far drum room mics also....

cmz

[Monte McGuire]

For vocal overdubbing, I like to set up a handful of tracks and comp on the fly. Set up one track as the recording track, select 'input only monitor' and record enable it. The first of the rest of the tracks is the 'good' track, set to record safe and the rest can be muted and used to hold the other unused, potentially good takes. It's also useful to have a muted 'dustbin' track to hold bad takes that you know you want to delete but you don't have the time right now to delete.

All these tracks should be assigned to a bus that is brought back to the mix through a single aux input that has any processing you need, such as EQ and compression. This can be used for the headphone send too, although I prefer to just listen to 2-mix with the talent.

After you record a take on the recording track, you slide it down to one of the tracks below depending on how good it is. The higher up, the better the take. If there's something to replace, cut it out of the 'good' track and your monitors (and the talent's) will do the right thing, just like a punch in in the old days.

This system makes it fast and simple to do any sort of complicated overdubs that need to be comped. I never put off comping 'til later, since I think the talent should have a big say in what's used and what isn't. After the 'good' track has a complete take, you can then delete all the rest of the stuff.

[Bryan Cook]

3. Making a Ping Pong panning delay with feedback that disentegrates over time.<P>Make 2 mono Aux's.<P>Pan Aux 1 Left and Aux 2 Right. <P>Set Aux 1's input to bus 1 and <BR> Aux 2's input to bus 2.<P>Put a mono Medium or Long Delay Plug in on both aux 1 and 2. About 300ms.<BR>No Feedback.<P>Put the Hi freq cutoff about 3Khz on both<P>Now on aux 1 set up a send for bus 2<BR>Now on aux 2 set up a send for bus 1<P>Set both sends to about -8db <BR>(This is your feedback level adjustment)<P>

Regarding the sends on the two echo auxes, just wanted to help clarify (not trying to be anal dude):
I make the sends on the actual echo aux tracks that go back and forth to each other PRE fader so that I can adjust the overall normal fader level of the echos without effecting the feedback or relative left/right echo volumes. Also to be a bit more clear the send from the 1st echo to the 2nd is the relative volume of the 1st two repeats (you can make the 1st repeat louder or softer than the 2nd repeat) and the send from 2nd echo back to 1st is actually your "feedback" amount because it just cycles back and forth once you do that. you can send only from 1st echo aux to 2nd (and not back again) if you want a simple stereo delay with no feedback.

be careful with the pre fader feedback- its best to bring the aux send down all the way BEFORE hitting pre, you want the groovy trippy kind not the ear damaging out of control kind.

[kurt]

Let´s bring this great thread to live again

[tzujan]

I know this sounds dramatic, but this tip has changed my life. It is not a ProTools trick however it is a trick that has saved my ProTools studio from looking like a rats nest.

After running out of peg-board space I have been (for years) throwing misc. cables (guitar, mic, old speaker, telephone, SCSI, usb, firewire, etc…) into a huge overflowing box. Every time I need to get a cable out it is a production unto itself. So my solution is the SC Johnson Ziploc 1 and 2-gallon Freezer Bag. Place a couple of similar cables into a freezer bag, push the air out and seal! What a dream. No knotted cables, or missing gear caught deep in the nest. What took up several square feet of my studio floor now sits is one US postal box!

[Gil Lopez]

On and off while mixing, try this:

Dim the lights, put on a blindfold, get comfortable, sit back and listen. Human way of deactivating brain plugins and giving more cpu to the ears? Perhaps!