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Pro Tools 8 New Features

Pro Tools 8 New Features

with David Franz

 


Pro Tools 8 New Features helps music producers, sound engineers, and hobbyists unleash the creative possibilities at their fingertips. Musician, producer, and educator David Franz teaches the skills needed to master the new Pro Tools 8 interface, and reveals techniques for making the most of Digidesign’s new virtual instruments and effects. That’s just a small taste of the new features covered here—David explores all the latest improvements to the audio industry’s standard software. Exercise files accompany this course.
Topics include:
  • Exploring the new virtual instruments and effects
  • Learning the new menu and toolbar items
  • Editing MIDI data with the new MIDI Editor window
  • Creating a comp with the new playlist features
  • Using Elastic Pitch for pitch alteration
  • Working with the new automation and controller lanes
  • Customizing the Edit Window toolbar
  • Changing the look of Pro Tools with the Color palette
  • Utilizing the 30+ new session templates
  • Creating a musical score with the new Score Editor window

show more

author
David Franz
subject
Audio, Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs)
software
Pro Tools 8
level
Intermediate
duration
2h 17m
released
Feb 11, 2009

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Introduction
Welcome
00:00Pro Tools is the industry standard for audio production
00:03and Pro Tools 8 just raised the bar.
00:06(Music playing.)
00:09I'm David Franz. I'm a music producer and songwriter,
00:12owner of Underground Sun Studio and author of the first Pro Tools book.
00:16And this is Pro Tools 8 New Features.
00:20With this new incarnation of Pro Tools, Digidesign introduces a new, very functional
00:25and more modern looking interface. We will explore the interface
00:29along with the new menu items, new preferences and the new MIDI Editor.
00:34We'll look at the new track comping function, independent automation lanes and
00:38I'll get in to the new Score Editor. Yes, Pro Tools has notation now.
00:44I will show you new plug-ins for EQ, harmonic, delay and modulation effects and
00:50the new suite of virtual instruments that will help you start making music with
00:53Pro Tools 8 right out of the box.
00:56This version of Pro Tools is an amazing upgrade of an already powerful
01:00production resource. The new features are so deep, I can only give you a taste
01:04here of what we are going to cover in this course. So if you are hungry for more,
01:08I am here to feed the audio beast in you. Let's get started with
01:12Pro Tools 8 New Features.
Collapse this transcript
Starting up Pro Tools 8 with the Quick Start dialog
00:00Pro Tools 8 shows off its first new feature on its very first launch, the Quick Start dialog.
00:07In this window, you can open a session, open a recent session,
00:13create a blank new session, with the session parameters down here, and choose
00:18from a large number of new session templates. You can use this pulldown menu to
00:23choose from the General categories. Here we have Song Writer, Record & Mix,
00:31Music, Miscellaneous, and Guitar.
00:36You notice that many of the templates have lower CPU usage options. This means
00:41that they have less plug-ins and virtual instruments loaded into them. You can
00:45use Keyboard Shortcuts to select from these Lists. Press Command + Up & Down,
00:51on a Mac, to go through the different options here, and you can also use Ctrl +
00:55Up & Down on a Windows machine.
00:57If you press the Option key with the Up & Down arrows, you can navigate between
01:02the different categories. This will be the Alt Key on our PC. And once you are
01:07inside of the Category that you want, you can actually use the Up & Down
01:11arrows, to navigate between the individual session templates.
01:16If you ever get tired of seeing the Quick Start dialog, you can always just
01:20come down here and shut it off. So let's open up one of these new session
01:25templates. I'll choose the Guitar, the Ballad Guitar, why not. When that comes
01:33up, we have the Save Session dialog, and we'll definitely want to save that as
01:37a New File Name, so I am just going to add my initials, so that we don't over
01:42write the original session template.
01:46Wow! Look at the new face of Pro Tools. Before we get into all the new Features
01:50and Color Schemes, let me show you how well these session templates have been sorted out.
01:55First you'll notice a Drum track, right at the top, on an Instrument track,
02:00we'll the see the Tempo and the Meter have already been set to appropriate
02:04Tempos and Meters for this Style, Ballad Guitar. We also have other Instrument
02:09tracks appropriate to the style of Music including a Bass track, Synth Pad, and
02:15these tracks are just waiting your Input.
02:17The Track Comments show off what these tracks are set to record right off the bat.
02:21Moving to the Mix window you'll see the track layout even better, with
02:26virtual instruments, plug-ins, and effects already set up for you. Note that
02:31the virtual instruments have patches already assigned to them, such as in this
02:36Expand plug-in we have a Bass Soft Pick Bass.
02:43This session even has an Effects Loop set up for you, all the way over here on
02:49the right side with the SENDS already labeled and the Signal Routing already
02:54set up for you.
02:56The template even has a Click track and a Stereo Headphone Mix as well as a
03:02Stereo Master Fader, to check the Output of your overall track. These session
03:07templates can easily save you ton of time. Although previous versions of Pro
03:11Tools have come with Session Template files before, Digidesign has stepped it
03:15up with these template layouts. I'll definitely be making use of these
03:19templates in my studio workflow.
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Creating a custom session template
00:00Pro Tools 8 comes with over thirty pre- made session templates. Although any of
00:04those may be good starting points for your session, what if those templates
00:08don't quite fit the needs for your particular project? Well it's easy enough to
00:12create your own template. Let's start with one of the pre-made templates and
00:16alter it.
00:17Let's say I want to start with the Songwriter Pianist session template. So I'll
00:21click OK and I'll rename it adding my initials. This session is opened up and
00:29it has actually got more stuff in it than I really wanted to have, so I am
00:33going to get rid of some of the tracks and simplify this session and turn it
00:37into my own session template.
00:38So I am going to just highlight a few of these tracks that I don't want. I am
00:43using the Command Key to select multiple tracks here. Now I'll actually delete
00:51those tracks from the session, get rid of all that stuff.
00:56Let's say this is the way that I want it to be, so I'll go up to the File menu,
01:02choose Save As Template. Here we have the Save Session Template dialog box and
01:09we have several options of where we can save this file. We can install the
01:13template into the system, and that means that it will actually be saved into
01:17the Quick Start dialog when we open our Pro Tools.
01:21In this case, I am actually going to select a location for the template that is
01:25a different location and there's also this box, Include Media, so if there's
01:31any audio or midi files in the session template that we want to include in the
01:35session template itself to be repeated, we can check this box. However, that's
01:40usually not the case.
01:42So to save this file, click OK. We're going to choose where we want to save it.
01:47I am going to put it on to the Desktop and make sure that the Name is right.
01:51That's fine. Click Save.
01:53In Hide Pro Tools, and we'll actually see this Session Template file on our
02:00Desktop, and you'll notice that it has a dt.ptt file extension. That's
02:05different than the regular PTF File extension. I personally love using Pro
02:10Tools session templates because it just makes it so much easier to get your
02:14ideas recorded quickly. You can open up a session, there's all the tracks ready
02:19for you, you can just start recording and your ideas are immediately out there
02:23and recorded in the Pro Tools.
02:25Use the session template, get started recording quickly. It's a great new feature.
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Checking out some Pro Tools 8 general enhancements
00:00There are many new enhancements to the Pro Tools software in Version 8.
00:03Here I am going to show you a bunch of the more general but still very important upgrades.
00:09First, Pro Tools 8 LE and M-Powered can have up to 48 mono or stereo audio
00:15tracks. Here I am going to create 48 stereo audio tracks; there we go, all the
00:24way to 48. This is a bump up of 16 tracks from Pro Tools 7, and special note,
00:31you can perform quick punch on 24 of these tracks at once.
00:35Now if you want more than 48 tracks in Pro Tools LE, you can actually purchase
00:41the Music Production Toolkit, the DV Toolkit or the Complete Production
00:45Toolkit, this can increase your track count up to 128 mono or 64 stereo audio
00:51tracks as well as increasing your instrument tracks to 64 and your basses to
00:56128 among other features.
01:00Pro Tools 8 now supports mixed file formats. So you can have WAV files, AIFF
01:05files, and Sound Designer II files, so they all coexist in one session. The SD2
01:12files are Mac only options. The only requirements are that the files must be
01:16the same sampling rate and bit depth as the session. Otherwise, the files have
01:20to be converted to the session parameters.
01:22Here I will import an AIFF file with the same sampling rate and bit depth as
01:29the session. Note that the session that I actually created here was with WAV
01:35files as the session parameter. However, you see here in the Import Audio
01:40window that piece of audio that I want to bring in can be added directly to the
01:45current session or it can be converted to the session's audio file type, but
01:50why not just add as it is? That's the new feature here.
