Made the switch from Sonar to PT, some questions.

[coeadam]

Hey gang...got my shiny new PT12 up and running, and while I'm a seasoned DAW user (Sonar in my case, for 15 years+), I had a few questions as of course there are some large differences in where certain options are and this kind of thing.

First, the initial things I noticed that I thought were quite glaring...perhaps these are buried in a menu I haven't found yet, but they seem like really basic functions every DAW should have and was stunned that PT doesn't seem to have them. Correct me if I have missed something, it's definitely quite early in my PT career:


- Lack of master Mute/Solo/Record Arm buttons...it's very handy to be able unmute or unsolo several tracks at once if you've been working with just a bunch of drums or whatever, and it's a bit tedious to have to unmute or unsolo them one by one every time, or if you're recording 16 tracks of drums, so you can arm/unarm all 16 tracks at once. Is there a button I can create in a toolbar for this?

- Exclusive Solo and Dim Solo buttons...again two of the things I found very helpful for A/Bing tracks as well as mixing one track in context were exclusive solo (allowing only one track soloed at a time to be able to quickly jump from one to another) and Dim Solo (so you can say, focus on a snare drum EQ, but still have the rest of the mix playing say, 10 dB lower so you can still hear what's going on, without having to move the fader and throw off any post-fade aux sends, etc). Any way to achieve either of these things in PT?

- Double clicking a fader to have it return to unity, and double clicking a pan pot to return it to center...I was absolutely stunned PT doesn't do this. Please tell me this is an option I can turn on because again it's very tedious to have to manually mess around with a pan pot using a mouse or trackball when I could just double click it.


If any of the above are possible, or if there are easier workarounds for the things I described, I'd love to hear them! I'm only just getting started and while I certainly expected to have to spend some time unlearning some old habits, these are some fairly fundamental things that I use a lot that hopefully have a solution. Thanks all!

[Ru_C]

Master un-solo/un-mute are those little 'S' & 'M' icons underneath the 'bar-selection' readout (or whatever its called) at the top. See attached screen grab .

Alt-clicking returns a fader, pan-pot etc to unity.

I don't think there is a 'dim-solo' I'm afraid...sounds like a good idea though !

[Drew Mazurek]

Originally Posted by coeadam

- Lack of master Mute/Solo/Record Arm buttons...it's very handy to be able unmute or unsolo several tracks at once if you've been working with just a bunch of drums or whatever, and it's a bit tedious to have to unmute or unsolo them one by one every time, or if you're recording 16 tracks of drums, so you can arm/unarm all 16 tracks at once. Is there a button I can create in a toolbar for this?

- Exclusive Solo and Dim Solo buttons...again two of the things I found very helpful for A/Bing tracks as well as mixing one track in context were exclusive solo (allowing only one track soloed at a time to be able to quickly jump from one to another) and Dim Solo (so you can say, focus on a snare drum EQ, but still have the rest of the mix playing say, 10 dB lower so you can still hear what's going on, without having to move the fader and throw off any post-fade aux sends, etc). Any way to achieve either of these things in PT?

- Double clicking a fader to have it return to unity, and double clicking a pan pot to return it to center...I was absolutely stunned PT doesn't do this. Please tell me this is an option I can turn on because again it's very tedious to have to manually mess around with a pan pot using a mouse or trackball when I could just double click it.

#1. Group attributes.

#2. Options menu/solo mode X-OR, no SIF (solo in front)

#3. Option clicking is set to default.

[Ru_C]

Originally Posted by Drew Mazurek

#2. Options menu/solo mode X-OR, no SIF (solo in front)

Hi Drew, I believe the o.p was asking about a 'dimmed solo' feature that plays everything else in the mix at a quieter volume, whilst still 'soloing'...kind of like when you hit the talkback button on a console I'm guessing...

is that what 'Solo in front' is?

[Drew Mazurek]

Originally Posted by Ru_C

is that what 'Solo in front' is?

yes.

[coeadam]

Ahh thanks for the quick replies you guys...I notice the Solo master cancels solos but the Mute is apparently just a light to show you that there are muted channels, as pressing it does nothing.

Also while it's nice to see exclusive solo (X-OR mode) as an option, it'd be awesome to have it as a button right on the toobar to be able to switch between modes quickly, but a boy can dream.

Also it's a drag that I have to alt-click rather than just double click, as I'm trying to minimize keyboard use in my sessions...I have a Softube Console 1 so between that and the trackball I was hoping to use the keyboard as little as possible but that may be out of the question now.


Anyway thanks again, it's coming together over here, and there are definitely a few things I do prefer in PT over Sonar...mainly the colour scheme (and how easily customizable it is), meter ballistics are very nice to look at, and the default scroll wheel zoom behaviour is much better. Getting the hang of things. I'm sure when I actually have a new project to record and edit, it'll be a little more intense as so far I've just flown in a night I recorded at a local pub so there's really no editing, just adjusting EQ/dynamics/levels and whatnot.

Cheers!

[H-Musikk]

Originally Posted by coeadam

the Solo master cancels solos but the Mute is apparently just a light to show you that there are muted channels, as pressing it does nothing.

Also a SONAR user.... I think the easiest way to un-solo or un-mute all is to Alt-Click one of the tracks that are soloed or muted… The 'S' & 'M' icons underneath the 'bar-selection' are to small (and I forget about them all the time)

[coeadam]

Originally Posted by H-Musikk

Also a SONAR user.... I think the easiest way to un-solo or un-mute all is to Alt-Click one of the tracks that are soloed or muted… The 'S' & 'M' icons underneath the 'bar-selection' are to small (and I forget about them all the time)

Ahh cool! That's pretty quick.

[Ru_C]

Originally Posted by Drew Mazurek

yes.

Ah, yeah would be handy. You'd think it would maybe be something that could be added in this section, with '-DB' amount for how much you want the mix dropping in relation to the solo path.

[SigFriedChicken]

Originally Posted by coeadam

Ahh thanks for the quick replies you guys...I notice the Solo master cancels solos but the Mute is apparently just a light to show you that there are muted channels, as pressing it does nothing.

Also while it's nice to see exclusive solo (X-OR mode) as an option, it'd be awesome to have it as a button right on the toobar to be able to switch between modes quickly, but a boy can dream.

Also it's a drag that I have to alt-click rather than just double click, as I'm trying to minimize keyboard use in my sessions...I have a Softube Console 1 so between that and the trackball I was hoping to use the keyboard as little as possible but that may be out of the question now.


Anyway thanks again, it's coming together over here, and there are definitely a few things I do prefer in PT over Sonar...mainly the colour scheme (and how easily customizable it is), meter ballistics are very nice to look at, and the default scroll wheel zoom behaviour is much better. Getting the hang of things. I'm sure when I actually have a new project to record and edit, it'll be a little more intense as so far I've just flown in a night I recorded at a local pub so there's really no editing, just adjusting EQ/dynamics/levels and whatnot.

Cheers!

I used Cakewalk/SONAR many years ago. I think you'll find PT to be quite an adjustment, but better in the long-run.

You mentioned wanting to avoid using the keyboard. While you can do that, PT is a very keyboard-friendly DAW. Once you learn the difference hotkeys, you can be quite efficient.