Automator Services for Pro Tools (Mac)

[Table Syrup Records]

Hmmm.... if you wouldn't mind sending me the 'code/text' from your automator routine, as an example, I can probably lay this out....

I've got a little experience in programming basic, visual basic, and VBA ..... nothing on the mac side, but this isn't exactly programming, and the concept is still the same.....

[Oliver M]

Originally Posted by Shorty Emcee

Setup/Peripherals/MIDI Controllers

There are 4 drop down rows of 3

Far left is Controller Type (ie, HUI / MCU / Etc)
Next is Send Selection (ie, Device Port 1 / 2 / 3 / 4)
Next is Receive Selection (ie, Device Port 1 / 2 / 3 / 4)

And so on

So each time you switch controllers, say, back and forth between an iPad and a US-2400 or Mackie Control Universal setup - with 24 faders (3 units, or unit using 3 ports), you have to make 9 selections

Not that it's a huge pain, I just always thought they should have let you save these, and have a drop down menu to select your saved configs..... I switch back and forth when working by myself and heading in and out of the booth, and this gets old

I see but when there is no save option already for the MIDi settings then an Automator Service can’t add one. What Automator does when creating a Track Preset is what a PT user would do manually but way faster.
It also takes care of things like creating the Track Presets folder when the user didn’t create one before.
It also changes the file extension so that you can load the saved file as a preset plus a few more little things.

And since the Track Preset feature is already a working feature in PT, even though not documented yet, one can automate it.

Its possible to automate the process of opening the Setup/Peripherals window and selecting the MIDI Controllers tab. Automating the several settings in the pop up buttons is pretty tricky and would be a custom job depending on your settings etc.

[Table Syrup Records]

I see Well, I'm still crossing my fingers that Avid will add this someday

[kkabel]

Hi Oliver.

Nice job! Thanks for posting this.
Is there a way to modify these scripts, so that I can chose which folder the presets are saved into? It would be nice to be able to sort the presets into folders.
I don't really know how to use Automator. I tried to open up your script, but that did not seem to work...

[Oliver M]

Originally Posted by kkabel

Hi Oliver.

Nice job! Thanks for posting this.
Is there a way to modify these scripts, so that I can chose which folder the presets are saved into? It would be nice to be able to sort the presets into folders.
I don't really know how to use Automator. I tried to open up your script, but that did not seem to work...

Absolutely yes, I am already working on it, this and Yosemite compatibility. Stay tuned.

[kkabel]

Awesome! Do you have any other interesting PT macros up your sleeve?

[Oliver M]

Originally Posted by kkabel

Awesome! Do you have any other interesting PT macros up your sleeve?

Dozens, from rather complicated ones like an Auto Bounce script or these Track Preset scripts to more simple ones to call AudioSuite plug-ins including a few that automate several steps. I.e. opening the "Normalize" AudioSuite window, processing the clip you selected and closing the window again when done, same for "Reverse" and "Inverse".
Then one which saves a session copy with checkbox “Audio Files" checked (as I always include all audio files with my copies) or one that selects unused clips in the session and removes them including clearing the undo queue, all in one go.

Since most of them are tailored for my personal needs I am not sure if it justifies the extra work to make them “public compliant”, adding all kinds of checks and error dialogs in case the user does something odd etc.
This stuff is pretty time consuming.

But I am probably going to release a set of those that launch AudioSuite plug-ins, incl. the ones that process and close the AS window automatically. We’ll see.

[kkabel]

That sounds really cool, Oliver. I am very interested in this but as I said, I haven't really had the time to get into Automator yet. I am working professionally in post-production (sound design and re-recording mix of animation), and I am always looking for ways to optimize my workflow. I saw the video of the Slate Raven, where he shows a bunch of macros programmed into soft buttons. I was really inspired by that, and I am thinking that it must be possible to do pretty much the same thing with automator + for example Actions for iPad. It would be really cool to have a macros-controller with direct access buttons on a screen like that.
I tried some macro programming with Keyboard Maestro but it seemed hard to make it do exactly what I wanted. For example, I could not find a good way to make it wait for processing to complete before starting the next task, which made multi task macros not work. I tried to do a 'Consolidate all tracks and then export as files', but it did not really work because of this.
I also tried QuickKeys. I could not make that work at all. I guess automator is a better programming tool for these kinds of things?
Then I stumbled upon this thread. I understand that you are hesitant to be service responsible if you release these macros publicly. But would you be willing to share these with me? No responsibility on your side - I won't bother you, I promise ;-) And also, would you be willing to share the code with me, so I can 'open up' the macros and see how they are done? That would be invaluable knowledge for me to move on with me own programming. I hope this is not to much to ask. But I haven't really been able to find a whole lot of info and examples on macros for pro tools, so I am a bit in the dark about how to move on with this...

[Oliver M]

Originally Posted by kkabel

That sounds really cool, Oliver. I am very interested in this but as I said, I haven't really had the time to get into Automator yet. I am working professionally in post-production (sound design and re-recording mix of animation), and I am always looking for ways to optimize my workflow. I saw the video of the Slate Raven, where he shows a bunch of macros programmed into soft buttons. I was really inspired by that, and I am thinking that it must be possible to do pretty much the same thing with automator + for example Actions for iPad. It would be really cool to have a macros-controller with direct access buttons on a screen like that.
I tried some macro programming with Keyboard Maestro but it seemed hard to make it do exactly what I wanted. For example, I could not find a good way to make it wait for processing to complete before starting the next task, which made multi task macros not work. I tried to do a 'Consolidate all tracks and then export as files', but it did not really work because of this.
I also tried QuickKeys. I could not make that work at all. I guess automator is a better programming tool for these kinds of things?

Automator isn’t actually any better than Keyboard Maestro or QuicKeys, quite the opposite actually as it is pretty slow. The same code as an AppleScript Bundle executes way faster.
The reason I picked Automator to share these actions is that using it is quite convenient since Automator app is part of the core apps in OS X and there is no need for extra tools to use Automator Services, shortcuts can easily be attached to Automator Services, too.

Basically the Automator stuff consists of 2 parts: The Automator Service which you can attach a shortcut to and the Automator Action. The Action holds the entire code and is being triggered by the Service.

98% of the code in my actions is plain AppleScript, plus a little bit AppleScriptObjC and some extra lines of code to make it work in Automator. Automator Actions are created in Apple Xcode while the AppleScript code itself can be written in any AppleScript compatible Editor like Apple’s own Script Editor or Script Debugger from Late Night Software.
I am actually thinking about to not use Automator anymore because it is hard to debug Automator Actions and they are not easy to maintain either. Plain AppleScript Bundles would be more handy, way faster and more reliable but users will have to use tools like FastScripts, Keyboard Maestro, Quicksilver or the like to actually trigger (fire up) the Scripts.

If you want to learn how to create such Scripts or Automator Actions you gotta learn AppleScript I am afraid. Maybe the newly introduced JavaScript in OS X could be useful, too. I am not a programer, I learned this by doing over the years or by hiring someone else when things got too complicated.

All this stuff is achieved with GUI scripting as PT is not scriptable, its a lot of trial and error really.


Oliver

[kkabel]

Thanks for the explanation. I might check out AppleScript although it seems a bit intimidating. Or try to get some help. Thanks.