User tips for D command & D control

[Hit$quad]

good to know about that jog wheel...
Chris have you experienced any unusual crashes since you got the Icon?

Also, do you have an expansion chassis?

GM

[Chris Lambrechts]

good to know about that jog wheel...
Chris have you experienced any unusual crashes since you got the Icon?

Also, do you have an expansion chassis?

GM

unusual crashes ? you mean with the controller ? I have yet to see the controller crash if that's what you mean.

A software crash ? sure ... I mean ... It's software right and if you do something that it doesn't like or run into a bug then well ... yes ... the computer will hang. In general it is rocksolid though. I run a HD6 Accel so yup .... expansion chassis.

On another note : common people ... share your tips / techniques. 7.2 has been out for a while and there's a LOAD of stuff.

Anyone figured out how in 7.2 with D control you can save like 48 different versions of your mix in the same session and instantly recall them on the fly ?

I'll have to write that up some time ... it's a cool one. (almost a workaround to Pro Tools missing automation playlists)

[Chris Lambrechts]

7.2 and preview trick as a workaround (be it limited) for automation playlists for D Control :

Situation all of us at some point run into I think :

You are about to finish a mix - full of automation and you're nearly done. The next morning you walk in or the client comes in or whatever and you find your self in one of the following situations :

- how about a different level for the lead vocal - bring it a bit out of the rest
- no wait ... maybe I should bring the guitars down a db or so and that will bring out the vocals a bit more
- no wait ... if I add .5 db to the vocal and maybe lower the pads 1db but leave the guitars ...

argh ... Pro Tools needs automation playlists so within the same session you can switch on the fly between different versions of the same mix right ?

Well yes it does but in the meantime ... PT 7.2 has provided us with a feature that, although it is not initially meant to be used this way, will let you do something that comes pretty close and I'm finding it very handy to do this way. Create different versions of your mix, save them to preview presets (there's 48 on D control) and recall then on the fly .... and it all gets saved with your session as well.

Here's how :

1. Step one : The most important one. Create a snapshot of your ORIGINAL mix.

- option + press latch to put everything in latch write mode
- option + press trim to put the entire console in trim mode
- under action : option + press preview to put the entire console in previw mode

NOW : SAVE your original mix ... you haven't made any changes to it yet but it IS important to do this now to prevent writing changes ...

- under snap : press capture (this captures the entire state of your current mix
- press and hold the snap 1 softkey to save this state / mix to preset 1

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OK ... you have just created a snapshot you to recall your original mix at all times, no matter what changes you make to it.

A note about TRIM mode : I'm using trim mode because it is the only way you can preserve whatever automation moves are going on in preview. While in trim mode, Pro Tools will still playback these moves ... it actually trims them.

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Now you can make whatever changes to your mix you want to do levels, sends, pans ... whatever

2. Step 2 :

during playback adjust some levels , pans, whatever .... and when your satisfied with the changes go to the snap keys and press capture, followed by pressing and holding snap 2 to save that state to preset 2
Repeat this as often as you feel to save different presets.

Mote that at any time you can go back to your original mix and start over again by recalling snap 1 and pressing punch capture.

In the end you will end up with a bunch of different mixes that you can recall and punch on the fly.

I find it is a great way to get a feel of small balance changes like sitting a vocal on top or deeper into a mix or blend things more together. The fact that you can recall them on the fly while actually listening to them allows you to feel 'vibe' changes very easily.

Some might argue the fact that while you are punching you are actually destroying / writing existing automation and while this is true, that is the very reason why the first thing you do is create a preset of your original mix ... so you can go back at any time.

I've been using this since I discovered it with 7.2 and it is helping me a lot. In fact, in my world it is the way I use preview more then what it originally was designed for.

Granted it is not truly like what auto;ation playlists would allow you to do ,,,, it does come close to what I would use those playlists for in the first place.

Oh ... and the cool thing really is that you can come back the next day and all your presets are still there ... it all get's saved with the session.


Enjoy.

[cajonezzz]

So are Automation Playlists something DIGI is looking into adding?

cz

[Chris Lambrechts]

- 2 knob surround panning ... wicked for anyone who ever touches a surround session.

- VCA spill / fold ... but in combination with a very usefull pref that allows you to automatically focus the VCA master to the focus strip. VERY usefull that.

The last digizine edition 'fall 2006' mentions a lot of cool stuff about 7.2 ... well worth a read :

It also mentions this one :

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Latch automation priming in Stop, which lets you set up individual levels and controls to start writing the moment playback begins.
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Now all that is pretty cool and so on but I've found in my experience that the really cool thing about this is that you don't even 'have' to engage playback to write automation.

There's a couple of cool automation enhancing workflow preferences that can be set in PT since 7.2. One very usefull one is 'surpress automation warnings' (or something like that ... ).

Basically it gets rid of the old

PT :'you are trying to modify automation blah ... are you sure'

me : 'yes I'm sure thank you'

PT : ' yes but are you really sure you want to do that ?'

me : 'yes thank you ... I'm sure now can you do it please'

PT : 'yes I can do it but I just wanted to warn you that I'm about to blah blah ... '

me : 'WILL YOU F*¨"éµ$ù DO WHAT I TELL YOU TO DO'


Don't get me wrong ... there's downsides to it as well ... and I definately have a less trigger happy 'write to ... ' finger these days but combined with this latch prime in stop ... sooo handy at times.

