good morning children today we are going
to talk about Pro Tools shortcuts notice
on the other does they wonderful of
course too but we know Pro Tools very
well so we thought we'd share why are
shortcuts important because everything
you can do with your mouse you can do 5
to 10 times faster with a shortcut think
of it as touch typing for Pro Tools you
can choose to type with two fingers for
the rest of your life or you can learn
to touch type and be much faster and
able to focus on what's important so
here we go our favorite shortcuts Pro
Tools has some pretty powerful zooming
shortcuts which you should have a second
nature there's a lot of them here's the
one that you're susceptible to use the
most if you have a clip selected and you
really want it to be big option F and
that's huge now if you lost in your
session you don't really know where you
are then I would say option a for all
and then your entire session is now
zoomed fully so again option F focuses
on what you're working on option a gives
you a bird's eye view between the two of
them you can really know where you are
very quickly that's very nice of course
you can also use the traditional ones
command left and right bracket or R and
T but I think it's very nice to be able
to just go I'm working on this oh I'm
seeing the whole song very nice also
very crucial check it out the key
command for zoom is command one fair
enough you hit it you see it switch up
there you click it zooms you can select
a range and it zooms to that range fair
enough
if you hit option you can zoom out okay
but it goes deeper now I can select
single zoom with that does is it turns
the tool into a zoom for one click and
then switches back to where you were
before so for example save your in multi
tool and you're doing selections and
then you want to focus on this one thing
here you can hit command one zoom on it
and then you back in selection tool
without having to switch out of the zoom
mode that is incredibly practical and of
course if you get lost you can hit
option a to see the whole song a for all
Pro Tools has interesting ways of
displaying waveforms you actually have
to consideration track height and weight
from height and they're independent
so for track height you have control up
and down arrow and you can change the
track height really quickly you don't
have to use the little menus there
they're slow like everything in Pro
Tools if you use the option key all
tracks will follow suit very nice for
the waveform height you can change it by
using option command left bracket for
smaller or right bracket for bigger
pretty simple so now if you made a mess
and you do not know where you are it's
easy you just hit control option command
up arrow and Pro Tools will shrink
everything down vertically as much as
possible to fit everything on the screen
combined with option a for the
horizontal version and now you have a
bird's-eye view in two clicks so you can
really go from here to here in no time
at all if you don't have a control
surface or you're working on a keyboard
laptop it's very nice to be able to
access all the controls of a track when
it's selected so for example say if you
have this master selected I hit shift M
for MU shift s for solo shift or for
record and then if you have Pro Tools HD
shift I will activate input monitoring
if you do not have Pro Tools HD option K
will do that
but only if the track is enabled for
record now think about it this way if
you combine this with the P key command
and the semicolon key command that lets
you change the cursor from track to
track now say I'm on my main here I can
mute it and then I can hit P a few times
hit my bass track and mute it - I do not
have to grab the mouse those key
commands rp4 up and semicolon foot down
I suggest you put a little sticker on
those because you could use them all the
time Pro Tools has some very extensive
grouping features here's what you need
to know to get started quickly to create
a group you select the tracks you want
to be in the group hit command G and
then name the group now if I'm doing
drums
current wisdom says that I should
all the group drums also if you want to
make it easy on yourself
why don't you select the shortcut for
the group to be addy for example you
know D for drums so there you go
now I'm here and I can without thinking
too much turn my drum group on and off
by hitting the D button in my mix window
very practical the other thing you need
to know is you can suspend all groups by
hitting shift command G why is that
important well say for example you are
working up here on the drums and you
have your group on anything you're going
to do is going to select a group if you
just need to select the bass run for a
second your shift command G and now
you're just selecting the bass drum and
then turn your groups back on and do
whatever you want practical for
duplication commands avid has had the
good taste of choosing the letter D and
we're grateful for that so for example
if you need to duplicate a track you hit
shift option D and then you have a nice
little menu that lets you choose what
you want to duplicate say you're in the
situation where you just dragged a
badass bass line and you want to have a
double of that you can shift option D it
and say I want everything sand groups
assignments everything but not the
active playlist so I can track a new
track and there you go very quick if
you're in the Edit window and you like
this little bass lick right here you
want to duplicate it
command D you want to repeat it many
times
options are like repeats say four times
boom done very quick I like to start
with a blank slate so I don't have any
template so I spend a lot of time
creating new tracks and Pro Tools here's
a good way to do that so with the
combination or shift command and to open
the dialog command right arrow and left
arrow to select from mono and stereo and
the up and down arrows to select what
you want to do you can really create
tracks really quickly for example do I
want for stereo aux inputs and then
command + adds a field and then I create
eight mono audio tracks boom gone and
here they come
Pro Tools has some nice cleaning up key
commands and concepts check this out say
I like this base edit right here and I
want to commit to it
I selected shift option three will
consolidate it into
one chunk now I'll say I'm happy with
this and I want to export it somewhere
else to use it elsewhere maybe in a
sampler or archive it shift command K
will let me export it and give me lots
of options on what to do with it as a
way to remember this if you select any
region in Pro Tools it gets selected in
the revision window down here P based