01:56So if I add this new audio file, the AIFF files to the WAV file session, it
02:02doesn't matter. They will just add it right in, and there you see it in the
02:06Regions list. A cool new feature of Pro Tools 8 is the ability now to open a
02:11session with all of the plug-ins deactivated.
02:14We will do this. we'll open any previous session, and I am going to press Shift
02:20while I select this session, and all of the plug-ins and virtual instruments
02:26will be deactivated. This is a great feature if you have a lot of plug-ins and
02:35instruments in a session that might really bug down you system, so you can open
02:41it, and now we see all of these plug- ins and instruments are deactivated, but
02:46we can still open the session, no problem, and we don't have to worry about any
02:50CPU overload issues.
02:52Well, still in this session, I am going to show you another excellent Pro Tools 8
02:57new feature. We have different hardware buffer sizes. Look at that, all the
03:04way down to 32 samples. That is impressive. That means that you can have very
03:10low monitoring latency while you are recording.
03:12FireWire devices like the 003, will allow you to have 32 samples, some other
03:17devices will only allow you to have 64 samples but that's still down from
03:22previous versions of Pro Tools, and some devices will even let you go up to
03:272048 samples not shown here, but the higher hardware buffer sizes are great if
03:34you have sessions with a lot of plug-ins and virtual instruments.
03:36So I am going to choose the higher hardware buffer size here, and click OK.
03:42Another feature for ensuring the best time synchronization with MIDI in Pro
03:46Tools is the ability to set the MIDI beat clock offsets. You can open this up
03:52here MIDI Beat Clock, and checking off the devices that we want MIDI Beat Clock
03:59for. We can go in here and manually set the number of samples that we want for
04:05our MIDI Offset.
04:07The technique for how to determine the right amount of offset is explained in
04:11the Pro Tools 8 Reference Manual as well as the what's new in Pro Tools LE and
04:16M-Powered 8 documents.
04:19Another handy feature of Pro Tools 8 is that you can actually check for updates
04:24to the Pro Tools application and other plug-ins, either automatically or
04:29manually. Checking for it manually, you can go up here to the Help menu > Check
04:33for Updates and you see how fast it is.
04:37It went online, it checked it out, said you are good to go. Your Pro Tools
04:41software is up-to-date. If we want to turn-off this automatic feature, we can
04:45just check this checkbox right there.
04:50Now you should note that Pro Tools will not automatically install anything. It
04:55will simply check and inform you if there are any available updates. Here is a
05:00list of the enhancements to Pro Tools 8 shown in this video.
05:03Increased track counts up to 48 mono or stereo audio tracks, support for mixed
05:10file formats, opening sessions with plug-ins deactivated, the new H/W buffer
05:15size settings down to 32 samples with FireWire devices or up to 2048 samples on
05:22other devices.
05:23Pro Tools 8 will also automatically check for software updates to both the
05:28application or plug-ins, and you notice these last two I haven't mentioned yet.
05:33Increased file size limits up to 3.4 GB, this is up from 2 GB in previous
05:39versions of Pro Tools, and Pro Tools LE supports QuickTime HD and QuickTime SD
05:47files (Mac only). All of these enhancements are going to have far-reaching
05:51effects on how you are going to use Pro Tools 8.
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Utilizing the Color palette and window arrangements
00:00As soon as you open Pro Tools 8, you notice the new look and different color
00:04scheme. What's even better is that you have control over that color scheme
00:08using the Color palette.
00:11If you choose Color Palette from the Window menu, you will open up the Color
00:16palette and you can see that we have some sliders here that will adjust the look
00:21in field of Pro Tools.
00:23Drag the Brightness to make it more bright. You can hit the Apply to Channel
00:29Strip button to enable the Saturation, which will darken the colors of the
00:36channel strips which is pretty cool.
00:38This feature used to be a little secret feature of Pro Tools 7, but now they
00:42have added it into Pro Tools 8. These controls along with the new look were
00:47certainly influenced by the competitors to Pro Tools, and also by feedback from
00:51customers saying that the old interface was too bright, especially if you had to
00:55stare at it for many hours in a row as many of us do.
00:59Another feature new to Pro Tools 8 is the Arrange Windows option. Instead of
01:05dragging and resizing the Edit, Mix, or other windows, you can choose from
01:10different options here: Tile, Tile Horizontal, Tile Vertical or Cascade.
01:16Tile Vertical isn't an option in this particular setup.
01:19So if we tile the windows horizontally, you'll see the Mix up top and the Edit
01:25window down below. If we choose Cascade, it places the tops of each window
01:33cascaded down, so that we can click on any of them pretty easily.
01:38You can use the Command+~ key command to switch between the windows. So with
01:45the new Color palette features and the window arrangements, you can set up Pro Tools
01:49to look any way that you want it and make your life with Pro Tools much more colorful.
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Using the exercise files
00:00If you are a premium member of the lynda.com Online Training Library, you have
00:05access to the Exercise Files used throughout this title. Inside of the Exercise folder,
00:10you will find chapter folders. Inside of each of the chapter folders,
00:14you will see individual folders for each video that has exercise files
00:19associated with it.
00:20In this case, those files are Pro Tools session files with the extension .ptf.
00:27Double-click on one of the .ptf files, and you will see a few windows that
00:34you will need to click through to open the session file.
00:37In this case, we don't need the detailed report, so click No, and you will see
00:42this Missing Files dialog. No problem, just keep this as Automatically Find &
00:48Relink. That will automatically find and relink the audio files associated with
00:53this session.
00:54Just go ahead and check these off, so Pro Tools can regenerate any missing files
00:58without you having to worry about them. Click OK and you are good to go.
01:03If you are a monthly subscriber or annual subscriber to lynda.com, you don't
01:08have access to these Exercise Files. However, the videos will be more than
01:12adequate to show off the new features of Pro Tools 8. Let's get started.
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1. New Pro Tools Features and Enhancements
Customizing the Edit toolbar
00:00Aside from the new look of the user interface, one of the first things that's
00:04obviously different about Pro Tools 8 is the toolbar in the Edit window. If we
00:08click on the Edit Window Toolbar menu, you can choose from viewing all kinds of
00:13different stuff here.
00:14We are going to start with the Minimal view, and that's what we are already
00:18looking at. We have got the Edit Modes, the Edit tools, the Time and Edit
00:24Selections, we've got some MIDI functionality here, and the Grid and Nudge values.
00:30Note these are new to Pro Tools 8 up in the toolbar. It used to be down here.
00:36You can also choose a bunch of different controls from the Edit Window Toolbar
00:41menu. We can get zoom controls, these used to be standard in the toolbar in 7
00:47but now we can get rid of them if we want to.
00:52We can show the Transport, and this is the Minimal Transport, we can also show
00:56an Expanded Transport that has Pre-roll and Post-roll.
01:01We can also see MIDI Controls. These used to be part of the Transport window,
01:10and you can still see them in the Transport window but they also can be shown
01:14here, and a couple of Synchronization buttons, we have the Online button and a
01:22new button the Generate MTC or MIDI Time Code button.
01:28But what's really cool about this toolbar now is that, we can customize where
01:34each section of the toolbar really is. So if I press Command on a Mac or Ctrl
01:40on a PC, we can click and drag and move the pieces of the toolbar anywhere that we want.
01:47So now we have total control over what we see in the toolbar from what we are
01:54viewing over here in the menu and where we are actually viewing it as we move things around.
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Learning the new Edit toolbar functions
00:00Along with being able to customize the Edit Window toolbar, Pro Tools 8 has
00:04some new buttons and some cosmetic changes you should be aware of that can
00:08improve your efficiency.
00:10First, we have the Tab to Transients key command, which is Command+Option+Tab
00:16on a Mac or Ctrl+Alt+Tab on a PC. Next, we have this elusive button,
00:23the Insertion Follows Playback button. I am very happy to see this as a button here
00:28because it used to be a hidden preference that's now up front in the Edit toolbar.
00:33To our right we have indicators for the Timeline Data Online Status and Session
00:38Data Online Status. These give us little indicators of whether everything is
00:43running smoothly in our session, whether we have all our audio regions, fade
00:48files, everything that we need to run the session well.
00:51To the right, we have the Default Note Duration, which we can choose, and this
00:57is for when we add MIDI notes with the Pencil tool.
01:01We also have the Default Note Velocity, which we can change. Finally, we have
01:09this option for playing MIDI notes while editing, which we can turn on and off
01:14very easily with a click of the mouse. With all these features in Edit Window toolbar,
01:20you are going to be a lot faster using Pro Tools.
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Exploring the Universe view and other navigational enhancements
00:00Pro Tools 8 now allows you to view the universe. Believe it or not, folks, here
00:08it is the Universe view. It's now part of the Edit window.
