hi how's it going I'm Ben Lindell and
today I'm going to be showing you how to
edit and clean your tracks in Pro Tools
now this can be a tedious process that's
often overlooked by people but can
actually have a direct impact on how
your final product sounds so I'm going
to show you a few examples where we're
going to remove unwanted noise and get
rid of any clicks or pops so in order to
speed this process up I'm going to be
using the last shortcuts so I'll explain
those as we move along let's get started
first thing I'm going to do is change my
cursor over to the smart tool and what
this is going to do is add a bunch more
editing functions to my mouse secondly
I'm going to turn on command keyboard
focus by pressing the AZ button over
here what this is going to do is add a
bunch of our editing keyboard shortcuts
that are going to speed things up the
first shortcut I'm going to show you is
to zoom in by pressing T and a zoom out
by pressing R this is going to help you
navigate through your sessions quickly
let's move on to our first example I'm
going to start with our lead vocal track
now as you can see he didn't start
singing at the very beginning of the
song so there's a whole bunch of blank
space there so let's zoom in and see
what's going on to do so I'm just going
to click here and zoom in by pressing T
so it looks like there's nothing there
right wrong let's zoom in vertically and
find out what's going on before you
start singing just as I thought
there's a bunch of noise there even
though it's quiet once we start
compressing this track it's going to
become more and more apparent it could
be anything like AC Rumble dogs barking
police sirens wife yelling at you
doesn't matter we don't really want that
in our track so to get rid of this I'm
going to use a smart tool to trim it
down and then add a fade to it to do so
I bring my cursor to the left edge of
the region and a smart tool
automatically turns into the trimmer
tool so I click and drag that to just
before my singer starts singing and now
I'm going to make a fade I'm going to do
that by going to the top left corner and
click and drag it's important to put a
fade in and out on every single region
because if we don't
when Pro Tools jumps from nothing to
some signal it's going to generate it
click and that's what we're trying to
avoid
now I need to find where my next edit is
so to zoom out quickly on a Mac I'll use
option a or on a PC alt a it zooms to me
out both horizontally and vertically now
I can see that I have the same problem
here as I did at the beginning of the
session so let's zoom in and fix this
one up as well
click here press T to zoom in alright so
same thing at the beginning it looks
like it's fine but when i zoom in
vertically you can see that there's some
noise so once again I'm going to use the
smart tool go to the right edge of the
region brings up the trimmer tool pull
that back to just after where he stopped
saying go to the top-right corner make a
fade and there we go so I'm going to
zoom out again using option A or alt a
on a PC and find where my next edit is
as you can see between these first two
vocal regions it looks like there's an
edit so I'm going to click on that and
zoom in pressing T so as you can see we
have two regions right next to each
other now here too when going from one
region to another region Pro Tools may
produce a click so to fix this I'm going
to put a crossfade in between the two
regions to do this I'm going to bring my
cursor to the bottom of the edit and you
see it makes a little crossfade icon
I'll just pull up to expand it out and
there we go
ok so I've shown you how to remove
unwanted noise and create crossfades
using a smart tool so now I'm going to
show you how to do basically the same
thing using just keyboard shortcuts
we're back in Pro Tools and now I'm
going to clean up my tambourine track so
I'm going to zoom in on the first hit by
pressing T alright the trim off this
unwanted noise using keyboard shortcuts
I click where I want my region to start
and I press a this is both on Mac and PC
that removes all the region before where
I put my cursor down now when I place my
cursor again and press D it
automatically creates a fade in to that
point I'm going to zoom out a little bit
and find the end of this region and do
the exact same thing to zoom out I'm
going to press R and find where I'm
going to end my region zoom back in
to turn from the end of the region I
place my cursor where I want my region
to end and press s to create a fade-out
place my cursor again and press G and
once again these keyboard shortcuts are
only working because I'm in command
keyboard focus now I want to remove all
the noise in between my tambourine hits
so I'm going to select from the
beginning of this tambourine hit all the
way to the end of this tambourine hit
and press Delete now of course I need to
create fade-ins and fade-outs so I
placed my cursor and press G to fade out
place my cursor here and press D to fade
in so now I know how to clean a track
using both the smart tool and keyboard
shortcuts now it's common in today's
sessions to find parts that are doubled
tripled or even quadrupled so they all
need the same editing so I'm going to
show you a way to clean them all
together here I have two vocal tracks
that are singing the same exact part so
I'm going to group them together to make
editing them even easier to do so I
select both tracks press command G or
ctrl G on a PC give them a name now for
the group type I'm going to select edit
this will link the editing functions
together but leave the mixing functions
alone I'll explain more about mixed
groups in another video for now let's
press ok alright so let's try it out I'm
going to zoom in on these regions here
I'm going to press a to trim the
beginning of the region and S to trim
the end of the region I'm going to place
my fades using the smart tool as you can
see I was able to edit both tracks
simultaneously this is going to save a
bunch of time so now you know how to
edit multiple tracks at the same time
using groups now I'm going to show you
where the most common source of clicks
and pops are that's where punch ins are
so I've got a few examples pulled up
here I'm going to show you how to fix
them here we tried to punch in on a word
let's take a listen to what the sounds
like with no edits I won't be on Mario
did you hear that pop listen do it again
I will be on Mario alright that's a
pretty obvious pop so to fix this I'm
going to use the smart tool and create a
crossfade let's take a listen to it now
I will be on Mario still sounds a little
weird that's because I put the fade in
the van
middle of a word so what I'm going to do
is I'm going to move it around using the
trimmer tool and see if I can find a
better spot for my crossfade see what
this sounds like I won't be on Mario
much better let's listen to that again I
won't be on Mario so that's it now
remember don't just put down a crossfade
and forget about it
listen to it and make sure that it makes
sense if it doesn't sound good move it
around till you find the sweet spot here
we have a punch in on my synthesizer
track actually looks like it should be
okay without any edits but let's listen
to it anyways
mmm I think there might be a pop in
there let's listen again yep that is
definitely a pop I'm going to show you
another way to make a crossfade I'm
going to select the area around the edit
and press F create my crossfade let's
take a listen to that mmm that sounds a
little weird to me let me move it with
my trim tool and see if we can't find a
sweeter spot for let's take a listen to
it now yeah that sounds pretty good to
me today I showed you how to clean your
tracks using both the smart tool and
keyboard shortcuts now I can't stress to
you hard enough how important it is to
fade in fade out and crossfade every
single region inside of your session I
showed you some examples where even
though it looked like no fade was
necessary we could easily hear a click
so I'm sorry it's just non-negotiable so
until next time which I swear will be
much more fun