WHAT IS THE PENCIL FOR

[JMS40]

Hi quence-
Just in case you didn't know, click on Help in Pro Tools and you'll find a copy of the Reference Manual.
Good Luck-

[quence]

THANKS GUYS...IT IS PRIMARILY USED FOR MIDI ?...sorry forgot about the caps....I really dont use Midi so would I need it for anything else...?

[Rabidium]

You can edit waveforms with it, if you zoom in real close, this can give you fine control, say to remove a click or pop manually, and you'll use it if you get into the finer areas of automation. Automation allows you to adjust volume, pan, some effect parameters, and something else I've forgotten, without having to manually move sliders around.

On the left of the edit window, one of the buttons says Waveform,(in medium view or above) click this and you'll get a few options, like those mentioned above.

The pencil is a pretty advanced feature, you'll get along fine without ever using it. But it allows you to do some wicked cool stuff if you want, like a guitar part wandering in the stereo field, or smooth changes in volume, say to make a loop sound played.
-Olaf

[quence]

Sorry, I am new to this...what exactly is the pencil for..i always here people talk about it..i bought my protools on ebay w/o a manual, so until the book i ordered off the net comes, i am basiclly just learning on my own...can somebody tell me what its purpose is, or what benefits it has......remember guys im new @ this...so be easy..not too many jokes..hahahahah

thanks in advance

[metaltim]

well you can draw, or write ideas down.. or you can throw them i the ceiling tiles..

ok ok sorry
the pencil can be used for a couple of things..
one of them deals with automation (don't know if you've got there yet.)
you can use it to just draw your automation in, if you want like a big hump, or a slope that is steep at first, then levels off.)

also, the pencil can be used in midi to manually draw in notes..

also if you notice if you hold the pencil down, you get more stuff, those are for drawing standard shapes like the ones you see, waves, blockes, or freehand. those can be used in conjunction with what ive already mentioned.

example, if you want 16 1/16 notes across a measure (midi im talking here), well you could drwa 16 of em in by hand, or put the pencil on 'random', then just hold down the mouse and drag, and it will fill in a midi note for every beat. (depending on if you have 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and so on.)
if it's on free hand, then it just makes one midi note, and it will be as long as you drag it..

anyway.. don't know if you got to some of those points, but when you do you'll see what im sayin..

tim

[defretman]

I dug this out of the vault (duc search)...I'm reading in the ref guide and it says choose file>make selected tracks in active. I can't see that in the file tool menu. It says that to copy a track for automation.

Any help?

[Chris Cavell]

CTRL + WINKEY while clicking on things makes them inactive. For example, use this to allow yourself to record more than 32 tracks by using this combination and clicking on the output of the tracks you don't need while tracking. You can also use it to disable a plug without removing it or its settings in order to free up some resources. So, it's effectively like using "mute frees voices" in a tdm system as far as track count, and similar to bypassing a plug, except that you free up some resources in the process this way.

[silence_of_stone]

i recently had a vocals over who could not sing a particular phrase without a severe lip smack....
I zoomed in with that pencil and drew the smack right out of her pretty voice. Sounds great now [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]