00:12The part that's highlighted here is what you see down in Tracks pane of the
00:17Edit window. I am going to click and drag this and you will see it affect
00:23what's you are seeing down here.
00:24Now we can resize the Universe view by clicking and dragging with this double
00:31arrow. We can also close it by double- clicking, or open it by double-clicking
00:38with the double arrow cursor.
00:41If we resize the Universe, we can actually scroll over here using these scroll
00:48arrows or drag the scrollbar. In addition to viewing the Universe, there are
00:54many other navigational tools that are new to Pro Tools 8.
00:58We have the Audio Zoom In and Out buttons here. If we go to the top of the
01:03button, it zoom in; bottom, it zoom out. You can see the waveform gets
01:07smaller and larger as I click these.
01:11The same for the MIDI Zoom In and Out. If you go further down, you've got
01:16Vertical Zoom In and Out and Horizontal Zoom In and Out.
01:22In addition to the Zoom buttons, we have some new zoom keyboard commands;
01:28let me show you a couple of them. To zoom in horizontally, to show the entire
01:33session without effecting vertical zoom or scrolling, try this. Press
01:38Command+Control+Right bracket on a Mac or press Ctrl+Start+Right bracket on a PC.
01:46So using that shortcut, you zoom out so you can see all the audio and MIDI in
01:52the session, and I have got one more keyboard shortcut for you. To zoom all
01:57audio vertically to show the default waveform height, we can press
02:01Command+Option+Control+Right bracket and that shows the default waveform height. On a PC,
02:09you use Ctrl+Alt+Start+Right bracket.
02:14Utilizing the Universe view and all these new zoom controls and key commands
02:19can really help you navigate around Pro Tools quickly.
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Introducing the Chord Rule
00:00Digidesign has designed in more and more MIDI functionality into Pro Tools as
00:04the program has matured. Digi has finally responded to their customers in
00:08providing advanced MIDI editing and scoring within the release of Pro Tools 8.
00:14The first hints of this we'll look at here in the Edit window are the
00:17Chordruler and the MIDI Editor. First, you will notice that the Chordruler
00:22selector has moved and if we roll down this menu here, we can see that there
00:28is a new ruler, the Chords ruler. Guitarist, rejoice!
00:34If we click on the Plus symbol here, we can add a chord symbol on to the
00:38Chord ruler. I can choose from the Chord Note, let's say an E, we will choose
00:46a Minor 9, how about that? With the 9, and we'll throw that over top of G in the bass.
00:53All right, so add that in there and we can see this chord right in the
00:59Chord ruler. I can actually click and drag to move that chord somewhere else, or
01:06if I hit Option, you will see the little Minus sign. That means I can erase this.
01:11 So this is Option on a Mac, or Alt on a PC, and if I click on it,
01:16then it goes away.
01:18Another great new feature in Pro Tools 8 is the MIDI Editor window. So if I go
01:23down here to this little button, it will open up a docked MIDI Editor window.
01:29Check this out. It's got the MIDI notes, it's got the Velocities, it's got all
01:33these toolbars, and if we even click on adding some of these other tracks,
01:39you can see them show up in the same Editor window. Very sleek.
01:45So for the moment, this is actually just a tease. I will discuss the MIDI
01:49Editor window in much more detail later in this course.
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Exploring the Mix window and other window improvements
00:00With the new color scheme and layout of Pro Tools 8, you will notice that the
00:03sections in Mix window are more clearly delineated.
00:06Let me go down here and open up and show you all of the sections in the Mix
00:12window. We've got the instrument, we have Inserts, you'll notice that there are
00:16two banks of five Inserts now.
00:19So you have a total of ten Inserts available on your instrument tracks,
00:24your audio tracks, and your auxiliary tracks, your Master Fader tracks, that's a lot
00:29of Inserts. I hope you don't actually have to use all ten because that's going
00:32to be a lot of processing.
00:34Each one of these sections has their own little names on them, so it's pretty
00:37handy. We can actually close these, if we don't need to see all the stuff,
00:42by pressing Option and clicking on that. It's Alt on a PC, Option on a Mac.
00:48So I'll hide some of that stuff.
00:51As you go further down the Channel Strip here, we can see the Output Window
00:55button has moved. Click that to open it or close it. Why would you need this?
01:01Well, in case, you actually scroll away from that track, but you still want to
01:06see the Output window for that track, then you can have it here floating and
01:12not have to worry about where you are scrolling. I'll close that down.
01:17There is a new Group ID indicator pop- up right here, and if we click on that,
01:22well, there is no active groups there. But on this one, we can get the Group
01:28popup menu, or if we right click on it, we can change the group, if we want to
01:35activate like the All group, and nothing is really changed down here except for
01:40this Dynamic or Off indicator of the voice allocation.
01:44Now, all of the other windows in Pro Tools 8 follow the same color scheme and
01:50layout, but let's take a look at a few of them just to see a few of the differences.
01:55In the Workspace window, we have the different coloring and we have this menu
02:00now over to the right. Another one we have the Big Counter and that looks a
02:09little bit different. We can click right here to choose a different timescale.
02:14I've got to say I really like the new look and feel of Pro Tools 8, especially
02:19here in the Mix window. The way that they have the sections clearly labeled on
02:23the Channel Strips, the new buttons, and just the general feel of it makes me
02:29want to work with this window a lot more.
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Checking out new editing features and key commands
00:00Not to be outdone by the new MIDI editing and scoring features, some of the
00:04more matured functions of Pro Tools have some very useful new tricks up their
00:08sleeves in version 8.
00:09First, there is a bunch of new shortcuts that you can apply to all selected
00:14tracks in your session. This is stuff I have been waiting for for a while. So,
00:17if I select across multiple tracks, you'll notice that they are selected here
00:24because of the Link Track and Edit Selection button that's active. Now, if I
00:30press Shift and R, that record enables all of those tracks.
00:37Shift+R also disarms them.
00:39If I press Shift and S, that will solo all of those selected tracks, and
00:45Shift+M will mute all of those selected tracks. A cool new feature that we can
00:51use with the Edit Modes in Pro Tools 8 is the Snap to Grid while in any other Edit Mode.
00:59So we have the Grid active here as well as Slip, and I can change any of these
01:04by hitting Shift and keeping the Grid locked in as well as another Edit Mode.
01:12Let's see this in action. I am going to select an area and you'll see that it
01:17is constrained to the Grid when I select it. So I am going to separate that
01:22region. But now, I can slide it, not constrained to the Grid, because it's in
01:30Slip Mode for that particular action. Pretty slick.
01:34Now, you can do keyboard shortcuts for this as well. So if you hit F1 and F4,
01:39that will be the Grid and Shuffle at the same time, F2 and F4, Grid and Slip,
01:44F3 and F4 is Grid and Spot.
01:48In a Related Editing feature, we have a new thing called Time Lock. There are
01:53two types of locking for regions now. There is the Edit Lock and Time Lock, and
01:58you'll see those shown here in the Region menu.
02:02Edit Lock is just like the old lock that we had in Pro Tools 7 and previous
02:06versions. If we activate that, you will see the Lock symbol down here on the
02:11track, it's a filled lock. But if we undo that and show a Time Lock, it's a
02:18different icon. It's a hollow lock.
02:20Now, the difference is, in this case, we can actually change parts of this
02:27region, and it will allow us to edit it as long as we do not move it. See, I
02:34can't move it, but I can add cross fades, I can trim it, as long as it doesn't
02:40move in time. So it is Time Locked, and we have some shortcuts for that. Time
02:46Locking this region is Ctrl+Option+L on a Mac or Start+Alt+L on a Windows
02:54machine. And the old locking system, the Edit Lock as it's called now, is
02:59Command+L or Ctrl+L.
03:03The next new feature is a simple one but it is very cool that it's in here now
03:08in Pro Tools 8. It's called Restore Last Selection. So right here I have a
03:14region selected and if I hit Play and then Stop, that selection goes away.
03:22Why is that? Because I have the Insertion Follows Playback activated.
03:27But what if I wanted that selection restored? What if I want to see that again?
03:32Well, I can simply hit Edit > Restore Last Selection, and it will highlight it
03:39again. There is a key command for that as well of course. Command+Option+Z on a
03:45Mac or Ctrl+Alt+Z on a Windows machine.
03:50Lastly, when you have got an area selected and the transport is stopped as it
03:54is here, you can press the Down or the Up arrow on the QWERTY keyboard to place
03:59the cursor at the beginning or the end of the Edit or Time Line selection. It's
04:04a simple feature, but I like it a lot, when you want to record something right
04:08at the end of a currently selected region such as for a voiceover.
