Several questions

[bluemusic]

Hi guys

I have some questions since I'm trying understand how pro tools work. Some things just seem weird, but maybe you can help me out.

1. I'm trying to set a loop with the locators and edit inside the loop at the same time witouth loosing my locator placements. Now, I have understood the whole Link timeline and edit selection so I can somehow edit inside or outside the loop. BUT, starting somewhere inside the loop is impossible as setting the cursor on the timeline looses the locator placements! Now, the reason to do this is becuase you don't always want to start playback from the start of the loop. If the loop is long and you'r editing at the end and wanna hear how it works with the beginning when it loops again, I don't wanna wait 35 seconds to hear this every time I make a change.

2. I wanna be able to trim ends and beginnings of clips on the same track or on different tracks at the same time. I wanna select every other clip and use my trim tool to edit. I cannot do this. I can use object grabber to be allowed to select every other clip and as soon as I change to the trim tool I loose my selection. I'm pulling my hairs off for not understanding why a simple editing function cannot be done. And why do I have to change to a different tool (grabber) to select multiple clips? All other DAW's do this by holding down a key (ctrl or command) and just keep on clicking the clips you like. One should believe that PT that has so many keycommands should have one for this. There is shift for selectin clips in a row but no key for selecting every other. In my world it's quite normal to wanna shorten a clip and it's copies after they are place at their posititon. Now I have to delete all clips, shorten the original clip and copy them again or edit every singular clip.

3. Same goes with fades. I cannot fade every other clip at the same time. This makes it very time consuming as working with let's say hihat samples you'd have to edit them seperately. I want to select every other hi hat sample and edit their ends and make a small fade like all other DAW's can do.

Seriously hope somebody could help!

[daeron80]

All of those workflow examples are excellent feature suggestions and hopefully they'll appear in future versions of PT. I think they've all been suggested on ideascale and you can vote for them there. Meanwhile, I'm afraid you're only option is to use a different tool.

[bluemusic]

Ops. So your saying that I cannot trim several clips at once?

[jasonthurley]

I belive you can do it by using the groups feature...

Add say every other track to a group and link the edit when making the group.. should be options for this when making the group... Then when you fade one file it fades the entire group...

Im pretty sure this works. I cant test it at the moment....not on a rig

[jasonthurley]

Ok,

I just confirmed... You can do multiple fades/edits by making groups and making sure Edit functions are part of the group.

If you are in loop playback you can change the selection/start marker in a different place by double clicking in the grey region just under the Markers bar at the top of the Edit window.

No need to ask for these features as they already exist

[robo6675]

Yes, you can most certainly edit multiple tracks at once. Select the names of each track you want to group and type command+g (Mac). You're edits will be made across all the grouped tracks.

I'll let someone else field you loop question. I never work with looping...have you read up on dynamic transport? That may help...

[robo6675]

Upon re-reading you loop question, you probably are talking about the "loop audition" feature. Found this on the wiki page for pro tools short cuts

Auditioning When transport is Pro Tools:

Play by pre-roll value up to selection start/end (or current location if no selection)
option+Left/Right Arrow keys

Play by post-roll value from selection start/end (or current cursor location if no selection)
Command+left/right arrow keys

Play by pre- and post-roll value through selection start/end
Command+option+Left/Right Arrow keys


Perhaps that will help...

[25ghosts]

Originally Posted by bluemusic

Hi guys

I have some questions since I'm trying understand how pro tools work. Some things just seem weird, but maybe you can help me out.

1. I'm trying to set a loop with the locators and edit inside the loop at the same time witouth loosing my locator placements. Now, I have understood the whole Link timeline and edit selection so I can somehow edit inside or outside the loop. BUT, starting somewhere inside the loop is impossible as setting the cursor on the timeline looses the locator placements! Now, the reason to do this is becuase you don't always want to start playback from the start of the loop. If the loop is long and you'r editing at the end and wanna hear how it works with the beginning when it loops again, I don't wanna wait 35 seconds to hear this every time I make a change.

2. I wanna be able to trim ends and beginnings of clips on the same track or on different tracks at the same time. I wanna select every other clip and use my trim tool to edit. I cannot do this. I can use object grabber to be allowed to select every other clip and as soon as I change to the trim tool I loose my selection. I'm pulling my hairs off for not understanding why a simple editing function cannot be done. And why do I have to change to a different tool (grabber) to select multiple clips? All other DAW's do this by holding down a key (ctrl or command) and just keep on clicking the clips you like. One should believe that PT that has so many keycommands should have one for this. There is shift for selectin clips in a row but no key for selecting every other. In my world it's quite normal to wanna shorten a clip and it's copies after they are place at their posititon. Now I have to delete all clips, shorten the original clip and copy them again or edit every singular clip.

3. Same goes with fades. I cannot fade every other clip at the same time. This makes it very time consuming as working with let's say hihat samples you'd have to edit them seperately. I want to select every other hi hat sample and edit their ends and make a small fade like all other DAW's can do.

Seriously hope somebody could help!

