Import Audio wish

[justinhill]

The Import Audio function produces a dialog box offering "New Track" or "Clip List" as the destination. I'd love a third option to insert at the current cursor position.

Yes I know I could use drag and drop but I'm adding FX clips from an external library and not copying the asset itself into the Audio Files folder. Or am I missing something?

[LDS]

Most people probably use a dedicated database app like soundly, basehead, etc. They give some great power to search for sounds in the database, and usually has a keyboard command that will spot tue chosen sound straight to the cursor position on the timeline. Most have an option whether it copies the audio to the session folder or not too.

I think sound particles may have even released a free database app that will do it?

[The Weed]

Would Spot Mode do what you want?

[justinhill]

Originally Posted by LDS

I think sound particles may have even released a free database app that will do it?

Thanks - I hadn't heard of Explorer. It looks like it might be a good assistant and I'll check it out. The key thing though, will be whether it can spot into the Pro Tools timeline without actually copying the audio into the session folder...

[BScout]

Soundminer allows this (the original king of sound databases especially for sfx editors.) It's just a checkbox/toggle.

[Dax Productions]

Maybe I'm missing something but doesn't it already do this? You have the new track or clip list thing, but then drop down that lets you choose "session start" "selection" or "spot"

You want "Selection"

Or am I missing something in your question?

[BScout]

OP wants to put it in on a pre-existing track.
Session start, selection, spot apply to location on a newly created track

[LDS]

Originally Posted by justinhill

Thanks - I hadn't heard of Explorer. It looks like it might be a good assistant and I'll check it out. The key thing though, will be whether it can spot into the Pro Tools timeline without actually copying the audio into the session folder...

Soundly and Basehead definitely do. I would expect most of the apps to have the option.

The spotting features are often also far more feature rich as well. In Soundly for example, you can basically pre-edit your clip before spotting. If you want just that one scrape footstep out of a clip with 20 steps, just make the selection in the waveform view, and just the scrape will be spotted to the PT timeline.

It also works in reverse. If you need to fill a scene with an ambience clip, you can make a timeline selection across the duration of the scene in Pro Tools, and the spotted audio will be an audio clip that size in Pro Tools. Not the right ambience? Just select the audio clip in Pro Tools and spotting from Soundly will replace it.

The kind of apps are massive time savers all around, both in terms of finding and auditioning sounds and getting them into Pro Tools quickly.

[Dax Productions]

Originally Posted by BScout

OP wants to put it in on a pre-existing track.
Session start, selection, spot apply to location on a newly created track

Ahhhh.

Yes I can see how that would be nice.

[its2loud]

Originally Posted by justinhill

The Import Audio function produces a dialog box offering "New Track" or "Clip List" as the destination. I'd love a third option to insert at the current cursor position.

Yes I know I could use drag and drop but I'm adding FX clips from an external library and not copying the asset itself into the Audio Files folder. Or am I missing something?

Use Workspace if you don’t want any of the other options offered here.

Also, you should be copying the audio into the session. You’re likely to end up in a heap of trouble if something were to go wrong with your SFX storage or when handing the session off to someone else.

From Workspace/Soundbase
Ctrl + S: Once you’ve found the sound you’re looking for, use this to instantly spot the sound to edit insertion. This one is very handy and typically a lot faster than dragging and dropping.

https://www.avidblogs.com/pro-tools-...fects-editors/