04:13So in this case, I am going to hit Down arrow and that actually puts it at the
04:18beginning of the region, or if I hit the Up arrow, it will place the cursor at
04:23the end. So for multiple keyboard shortcuts for record enabling, muting and
04:29soloing multiple tracks, to utilizing Time Lock to edit your audio or MIDI
04:34regions without fear of moving them in time, to being able to restore your last
04:38selection, Digi has really taught the older features of Pro Tools some new
04:42tricks in version 8.
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Investigating the Automation and Controller lanes
00:00Certainly a long sought-after improvement to Pro Tools is the implementation
00:04of Automation and Controller Lanes. Now you can view or adjust any Automation
00:09or Controller Data on a track all at one on separate Lanes. Check this out.
00:15Click this little arrow here and you can see the Automation Lane for Volume.
00:21Click the Plus and you can get more data. We've the Mute Automation here.
00:27Keep clicking and you'll see more and more. Panning. Click the Minus to get rid of that.
00:32The same is true on an Instrument track. Here we have the Velocities, and
00:39we can get Controller Data, we scroll down, and check out the Mod Wheel here.
00:46There are some cool keyboard commands that we can use to actually show
00:51different Automation Views in each of these tracks, so if I wanted to show the
00:55actual Send Level, I can actually press Command and Control on a Mac or Ctrl
01:02and Start on a Windows machine, and click on that Control. It will
01:07automatically change the Automation View here to the Send Level. Change it back
01:15to Waveform.
01:17Now let's take a look at how we can resize some of these Automation Lanes. Now
01:23I am just clicking and dragging to make all of these bigger on this track.
01:28If I don't want all of them to be bigger, I just want one of them to be bigger or
01:33smaller, I can press the Control key on the Mac or the Start Key on a PC and
01:39select the certain Lane height for an individual Automation or Controller Data Lane.
01:45We can also reorder the Lanes by selecting one, dragging it down and switching,
01:53so I am clicking in this area right here, dragging and when you see the Yellow
01:58Line that means that you can move it and switch these views.
02:02Now this is really cool, especially when we're recording multiple types of
02:07Automation all at once. Let's take a look, we want to put this into Write Mode
02:15and change this to Panning, and it'll show the Panning right-side tool. I am
02:21going to start this going and you'll see multiple Automation Types being
02:32recorded at once. This is super cool; we could never do this before in Pro Tools.
02:38So how cool is this stuff? I think it's awesome. Automation and Controller
02:44Lanes will be a very useful feature as soon as you start using Pro Tools 8.
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Recording and "comping" using playlists
00:00The new Comping features in Pro Tools 8 are going to blow you away. I am not
00:04trying to sound like a marketing or sales rep for Digidesign here.
00:07But seriously, this feature set is killer. Check it out.
00:10Let's say I want to record multiple takes onto an audio track. But now, in Pro
00:16Tools 8, I can actually record in Loop Record and have each one of those takes
00:21show up on separate playlists.
00:24First, I am going to choose Loop Record, put Pro Tools in a Loop Record, and
00:30then choose this new preference, Automatically Create New Playlists when Loop
00:37Recording. Check that off.
00:40That means that when I am in Loop Record, each time I go through a pass,
00:45it's going to put that new pass onto a new playlist. If I go into Loop Record,
00:51Record Enable the track, it would record this looped area right here, multiple
00:58times until I hit stop and place each one onto playlists, and the last take
01:04appears on this main playlist.
01:06I am not going to record all those takes right here for you. I am just going to
01:10show you the after effects. And here they are. If you go to the Playlists View,
01:18it expands all of our takes.
01:22In this view, we can audition each playlist separately by hitting the Solo
01:27button. So we'll go ahead and do that while I play this.
01:31(Music playing.)
01:48You can solo each of these tracks individually while it's playing back by
01:53clicking the S button, or if you want to do it while it's playing back, then hit
01:58Shift+S. The solo will follow wherever you have your insertion point. So watch this.
02:07So I have my insertion point on this track, Shift+S. Now I go down here, press
02:13Shift+S, and it follows me.
02:18Okay, that's cool, but this is really cool.
02:22If I highlight a section in one of the playlists and I right-click, there is a lot
02:27of different things I can choose from, but these are the three main ones that
02:32help us when we want to comp together a perfect track from all of these
02:38different takes. So my choices are, Copy Selection to the Main Playlist,
02:43Copy Selection to a New Playlist, or Copy Selection to a Duplicate Playlist.
02:49In this case, I want to copy it to a duplicate playlist. So because I like the
02:55top take up there, I am going to duplicate that and then add this new section
03:01from Audio 6.02 to that track and watch how it goes.
03:07Now we are going to name the duplicate playlist first. And then it pops that
03:12section from 6.02 up into this duplicate playlist and moves the one that
03:19we duplicated down here. So we are starting to build our comp.
03:23So what if I liked this section and want to put that into the comp?
03:28I'll right-click and choose Copy Selection to Main Playlist, and it shoots it right
03:35up there. It's all right in time, you don't have to copy and paste anymore,
03:40couple of right-clicks and you're good to go.
03:43So it might take a lot of time to actually listen through to all of these
03:46different takes that you have down here. So Pro Tools has some new features
03:51that help you rate the performances on each of these playlists as you're going along.
03:57If we go up to the View > Region > Ratings, you will see that none of these
04:04have been rated, but you can see that Rating equals zero.
04:08They have the ratings for each of these regions.
04:10To rate a region while playing back a recording, you've got to press all of
04:16the three main modifiers. So on a Mac, Command+Option+Ctrl; on a PC,
04:22Ctrl+Alt+Start. And then you hit the number 1 through 5, and you will see when
04:30I expand this out the rating on this is now 5.
04:34You can do that for these other ones, but we can skip the modifiers and go
04:41straight to a right-click menu and down to the Rating. Choose 3 for that one.
04:48So I am going to apply ratings to a few of these other ones just to show off
04:53the next feature that we have got here. And that is now that we know that some
04:58of these are rated highly and some of these are not, we can filter these
05:03playlists, so that they only show the ones that we have rated highly.
05:08So we go to the Track Name and we can Filter Lanes. In this case, I am going
05:15to say Show Only Lanes with Regions Rated 5. So that will be our best regions
05:24on the best playlists and now it's only showing us our best takes.
05:30Pretty sweet.
05:31So working with playlists is just like working with tracks, when it comes to
05:35reordering or resizing and renaming them. So we can move the size,
05:42we can rename, and we can reorder them just by dragging.
05:52One last note about playlists. If you've recorded in Pro Tools 7 or earlier
05:58onto a takes list via Punch Recording or Loop Recording, now if you open
06:05that session in Pro Tools 8, you can actually right-click on the playlist,
06:13go down to Matches, and expand those takes lists onto new playlists.
06:21So that you can do exactly what we just showed here, even if you've recorded it
06:25on to takes lists in previous versions of Pro Tools.
06:30Playlists were already part of my usual recording and editing routine and
06:33probably part of yours. But these new features make recording and comping with
06:37playlists so much faster and easier than previous versions of Pro Tools.
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Applying Elastic Pitch
00:00Pro Tools 7.4 introduced advanced time compressing and expansion with elastic
00:05time. Pro Tools 8 now offers elastic pitch, which enables you to change the
00:11pitch of any audio region in semitones and cents within a range of plus or
00:15minus 2 octaves from the original pitch. There are two ways to use elastic
00:20pitch. In the Elastic Properties window or the Transpose window. I am going to
00:25start with the Elastic Properties window.
00:28First, you need to go to the track and Enable Elastic Audio. I am going to
00:34choose Polyphonic here. You can choose any of these except for Monophonic.
00:38Elastic pitch will not work on Monophonic.
00:43Now that Pro Tools has analyzed this track with the elastic audio, we can apply
00:48Elastic Pitch. So I am going to first make sure that we have Loop Playback
00:53enabled, so that you can hear this as I add the pitch shifting and then I am
00:58going to go to Region, click on Elastic Properties, or I can simply go here and
01:06right-click and I'll get the Elastic Properties right there.
01:12Let's check out how this sounds as I change the pitch shift in the Elastic
01:17Properties window.
01:18(Music playing.)
01:47Pretty cool. Pitch shifting right on the fly. Let's check out the other way we
01:52can do this. We are going to use the Transpose window. It's part of the MIDI
01:56features but actually we can use it for audio. So I have got to enable the
02:02elastic audio, and I've got the region highlighted here that I want to apply this to.
02:08So if I go up to Event > Event Operations > Transpose, I can use this Transpose By
02:17or any of these down here to apply a transposition, which turns out to be
02:23Elastic Audio and Elastic Pitch to this region. Let's hear what this sounds like.