0 --- This app is NOT Logic Pro, Thank GOD. Get familiar with your tools and editing modes. Read the manual and play around. PT is the deepest app around for all this stuff and can be used in so many ways it will make your head spin. Just take the time and familiar with your app...

1 --- USE Dynamic Transport... Thats what its there for

2 --- Sounds as if you trying to use audio where you should be using midi. If you are chopping up loops.. Use Beat detective and have it do right in the first place so that you dont have to sit and scoot about hihats on the timeline. Use the right tool for the right job. Perhaps a decent sampler is what you are after if beat detective or elas. audio cant do it for you... I seriously cant think of any scenario where I would want to do what you wanna do. But NO --- You cannot do what you wish for.

3 --- If you are chopping up a loop... You can apply fades to them inside of Beat Detective. If you are not.. I dont know why you would wanna place a fade out/in on each hihat. Use a Sampler it has ADSR curves. But NO you cant apply fades to every other clip.. Cant remember being able to do that in Logic nor can I remember in 15 years of doing audio editing having ever needed to do that. ;-)

The biggest mistake a Logic-Pro-Guy switching to Protools can do is to try and use it as if it were Logic. It is not. folks having grown up with Logic have been forced to come up with awkward ways of editing audio because Logic is nothing but THE shortcoming App when it comes to audio... So when they enter the King of Audio they are confused at first thinking PT lacks a lot... They just dont know that Protools was meant for audio. Logic guys think of Audio as if it was midi. It is not.

[zedhed]

Originally Posted by bluemusic

1. I'm trying to set a loop with the locators and edit inside the loop at the same time witouth loosing my locator placements.

Have you tried using markers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPvc_BrB3vA

[bluemusic]

First let me give a big thanks to the replies so far. I will try out your suggestions, though I find it a bit strange that I have to group a lot of clips to be able to edit them Anyway, if that's what it takes I'll do it.

25ghosts:
I'm sure you have been working in for a long time with Pro Tools and that you don't like all the Logic users trying to get PT to do the same, especially if the people asking are amateurs and not interested in making an effort in learning the program. I feel you on that. That said, I'm NOT a Logic user and I've been working in the industry for 20 years, with mainly major record company acts, selling platinum and winning a Grammy award. Where I come from, the things I wanna do is basically amateur level things that I would expect any DAW should be able to do since it is very important stuff for a fast workflow. I've been using PT on and off for some years since I often have to mix in the program. I have avoided doing editing because of these types of things, but now I wanted to go deeper into the program to see if I have been neglecting something all these years. PT has a lot of advantages when it comes to mixing and such, but in my opinion it has a very strange way of doing things when it comes to editing compare to all other DAWs. I'll give you an example:

You wanna lay down 10-20 tracks of audio sample based drums. That meaning bulding up a drumtrack from audio samples (clips) where you pick from your harddrive. I'm talkin about hits here and not loops. These hits could have certian addon to them like noise at the end or a bit of a hihat and so forht. They could also have been taken from loops whcih means there are more to the sample than one can hear.

(I don't wanna use midi for this as it's time consuming to import the samples into a sampler and I also want to be able to edit the audio files in the project window. I certainly don't want to use preset from Instuments as I want to have my own sound)

Anyway, after setting up 8 to 16 bars of a drum beat, you wanna move things around. Often I import samples that I like the feel of but I need to trim them to make them perfect. And often I change my mind about samples after hearing them with the others. So you wanna take all kick clips and trim them down at the same time. Otherwise you have to trim the first and rebuild the complex rythm you just did.

The next thing could be that every other hihat feels a bit long. Not the first hit but the second and the forth and so on. Normally I would just select every other and trim them down or use some sort of fade to make them smoothly fade out earlier.

(The same goes with clip gain. Imagine how irritating that could have been if PT only let you do that on just one singular clip at a time. Luckily you can scroll with mouse to adjust every selected clip and often I wanna do that to the second and the forth hihat and so on. If there are 16 bars, it's pretty time consuming to fix them one by one)

Imagine that I sometimes have as many as 50 drum tracks and complex rythms....
As a producer/composer, this is very tidious work that really stops the workflow. When you say that you can't think of a single time you'd needed that in your 15 years of usage, it's just the same as saying I cannot understand why I would need a fork and spoon when I have my hands. You probably don't know what you are missing. In many ways that are fine as long as you are satisfied with what you got, just stick with it, but just because you don't work that way, doesn't mean everybody else should.

Now, one can ask why I just don't continue to work in my other DAW? Well, I own a big studio with PT installed in every room so my collegues can work on it if they want or like I said; if I need to mix stuff that comes in PT project files. I cannot argue that many people comes from a PT background before stating to work in my studio so that's why I invested in it. In my studio there are 3 controlrooms and sending stuff between the rooms is tideous when people are working with different DAWs. Therefor I have decided to get deeper into it and if it's a good workflow for composing/editing I might change.

I hope I've made myself clear that this is not a what DAW is the best discussion. I JUST want to learn PT the best and easiest way possible by reading up on manuals, see videos and asking questions to people in here who knows stuff that Avid did not put in the manual

Thanks guys!