Better way to Separate Regions?

[Habitual User]

Hi, I'm new to editing in ProTools and was wondering if there was a better way to split up regions then to use the Separate command. Doing it that way creates alot of unused regions that I need to go and delete than manually rename the regions I'm using.

So for example I have a region named LeadGtr_01-01 and I Separate it I get two new regions named LeadGtr_01-02 and LeadGtr_01-03, in it's place. I understand why normally this would be what you want, but since I'm breaking up a whole take into a bunch of continuous regions i'd like to have the first piece retain the original region name (LeadGtr_01-01) and have the new split get the next name (LeadGtr_01-02).

Are there any option that I over looked to do this, or perhaps another way to split the regions up? I haven't used Split on Transients, because that would give me alot of extra regions. While looking for an answer on the forum, I saw that there is an Auto-Rename feature, but I didn't see it (thought I probably looked right at it), and from what I read it doesn't work that well.


I'm about to try to comp a some vocal takes together and would like to avoid having to manually rename 120+ regions.

I hope this makes sense, if not I can try to explain it better. Thanks.

[albee1952]

Don't know if this helps but, I recommend that you consolidate tracks once you finsh your edits. This way you end up with a single continuous audio file and you go ahead and hide the rest(read up on getting rid of un-used audio regions). I think Auto-Rename is under the Preferences menu. You may as well try it and see if it helps you or not.

[Shawn Simpson]

'Auto-rename separated region' is in the editing tab of the preferences. It only applies to selection based separations where you've established a start and end, not just placed the cursor at the desired split location. It essentially lets you make your edits without having the region name dialog come up everytime.

I'm not entirely sure why you'd want to go in and rename regions, but it doesn't really matter. I personally don't pay much attention to region names when I'm editing.

It sounds to me like there may be a function in the 'strip silence' window that might do what you want. After you've made your edits, you can select the whole shebang and have it rename them with appended numbers in the order they appear in the timeline. I might be misunderstanding what you're trying to do, but that's about the only "macro" level renaming function I can think of.

Good luck.

[foxlemieux]

I think the reason you can't do what you are trying to do is because the original region has to be manual renamed as it isn't changing when you make a separation. That sounds confusing even just reading back over it. You have region "A". When you separate it it becomes region "B" and "C". Region "A" still retains the length and content of region "A". If you separated the regions and it became region "A" and "B" then the original region "A" would no longer exist. I hope that makes more sense.

I'm not 100% sure what you are trying to do, so it's hard to say what a better or more efficient way of doing it is. After I record something I name it. Everything in my region list has a meaningful name. That is especially helpful when you come back to a project six months later for a remix or something. I also try and organize my region list with a capital letter and a space before things to keep them organized (as digidesign refuses to implement a folder system in the region list). For instance your LeadGtr_01-01 would be "A LeadGuitar Track 1 Take 1 C414TLII" (if I was using a c414-TLII). You only have to rename the whole big region once. Then when it is separated it gives each section the -XX delineation.

At that point the advice above about consolidating the region once you've deleted the unused regions should work well for you. You have your original audio file and the new audio file each with one item in your region list.

I hope that helps and is pertinent to your question.

[Habitual User]

Thanks to everyone for the tips. I'll be sure to check out the editing options a little better.

I'll explain what I was doing. We had had a reggae song, and the guitarist put a lead down through the entire song. After listening back to it back we decided that we didn't like it. I thought the song was a little bland, as there was only an acoustic guitar playing, so I chopped up the whole take, and muted 90% of the lead out, leaving just little accents playing at select time during the song.

I understand why it keeps the old region and makes two new ones, it's just not exactly what I was looking for in this case. I'm a video editor by day, and just very anal about keeping my clips/regions in order. I would really love some bins/folders to organize them even more. It's not that big of a deal, just that big long seemingly unorganized list annoys me

I found auto-rename, it shows up when you click on the top of the regions list, but doesn't showup when you right-click on the region list. It seems to work fine for me. I'm probably doing simpler operations then the people who are having problems.

I am grouping the regions together after editing to make it look nice in my edit window. I'll have to look into consolidating the regions.

I need to get a better video then the out-dated Method One DVD...

[foxlemieux]

Not to go on too much of a rant, but I completely agree about the region window becoming a mess. It seems extremely antiquated to have to adjust my region names to impose some sort of sorting to the window. I am aghast at each PT upgrade that goes by without some sort of bin or directory system implementation. The more you use PT the more you get use to the problem. If the same system existed in Avid or Final Cut I think the M.P.S.E and A.C.E. would riot.

[BearMoon]

I am pretty sure it isn't possible, but is it possible to create folders in the regions list? I have read quite a bit of the Referance guide, and haven't seen anything. It doesn't seem like it should be that difficult to do.

Does anyone else think that this would be helpful in a new version?

[sw rec]

I use ctrl-e to split the regions, but agree totally, once all your edits are done, highlight all the regions and go alt-shift-3 to consolidate them into one continuous track.

[jfitz]

If you guys are consolidating after you edit... make sure you do fade ins/outs on all of your edits before you consolidate to avoid any POPS. 2-5 milliseconds should do fine.
You can just select all of the edits at once, and hit ctrl+f to bring up the fade dialogue.