02:28(Music playing.)
02:45So there you have it. You can use one of two ways to apply Elastic Pitch. Now,
02:50what if you don't want the Elastic Pitch on your track anymore? Well, we can
02:55get rid of it. Fortunately, there is a couple of ways. Choose Region > Remove
03:02Pitch Shift, or we can right-click, Remove Pitch Shift. There you go.
03:11Of the two options for applying Elastic Pitch, I personally like the real time
03:16effect of using the Elastic Properties window instead of the Transpose window.
03:21Admittedly, I've heard better sounding pitch shift algorithms than this feature here,
03:25but in a pinch, say if I am just tuning a couple of out-of-tune notes,
03:29Elastic Pitch does the trick for me.
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Viewing and using new wave form options
00:00Waveform overviews in Pro Tools 8 are now 16 bit, up from 8 bit in previous
00:05versions. This provides better vertical resolution, especially for editing.
00:10Yeah, they actually look a lot better too. Pro Tools 8 also offers some new
00:15ways to view those fancy 16 bit waveforms. You can now view them in normal Peak
00:20View or the new Power View, both with or without rectification and outlines. So
00:27let's take a look at the options.
00:29If you go to the View menu, choose Waveforms > Peak. Peak is the normal default
00:36display. The waveforms you see right now are in Peak View. That's automatically
00:40what you see, if you zoom in all the way to the sample level, like this.
00:48Why use Peak View? Because Peak View is extremely accurate and clearly shows any
00:52clipping on the waveform, something you hope not to see. For that reason, Peak
00:57View is always shown while recording.
00:59Let's check out the new Power View. Waveforms > Power. When you select Power,
01:07that means the waveforms are displayed using root mean squared or RMS values.
01:12Why do we want to use Power View? Because Power View is more revealing of the
01:15big picture sonic characteristics of the waveform than Peak View is, which can
01:20be especially helpful during mastering. Let's go back to Peak View and check
01:27out what it means to be Rectified.
01:31Rectified waveforms show the positive and negative sides of the waveform added
01:34together. Why do we want to use Rectified View? Because you can see more
01:39details, especially when viewing smaller track heights, like this. Wow! That's
01:46pretty small. It's also good when you are trying to edit volume automation data
01:52because you can see where the peaks and values are in the waveform.
01:58You can use Rectified View with Peak or with the Power Views. We will check it
02:04out here on Power View. The final option is Outlines and when we select
02:14Outlines - okay, so we will take this off of Rectified. So you can just see the
02:22Peak View with Outlines. When Outlines is selected, you get more visual
02:27definition to the waveforms, which helps when you are viewing the waveforms
02:30from far away.
02:32However, when working on precise edits, I recommend disabling Outlines. So that
02:38you can see the waveforms and all the details in them. I am going to sneak one
02:43more new little feature into the end of this video and it's about Strip
02:47Silence. Go to Edit > Strip Silence. It has a new Strip Threshold of -96dB.
02:58This is double the lower limit from previous versions of Pro Tools. This
03:02feature is beneficial because it will allow you to work better with low-level
03:05signals and signals with a wide dynamic range.
03:09The increased resolution of both the waveform views and Strip Silence in Pro
03:14Tools 8 show off Digidesign's commitment to technical excellence as well as
03:19the advancing power of personal computers.
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2. The MIDI Editor Window
Using the MIDI Editor toolbar
00:00Pro Tools now has a dedicated MIDI and instrument track editing window.
00:04It's called the MIDI Editor window and it's great for fine-tuning MIDI performance
00:08data while working on larger scale edits in the edit window. Let's take a look.
00:14To open up the MIDI Editor window, we can choose Window > MIDI Editor or we can
00:22simply right-click on a region and choose Open in MIDI Editor. Look at this!
00:29Brand new window for our MIDI data. One other way we can open up this MIDI
00:37Editor window is in the Preferences. So if we set the Preference > MIDI, and we
00:45choose double-clicking a MIDI region, it opens the MIDI Editor. Then anytime we
00:53double-click on a region in the edit window, it will open up this window.
00:58Well, let's say we want to actually open up multiple MIDI Editor windows to
01:03work on several different tracks. We can do that. I'll click the Target button
01:07right here and I am going to open up another window. So now for the DB-33
01:16track, I have a MIDI Editor window and I have one for the Mini Grand. I can
01:23cycle through the MIDI Editor windows by typing Ctrl+Equals on a Mac or
01:30Start+Equals on a PC. I am hitting that key command right now and it switches
01:35between the two different tracks.
01:37So as you can see, the MIDI Editor window is just like a whole full editing
01:44window with all of these tools and buttons up here at the top. Solo and mute
01:50buttons, we have got the notation window button, which if we click that it
01:55actually shows notation. Very cool, we will get back to that later.
01:58We have got the toolbars and you will notice that the Zoomer tool and the
02:04Pencil tool are the only ones that have multiple choices for their tools.
02:10We don't have those here with the Trimmer or the Grabber. That's just to simplify
02:15the tools that we need here for MIDI editing. If we move across the toolbar, we
02:19can see which tracks are available to edit here in this window. We have the
02:24MIDI Note Duration, Note Velocity, and playing the Notes When Editing, Mute
02:30MIDI Editing, and the Link Timeline and Edit Selection buttons. We have the
02:35edit modes and our location window right here.
02:40Finally, we have this little menu. You can see this one right here, Expanded
02:46Edit Tools. If we click this, we will actually collapse the Edit tools down to
02:52just one and it's whichever one that we have selected. We can also expand the
02:58Grid and Nudge values, which you can see if we pull this window out. We can
03:07hide the track list and we can choose different scrolling when we play back our
03:15tracks. Just like in the edit window toolbar, we can press Command on a Mac or
03:23Ctrl on a PC and move the sections of the toolbar around.
03:31As you can probably tell, the MIDI Editor will become an integral part of your
03:34MIDI editing workflow in Pro Tools 8. I will cover more about the functions of
03:39the MIDI Editor in another video.
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Working with tracks in the MIDI Editor
00:00The MIDI Editor window shares a lot of common functionality with the regular
00:04Edit window, which makes the MIDI Editor easier to use right from the get-go.
00:08However, the MIDI Editor also offers a few unique features that you will
00:13probably learn to love.
00:14First I would like to mention that the Timeline and Conductor Rulers in the
00:19MIDI Editor can be different from the Edit window itself. So for instance, we
00:24can look at bars and beats here in the MIDI Editor. Meanwhile, I will be
00:28looking at minutes and seconds in the Edit window, in case you just want to
00:32watch the time go by in the Edit window and check out what you really want to
00:36be editing towards the bars and beats here in the MIDI Editor.
00:39Let's look at the tracks list. At the moment, we are viewing just this one Mini
00:44Grand track in the MIDI Editor. However, if we can click on these little round
00:53buttons, you will see the other tracks being superimposed into this MIDI
00:58Editor, very cool. What's even cooler is if we click on this button. This is
01:05the Color by Track button and you will notice they are labeled by colors right here.
01:10Those correspond to what you see out here.
01:15If we click on this button right here, the Color by Velocity, it changes what
01:20we view. We are now viewing velocity data and on this particular note if we
01:27grab the velocity stalk, you will see as it gets louder, the color gets deeper.
01:37Viewing the velocity data by color in this way can help us edit by indicating
01:44some notes that might be too loud or too soft in your performance.
01:48Now instead of viewing this Color by Velocity button, we can actually go into
01:55the Setup > Preferences > Display page and turn on MIDI Note Color Shows
02:04Velocity. Now you can see without even activating this button that the MIDI
02:13velocities are shown by the color in this MIDI Editor window.
02:17If we go back to the Tracks view, we will notice this pencil enable button.
02:23This button shows us which track we can actually right MDI notes on to. So if I
02:28go choose the Pencil tool, I can actually add notes directly onto this track.
02:39However, if I switch this to the DB-33 track, the notes that I add will be on
02:45the DB-33 track. If I want to add notes to multiple tracks at the same time, I
02:52can press the Shift key and add the pencil enable button to these other tracks.
03:00If I want to pencil enable multiple discontinuous tracks, I will hit the
03:05Command key on a Mac or Ctrl key on a PC. If I want to pencil enable all of the
03:14tracks at once, I can hit the Option key on a Mac or the Alt key on a PC.
03:20I actually really like the fact that you can add notes to any MIDI or
03:24instrument track all within this one window. I am definitely going to be
03:28utilizing these new features and if you write music with MIDI, I am sure you will too.