Trimming a selection down in volume for example.


- select the track (track selection follows edit window of course enabled)
- make a selection with the jog wheel jog wheel IN hold turn and jog wheel OUT hold and turn (LOVE the enhanced jog wheel in 7.2)
- say you want to lower or trim the selection down 1 db ... move the fader down 1 db (latch or trim latch)
- push autowrite to all and voila ... done. No need to playback the selection first etc ...

[Chris Lambrechts]

7.3 ........


- Open recent sessions on the soft keys :

The most recent on is right there on the first page ...
When you press open recent you have access to the 10 most recent sessions : 5 on the first page and 5 on the second page ... accesible by pushing the 'audio files' soft key

- Dynamic transport :

Rew / FF lets you control the play start marker without killing the loop.
link edit / timeline ON or OFF gets a whole new meaning. You can move the loop with the jog wheel with the time end edit line linked or make a new selection and have the loop snap to your selection. Currently only controllable with the jog while stopped though.

[Matt Chan]

is there any way to have the screen follow your custom fader groups?

[Mikey MTC]

Chris - again, thanks for creating and continually adding to this thread. It's an excellent resource.

But, regarding your snapshots trick to store various mix versions for instant comparison, I've got some questions.

I've been looking into this and think I misunderstood your original claim. I thought you werre saying that you could have (for instance) two or more mixes with totally different mix moves available for comparison. So verse 2 might have totally different vocal rides and different guitar rides, etc. Then when you switched on the fly, it could be like a completely different set of automation going on.

If this is the case, please explain a little more on how this works. Because the "capture" process captures a static state, how can you capture a dynamic mix? I see you're saying to do this with trims but even so, sure you could have an alternate mix with verse 2 vocals down 1 dB, but how would you have an alternate mix with verse 2 vocals down 1 dB for the first two lines then up 2 dB at line 3 and back down again for line 4? Assuming that your original mix has a different set of rides for verse 2 vocals already in place.

I think I'm missing the last piece to this puzzle.

Thanks Chris,

[Chris Lambrechts]

A while ago I was talking to a Pro Control user and he mentioned working with rewire apps like reason / live or melodyne etc ... caused him often headaches because of the switching back and forth between the 2 apps and having no control over Pro Tools when the rewire app is in front ...

So I was like no no no ... that's not true ... au contraire ... your controller allows you A LOT of things and flexibility ... even with the rewire app front most app.

Here's a couple of things I find really usefull when working with rewire apps :
Not ALL of these work with a Pro Control or C24 but some if not most will , the rest is Icon controller stuff :

- First of all ... and probably most importantly ... you HAVE ACCESS to ALL transport functions through the dedicated transport section. Pro Tools can be perfectly in the background and you can still use the controller to control transport

- You can control volumes with the faders, you can record enable / disable tracks, you can record to a track , you can can automate stuff ... enable / disable automation etc etc .... all with Pro Tools in the back ground.

- You can add inserts / sends ... change your entire I/O setup for the tracks, navigate around the session using the banking stuff ... all with PT in the background

- You have access to the entire custom fader thingies with PT in the background

- One of the beautiful things with working that way with rewire apps is that when the rewire app is frontmost app ... you have 2 tranports ... the space bar will control p[layback on most rewire apps and if you need to work in that rewire app in solo / without PT following you simply press the spacebar to start transport and all you hear is whatever is in the rewire app.
Bring PT sound into it ... press the tranport play button.

- of course the focus channel is available as well which means convenient access to EQ qnd Dynamics ... not that you couldnt use the channel strips to do that as well of course.

- And here's what I REALLY LOVE about this

Often when working in rewire apps like reason or melodyne or live you work on a loop ... well ... you can actually control the loop. Some rewire apps sync both ways ... but youy can turn that off which is what I prefer. the jog wheel on the controller conbined with the in / out buttons will allow you to nopt only navigate through your session quickly but also allow you to set / change in and out points for a selection / loop. Usually you even have the instant visual feedback in the rewire app but of course there is the meters section on your controller which tells you where you are in PT. And when you disable the sync from the rewire app to PT you can even work on a loop in that rewire app completely independant from PT. You could loop bars 1 - 8 in PT while looping 9 - 16 in the rewire app when played solo.

In the end ... When working like this you actually discover how powerful the controller is and how much access you DO have without Pro Tools having to be the active window or app. In fact ... it is a operfect example that you ARE sitting behind a console. You can do everything you would on a normal console and a lot more. The softkeys allow you to do a bunch of stuff etc etc ...

Actually ... I'm typing this message in safari and while doing that could perfectly be recording a session ... or somebody sitting next to me could be mixing the session ... really ... no kidding ... it works.


Chris

[Chris Lambrechts]

some good posts in thread in this forum. Going to copy paste some of them so they don't get lost in cyberspace :

This one is by Gil Gowing : Easy way to quickly create a custom fader group through selecting the tracks you want in the CF group :

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You can do this. Select the tracks you want, select the custom group you want to populate, double press the edit button to name the group and return. The selected channels will populate the custom group.

Gil

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Gil Gowing
Digidesign Console Sales Specialist
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