then you can go to this menu up here and
export region as file what it does is
take this virtual representation of your
audio and turn it into a solid file
wherever you want on your drive it's
very easy to export stuff out of Pro
Tools and keep it tight also in the same
category to clean up the mess left by
six months of working on the same song
across four systems to remove all unused
file you can use shift command U for
unused you see here on the right hand
side in the region bin all the stuff
that's unused and then you use shift
command V for I don't really know what I
call it blast off and you hit remove
here's a trick if you hit option to
remove you won't ask you every single
time all the complicated questions do
you really want to get rid of this you
really want to get rid of this and this
one you really want to get rid of this
one how about this one
if you hit option it'll just remove
everything Pro Tools is a two window
environment
don't try and torture into a one window
environment it's a waste of time the key
command you need to know is command
equal doesn't get any faster than that
if you feel that you have too much stuff
on the screen here and you want to see
more option command M makes the mixer
windows a little smaller so you can have
more on the screen at one time also you
can open and close side bars at will
just with one click like this that's
very practical you can see a lot Pro
Tools lets you see one plug-in window at
a time by default now if you want to see
several all you have to do is hit shift
and now you have two or three pretty
simple if you're starting to fill up
your screen with too many plug-in
windows real men do not close their
plug-in windows with a little button up
there real men used option command W and
everything goes away
as far as navigation goes the way Pro
Tools works is it always starts from the
same spot unless you tell it not to it's
very practical if you're focusing on one
thing so for example this first to beat
of this verse I don't have to relocate
every time I want to hear the same thing
it's also very practical if you have
people on your couch you don't like what
you're mixing you can do this for five
minutes and then leave she may be she
works great if you want to switch back
to logic mode say where the time line
follows along hit N and now it'll work
in logic mode she may be the kind of
girl and it moves on from there the big
end fingers syndrome is also an
explanation for this if you're
heavy-duty Pro Tools user and you work
fast you tend to make selections here in
the timeline and then you hit play then
when you hit stop if you're in logic
mode the selection disappears can drive
a pulse-width user batting so the first
thing to do is make sure that your
finger is small enough and you don't hit
em too much here's a good way to think
about playback selections and edit
selections in Pro Tools it's a little
different from other doors you have a
link timeline in edit mode what it means
in English is that you can select this
and Pro Tools will play this if you're
in that mode
which is very practical now of course
every time you hit play it's going to
play that if you disconnect your edit
selections and your timeline selections
by using shift slash now you can have
this selected but you can play this
instead there's many applications for
this but what you need to know is that
the default mode and the way most people
work in Pro Tools is just your selection
is what you listen to unless you decide
to do something different that's a good
default mode to wear because if you're
listening to what you have selected you
always know where you are let's talk
about automation the first one you need
to know is control - which toggles
between waveform and volume automation
to be precise it will let you toggle
between anything and waveform and then
back to volume automation so for example
say you have here the high slope control
and my oxford EQ is what I'm automating
do this so you can see what's going on
alright if I'm here I hate control - I'm
on waveform I hate control - again I'm
on volume very practical another one you
need to know is the control command
right arrow and left arrow which lets
you switch between all the different
automation playlists whatever is there
will be used much faster than using this
menu here because we know it's a menu
also as always in Pro Tools anything you
do you can hold option and it will apply
to all tracks here's a nugget say you
have this phenomenal incredibly creative
automation pattern right there
that's all great but it's 2 DB is too
loud what are you going to do oh my god
all you have to do is select it select
the volume control here in the playlist
take it down to where you want it to be
so we said 2 DVS
I'm going to say - 6 point 7 for example
and a hit shift command / there's a
caveat here if you are the Mac make sure
you have your keyboard preference pane
brought up look in here look to
application shortcuts and make sure that
the show help menu is deselected
otherwise won't work for plugin
automation here's how it goes
hit ctrl option command select the
parameter you want to automate and say
enable
Automation for low mid frequencies here
now if you want to see that playlist
control command click on the parameter
and it will switch automatically to that
playlist
this by the way works for everything it
works for pan to works for volume
whatever you want control command click
on whatever you want to automate brings
it there if you're lazy and want to
automate everything control option
command hit this button and every
parameter in the plug-in is now 2 mated
which gives you an interesting
automation this right here so if you
automated a reverb expect a long menu
for those of us who enjoy using Pro
Tools on our laptops with the built-in
headphones output just because we can
there's two things missing because of
the keypad not being there loop and
punch at least for me all the time you
can get to it by shift command l for
loop and shift command P for punch
here's a cool one say you're on the
tracking session and you have a very
nice drum balance down here and you want
to set it to the drummer or say you're
doing parallel processing and you want
to use the tricks we show you in the
parallel processing video all you have
to do is select all your tracks and then
hit option command H and it will let you
copy that mix to that aux so send a say
the current value to volume okay boom
now my mix is up here
that's nice these were the Pro Tools key
command we use most you may have some
different ones because they're not all
in the manual if we miss some do write
to us until then Ivana