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Editing with the MIDI Editor
00:00The MIDI Editor offers a lot of great editing features within the Notes pane of
00:04its window. For example, the Smart tool is even smarter. It combines the best
00:09of what the Smart tool does in the Edit window and even has some additional
00:13MIDI functionality. For example, in addition to being able to move Notes and
00:18Trim Notes with the Trimmer or the Grabber, you can double click to add notes.
00:27You can also double click to delete a note. With the Marquee tool, as shown
00:32here, you can click and drag to highlight a number of notes.
00:39If you press Ctrl+Shift on a Mac or Start+Shift on a PC, you can separate a
00:45long note into two notes. You will notice that the cursor turns into the Knife
00:50tool. With Ctrl+Shift on the Mac pressed or Start+Shift on a PC, now we have
00:58got the Consolidate cursor, or as they call it the Bandage cursor, to
01:03consolidate those two notes and make them back into one.
01:08We can scrub MIDI notes now in Pro Tools.
01:11(Music playing.)
01:20Notice how you can play it forward
01:22and back. Another cool feature of the MIDI Editor window is that when you grab
01:30a Velocity stalk, now you can hear how loud or how soft the note is by the
01:39Velocity stalk.
01:41As with many features in Pro Tools, we have the right-click menu when you click
01:48on MIDI Note, then you will see a lot of new features here. We can cut and
01:52copy, we can clear, we can merge and paste, we can separate like I showed you
01:57before, consolidate, we can even mute notes, which if I click that the note
02:03turns white. I am going to unmute that.
02:06We can also access the real-time properties would show up in a cool new window.
02:20We can open up the Event Operations windows, we can also open up a new MIDI
02:26Editor, the Score Editor or the MIDI Even List and finally, we can actually
02:32open up the Display Notation. And here we see our highlighted note, in blue, in
02:40the Notation window.
02:41If I right click on this note, we will see one more menu item that we can open
02:48up here with the MIDI Editor, the Notation Display Track Settings.
02:52I will be covering the settings in this window and more about the Notation
02:57features of Pro Tools 8 in other videos. The MIDI Editor in Piano Roll View or
03:04Notation view offers up a ton of New MIDI Editing features. I personally find
03:09all the right-click options to be incredibly helpful and I hope you do too.
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3. The Score Editor Window
Using the Score Editor toolbar, pt. 1
00:00Pro Tools now has a Score Editor. I am sure many of you are saying "finally!"
00:05Yes, it's true. When Avid/Digidesign's parent company bought Sibelius Notation
00:10software, we all knew the integration of the two programs would become a
00:13reality sometime. Well that time is now. Let's check it out.
00:17If we place the Selector tool in the middle of our MIDI region, we can choose
00:24Window > Score Editor and that will open it. Or we can right-click on a region,
00:32Open in Score Editor, boom. There it is, the Score Editor window.
00:38One Preference I should mention is that you can tell Pro Tools to automatically
00:42open the Score Editor when you double click on a MIDI region, like this.
00:50On the MIDI page of the Preferences, double clicking a MIDI region opens the
00:56Score Editor. Unlike the MIDI Editor, you can only have one Score Editor window
01:02opened at once. Thus, the Target button up here on the right, has a different
01:08purpose than on the MIDI Editor. When the target is enabled, navigation in the
01:12Edit window will be mimicked in the Score Editor. When the target is disabled,
01:17the Score Editor does not follow navigation in the Edit window. Let's take a
01:22look at the Edit tools in the Score Editor. We will start all the way to the
01:26left with the Zoomer tool and notice that you can have the normal zoom and the
01:30single zoom. If you click once in the Score, it will expand your view of it.
01:37If you press Option on a Mac or Alt on a PC, you will notice the Zoomer has a
01:43negative sign in it and you can zoom out. This is a standard feature of any
01:48zooming in Pro Tools.
01:50You can also use the Zoomer to click and drag on an area and Zoom in just on
01:54that part, like this. Use this Zooming technique to zoom in close and do some
02:00very fine-tuning to your Score.
02:03Let's move on to the Trimmer. If I select the Trimmer, we can extend Note
02:10values or shorten them. There I have just extended the value of that to a Whole
02:15Note. Let's check out the Note Selector. If I click and drag with the Note
02:20Selector, I highlight all of the notes in that area. Selected Notes can be
02:25Deleted, Moved, Transposed or Processed with the Vent operations like Quantize.
02:32If we right click on any of these Notes, we can open up this menu; you can see
02:37all the options here.
02:40Note that the Note Selector tool only includes MIDI Note and Velocity Data. It
02:45does not include any other MIDI or Continuous Controller Data. Now, why does
02:50this matter? Well, it's pretty important because if you make an edit on the
02:53score like moving some notes around on a B3 Organ part and modulation data that
02:59you might have for your Leslie Cabinet effect or any other continuous
03:02controller data that's on that track, though it actually will not move with the
03:07notes. So I recommend performing large MIDI edits in the Edit window or the
03:12MIDI Editor window, where that data will actually travel with your edits.
03:17Let's move on to the Grabber tool. Again, I can select certain notes with the
03:24Grabber tool and now with the Hand tool or like so, I can click and drag notes
03:31to different locations, like this.
03:37The Pencil tool offers the most functionality in the Score Editor, let's check
03:43it out. We will keep it on Free Hand tool and we will add a few notes in here.
03:51So, you can use it to Insert Notes, you can use the Pencil to Select Notes or
03:59you can use it to Delete Notes if you press the Option key on a Mac or the Alt
04:05key on a PC. Any notes added to or Deleted from the Score Editor window as well
04:11as any edits that you make will also be reflected in the Edit window and the
04:15MIDI Editor. Also note that the Score Editor automatically adds rests as
04:20needed. However you cannot move or manually insert rests.
04:25The Score Editor will become an integral part of your MIDI Editing workflow in
04:29Pro Tools 8. I will cover more about the features of the Score Editor in the next video.
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Using the Score Editor toolbar, pt. 2
00:00The Score Editor shares a lot of common functionality with the regular Edit
00:03window and the new MIDI Editor window. This means you will learn how to use the
00:08Score Editor very quickly. The Score Editor also offers up some unique
00:12features, a number of which we'll cover in this video.
00:16Let's pick up where we left off in part one of this topic, by looking at the
00:19other buttons and features that at the top of the Score Editor. I will just
00:23mouse over each one and explain them as we go. The MIDI Note Duration, when we
00:29want to add a MIDI Note to the score, we can choose from different values in
00:34this menu. When we add a new note, we need to have the MIDI Velocity set for it,
00:41so we can set that right here. This button will allow us to play MIDI Notes
00:46when we are Editing. So, if we drop a new note in, we will actually here it
00:49when this is active, like this. Mirror MIDI Editing and Link Timeline and Edit
00:56Selection are pretty Standard buttons those who have been in Pro Tools for a while.
01:00However, this Double Barline button is new. The Double Barline button places a
01:06double barline at the end of the score. I am going to zoom out so that we can
01:11see what's happening at the very end of the score here.
01:14You will see that there is a whole bunch of empty measures here with no ending
01:24to the actual score. If we drop in the double barline, Pro Tools cuts off a
01:31number of those empty bars and drops the double barline in here at the end. Use
01:36this when you are ready to Print out your score. As I mentioned, there are a
01:40number of empty Bars that Pro Tools usually puts in if you take this off. Why
01:46does it do that? To give you room at the end to add extra notes.
01:51This is the Preference that you can set and I will show you how to do that. In
01:58the MIDI Preferences, just go down to this area right here the MIDI/Score
02:02Editor Display Additional Empty Bars in the Score Editor and this is a number
02:08that shows up at the very end of the Score.
02:12Let's go back up to the toolbar. Here we are looking at the cursor location.
02:17That's where the cursor is in the actual score itself. Let me drop it in to a
02:22different place here. Notice how this has matched where we are looking right
02:29here and let me zoom in. The Cursor value is where the actual Cursor is on the
02:36score itself so when I scroll down here, you will see the notes descending and
02:42now I am centered around the note F3. Sliding over to the Grid menu, this is
02:49pretty standard. The value in the Grid menu affects where you can put notes in
02:55onto the score.
02:57The last section of the Score Editor toolbar is the Edit Selection area right
03:02here, and if we actually Select a portion of the score we can use this area to
03:09Transpose the MIDI Pitches or change the Velocity of that Selected area. This
03:17makes it really easy to take your Selected area and apply a Transposition
03:21without having to go through any menus or anything like that. And just like in
03:25the Edit window and the MIDI Editor window, we can actually move the toolbar
03:29parts into whatever order that we want them in. So, if I press Command on a Mac
03:35or Ctrl on a PC, I can click and drag these areas to different locations.
03:42Let's move over to the tracks list. You will notice that in the score right
03:46now, there is only one track active, the Mini Grand. If we click on these
03:51little Gray circles, we can add more and more of the instruments all the way to
03:57filling up the entire score with every instrument that we have in here.
04:01Now, it's really starting to look like a true score and let's talk about how we
04:05can navigate around the score. There are some buttons down here on the bottom
04:10for paging back and paging forward, let's page back all the way to the
04:15beginning. There are also a number of Zoom controls down here on the bottom
04:21right hand corner.
04:23First we have this bottom that allows us to scale the size of our score. We can
04:28zoom in real close; we can zoom out as far as we can. If we don't want to
04:33choose a percentage, we can actually choose Fit to The Page Width or Fit 2
04:39Pages. I like the look of that. We can also use the + and - keys to zoom in or out.
04:49Finally, as you should expect from a good piece of Notation Software, you can
04:54MIDI Data and it is transcribed right into the Score Editor in Real time. Check
04:59this out. I am going to click and scroll all the way to the end of the piece.
05:03Then I will switch over to the Edit window, scroll up to my track, put my track
05:11into Record Enable, go back to the score. I will drop in right at the beginning
05:17of this measure, get my Transport up, start Recording.
05:24(Music playing.)
05:31There it is, transcribed right in front of your eyes and it is happening right in Pro Tools 8.
05:37It's pretty cool how Digidesign has adapted their editing tools into this Sibelius
05:42driven Score Editor. The other tools do exactly what you would expect them to do.
05:46 So the learning curve to edit in the Score Editor window isn't very steep.
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Setting up a score
00:00The Score Editor is where you see your MIDI performances shown as music
00:04notation. After you are done recording and editing your performances, you can
00:08fine-tune how they look as you set up your score in Pro Tools. Let's look at
00:13some of the options under the right- click menu in the Score Editor window.
00:18First you can see you can change the tools but let's look at this. Let's add
00:22some stuff to our score. I am going to add a Chord Symbol. Here we are D major.
00:28That sounds good, add that right in and now you see it there. What if we
00:33actually wanted to edit the score in the MIDI Editor? Well, it's easy to just
00:39click down here and choose Open in MIDI Editor. That opens up that track in the
00:44MIDI Editor and we can edit any performance details here. Let's go back to the
00:50Score Editor. If we really want to fine -tune the look of our score, we can do this.
00:57Notation Display Track Settings. First, we can change the clef that's
01:03shown on each instrument's track. So we are looking at the Xpand2 track right now.
01:08We could actually change the clef from the Grand Staff to any of these.
01:16Music for some instruments is better suited on different clefs. We can also
01:20change the Display Transposition. This changes the key. For example, let's say
01:26you want a trumpet to play this part. Well, a trumpet is a B flat instrument so
01:30they would play this part a major second below where it is actually written.
01:34So we would need to transpose this part up a major second to D if you want the
01:40trumpet to play this part as written. Below this section is the Global Section.
01:46We have the Display Quantization. You can change this and it will actually show
01:51a different way of these notes to be quantized on the page. See how this
01:56has changed everything?
01:58This only affects the display; it does not actually move the notes. So what you
02:03see here will not affect how it actually sounds. With this button, Straighten Swing,
02:08this will actually unswing any swung notes that are shown on the score.
02:15For example, for some reason you have some eighth notes on the score that
02:19appear to be swung. This box will straighten them out.
02:23Jazz musicians would rather see the unswung version anyway because they know
02:27how to add their own swing. Below that is the Allow Note Overlap. Pro Tools
02:32only shows a single rhythmic line on a single staff. Thus, if two notes that
02:37start at different times overlap, the first note will be truncated when
02:43the second note begins. So check this out. I will move this. Change this back.
02:52Watch this area right here. What I am showing you here is that this particular note,
02:59I actually played longer than it was actually shown in the score.
03:05So, if I unclick this, you will see that it is cut off and this note now goes into
03:11this note. But if you look at the actual MIDI Performance, which is shown right here,
03:16this note holds out a little bit longer.
03:20With this activated and as you see here, Pro Tools will display the full length
03:24of the overlapping notes using tied notes. The last feature set of the Notation
03:30Display Track Settings is the Split Point and if we have the Grand Staff being
03:36shown here, we can tell Pro Tools where we want that Grand Staff to be split.
03:41You can have it automatically split it for us or we can fix it to a certain note.
03:49If we switch over to the Attributes tab, we can set up different attributes for
03:54the selected track than what are set in the Global Settings but we have to
03:59uncheck the Follow Globals check box to make that happen.
04:03Finally, we have the Score Setup window. I will close this. Now, we can either
04:11open it from the File menu right here or pull it up from the right-click, Score Setup.
04:20This window helps us personalize the score and setup how it looks on the page.
04:25So we have the Title and Composer, Chord Diagrams, we can even choose to
04:30include this stuff, we can setup the Spacing and the Layout and I am actually
04:35going to title this Lynda's Theme by me. It's hard for me to believe that I am
04:46even about to say this but that's how you set up a score in Pro Tools.
04:50Now you don't need two different pieces of software. You can do everything that you
04:55need to do for your Notation, your MIDI Editing, your MIDI Recording,
05:00all within Pro Tools.
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Editing, exporting, and printing a score
00:00As a feather in the Pro Tools 8 cap, the Score Editor enables you to export the
00:04score to Sibelius for further tweaking or simply print out the score directly
00:09from Pro Tools.
00:10First, let's do some final cleaning up to our score. As it turns out, I forgot
00:15to put the key signature into this score. So let's do that right now. I'm just
00:19going to right click in this position, Insert > Key Signature. Turns out for
00:27this song, A minor is the key so I will choose that. If we need to, we can
00:34also change to Meter or add Chord Symbols and I will actually add one just here for fun.
00:47To further clean up our score, I am going to rename the tracks and all you need
00:51to do is mouse over them and double- click. With our score here, we actually
01:03have all tracks being shown in the score, but if we want to print out parts
01:08just for individual instruments, we can deselect all these other tracks and now
01:15we just have the piano part. We can go back to Showing All Tracks by clicking here.
01:23If you want to do some fine-tuning or tweaking to the score or individual
01:27parts, you can export the files to Sibelius to utilize the more advanced
01:32notation functions in that program. Choose File > Export > Sibelius.
01:40Now do a Save As and save this to the Desktop.
01:50You can use that file to import into Sibelius and even quicker way to do that
01:56is to actually go to File > Send to Sibelius. This launches Sibelius
02:03immediately if you have it installed on your computer. Unfortunately we do not here.
02:10If you actually want to print the score directly from Pro Tools, choose Print
02:14Score from the File menu and Pro Tools will print exactly what appears on the
02:19screen in the Score Editor window, nothing more, nothing less.
02:23If you print the score to a PDF file, be sure to look at the score in Adobe
02:28Acrobat instead of other programs like Apple Preview. The score will look
02:33better in Acrobat. This is a known bug in Sibelius that has actually been
02:37transferred over to Pro Tools.
02:40So it's true. You can actually notate MIDI performances and set up a score in
02:45Pro Tools and you can even export and print that score directly from Pro Tools 8.
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4. New Virtual Instruments
Creating tracks with Boom
00:00Digidesign's Advanced Instrument Research group has developed six new virtual
00:04instruments. They are all included with Pro Tools 8. They offer a ton of sounds
00:09to inspire your musical creativity. Let's look at Boom.
00:17Inspired by classic drum machines, Boom has 10 electronic-oriented drum kits
00:23with a variety of sound shaping capability. Admittedly, there are certainly
00:27more robust drum machine programs out there. However, even though this was
00:31modeled after an old school drum machine, Boom is definitely current for many
00:35hip-hop and dance style beats.
00:37Let's listen to a few example beats at several different tempos to give you a
00:41sample of what Boom can offer.
00:43(Music playing.)
00:49Pretty easy to nod your head to that.
00:57(Music playing.)
01:02Put that beat in your track and you will have all the people dancing in the club.
01:12(Music playing.)
01:17Man, I am just a sucker for those anticipated beats.
01:27(Music playing.)
01:28Pretty standard beat there, but alluring nonetheless and you could probably use
01:32this as the basis for any dance track.
01:40Maybe it's the drummer in me, but I just love the energy of drum and base
01:44rhythms like this and maybe you do too.
01:46Boom has over 100 pre-made beats for you to search through, but the presets are
01:51only the beginning. This plug-in can be programmed easily and has 10 different
01:55kits to pull sounds from. I am sure you will enjoy working with this drum
01:59machine in Pro Tools 8.
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Creating tracks with Structure Free
00:00Structure is Digidesign's sample player and Structure Free, which comes with
00:05Pro Tools 8, is a limited version of that software, in that it only comes with
00:09a small complement of samples. That said, Structure Free does have many of the
00:16features of the full-blown version of Structure as you can see in the
00:20interface here. The sounds it does come with are high quality samples from East-West.
00:26In fact, if you scroll through the sounds you will see 60 in the list.
00:34I am going to load up the first patch, the Studio Drum patch. This is a great
00:39sounding drum kit with large high quality samples. I will play through each
00:43part of the kit so you can hear everything.
00:46You can use this kit to create beats for rock, country, jazz or any style that
00:51calls for realistic sounding studio drums.
00:55(Music playing.)
01:12The electric piano parts that I am going to play for you now, I think sounds
01:16very natural. You will hear this part in its entirety in the All Together Now video.
01:26(Music playing.)
01:36I have always been impressed with steel string guitar samples and these don't
01:41disappoint. You've just got to play the samples like a real guitarist might strum.
01:45Check out this example.
01:52(Music playing.)
02:07Structure Free has a small but varied collection of bases and I like a lot of them,
02:12especially this one.
02:21(Music playing.)
02:32Now I own the full version of Structure and I use it a lot. Structure Free,
02:36however, leaves me wanting more and I guess that's really Digidesign's point by
02:41only giving away 60 instruments here. But what they did include with Structure Free
02:46is all usable and I am sure you will hear many applications for all of the
02:50included samples.
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Designing sounds with Vacuum
00:00As soon as you open up Vacuum, you know what you are in for. Its dusty
00:04appearance matches the vacuum tube analog synthesis that it's modeling.
00:09Vacuum uses extensive modulation, oscillators, filters, envelopes and some
00:17unique controls like Drift and Dust to create its wide variety of analog synth sounds.
00:24Let's check out a few of them.
00:31(Music playing.)
00:42I love arpeggiators, especially when it comes to base lines. Now you will be
00:46able to hear this track in its entirety in the All Together Now video.
00:50Let's check out another sound.
00:59(Music playing.)
01:10I really like how the sound designers utilized filters in that patch.
01:15Let's check out another one.
01:22(Music playing.)
01:28The warm grid of that sound typifies what you will get out of Vacuum.
01:39(Music playing.)
01:48It's kind of a crazy sound and if you didn't notice, the name of the sound is
01:53Pants Filler. I think that's hilarious.
01:56As you can see, Vacuum has a large list of presets and as you can hear,
02:01Vacuum's presets sound great, yet it also offers innumerable ways to tweak
02:06those sounds. I am sure you will enjoy playing with this new virtual instrument.
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Designing sounds with Xpand 2
00:00Digidesign calls Xpand2 a workstation synthesizer plug-in. I agree. With its
00:071.5 gigabytes of content, it certainly can do a lot of work for you. In fact,
00:12I have used this plug-in for many paying composition gigs myself.
00:16Xpand2 is an upgrade to the original Xpand plug-in that many of you may have.
00:21All of the original Xpand sounds are included in Xpand2 and the patch list of
00:26Xpand2 has been greatly expanded. The new patches are labeled with a Plus sign
00:32before their names in the patch lists. As we can see here.
00:37Xpand2 is easier to use than the original Xpand because all of the controls are
00:42now in one page. Also, Xpand can handle 4 MIDI channels now instead of one.
00:49Finally, some new effects have been added to Xpand2 making this workstation
00:54even cooler. Let's check out some of the sounds.
01:01(Music playing.)
01:05If you have watched some of the other videos in this course, you may be
01:08familiar with this track and you will be able to hear it in its entirety in the
01:12All Together Now video. I just love the sound of that sitar and the delay
01:17effect and how it interacts with the pad at the very end of the melody line.
01:22Let's move on.
01:29(Music playing.)
01:45How cool is that? I am just blown away by some of the evolving sonic landscape
01:49patches here in Xpand2. You can use these for all sorts of applications like
01:55gaming audio, TV, film production, all kinds of stuff. Let's look at another one.
02:10(Music playing.)
02:30That's just a majestic sound befitting its name and here is a nice new string patch.
02:45(Music playing.)
02:53As you saw when I scrolled through the presets, Xpand2 is massive. There are 29
02:59banks of sounds, pretty much covering the gamut of commonly used instruments to
03:04unique new patches. I literally use this plug-in all the time and I hope that
03:09Xpand2 becomes one of your go-to virtual instruments as well.
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Making music with Mini Grand
00:00Mini Grand offers Pro Tools 8 users seven different high quality customizable
00:05piano modules. Each key has eight velocity layers, so you can create very
00:10expressive performances with this instrument.
00:14Compared to the other virtual instruments in Pro Tools 8, this one only has a
00:18few parameters, making it easier to tweak. I mean it is a piano plug-in and
00:24I am glad that it didn't go overboard with tweakable parameters. Anyway, let's
00:28listen to some of the sounds.
00:32(Music playing.)
00:47If you've watched some of the other videos in this course, you may be familiar
00:50with this track and you will be able to hear it in its entirety in the
00:54All Together Now video. I just really like the nice deep Reverb on this Patch.
00:59Let's hear another one.
01:06(Music playing.)
01:13I put this in here to demonstrate the velocity layers of this piano plug-in.
01:18Let's try another one.
01:30(Music playing.)
01:44Isn't that just a nice delicate piano sound? Now, I've used a number of other
01:49piano sound modules and Mini Grand stands up to them for sure. I am impressed
01:54with the Mini Grand and I think you will be too.
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Making music with DB33
00:00DB-33 is a tone-wheel organ instrument for Pro Tools. It features two preamp
00:06emulations and a rotary speaker cabinet in the style of a Leslie cabinet.
00:10DB-33 has full drawbars, variable percussion and a number of tone-wheel models.
00:19In combination, you can create a whole bunch of cool, classic B-3 organ-like sounds.
00:24A unique feature to the DB-33 is that each Patch is labeled with the
00:30drawbar positions. Notice the numbers here in the Patch Name and how they line
00:37up with the drawbar positions here.
00:39Now let's run through some of the sounds.
00:45(Music playing.)
01:35A lot of options here. Another function unique only to the DB-33 and honestly
01:41something that is very cool is that you can route an audio track through the
01:46cabinet separately without using the organ for any sound at all.
01:55Just insert the DB-33 on an Audio or Ox track and then click the Cabinet button
02:02on the bottom of the DB-33 plug-in window to access the cabinet. Let's have a
02:07listen to this Electric Piano track through the DB-33 cabinet.
02:15(Music playing.)
02:23I really dig the sounds in the DB-33 plug-in. I am sure you can find any organ
02:29sound that you are looking for here in the DB-33 and that cabinet routing
02:34feature is super cool. I think you'll really enjoy working with this instrument a lot.
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Listening to "All Together Now"
00:00In this video, I want to give you a taste of what you can create with all the
00:04new virtual instruments in Pro Tools 8. If you have watched any of the course
00:08videos previous to this, you will probably recognize some of the individual
00:12instrument parts.
00:13Now I am going to combine them into a song called All Together Now. Watch and
00:19listen as I click through the various Pro Tools windows and instruments.
00:23Hopefully, this will inspire you to go out and create some music of your own
00:26with these virtual instruments in Pro Tools.
00:29(Music playing.)
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5. New Plug-Ins (Creative Collection Effects)
Identifying improvements to the Plug-In window
00:00Before we cover the brand new plug-ins in Pro Tools 8, I want to show you some
00:04of the improvements that Digidesign has made to some of the existing RTAS and
00:08AudioSuite plug-ins.
00:10First, let's look at the EQ3 plug-in. Pro Tools 8 now has a Stereo version of
00:16this EQ3 plug-in.
00:23Previously, it could only be Mono or Multi-Mono. Note that in
00:27the Stereo version, the Input and Output meters display the sum of the left and
00:32right channels. I am going to bypass this now to move on to the second plug-in
00:39that I want to check out and that is the D-Verb plug-in.
00:44The D-Verb is a Reverb that has been standard in Pro Tools for a long time now,
00:48but they have made some improvements to the RTAS version. The sound of the
00:53D-Verb plug-in has been improved because Digidesign has added a subtle Chorus
00:57effect to the Hall and Church presets, which thickens the reverb sound.
01:02Note that this Chorus effect has always been present for the Hall and Church
01:05options in the AudioSuite and TDM versions but it was purposefully left out of
01:10the RTAS version until now in order to reduce host computer processing power.
01:16Honestly in the past, I usually steered clear of using the D-Verb plug-in
01:20because I thought the sound wasn't that great on most of the presets I wanted
01:23to use and now I understand why. I will definitely be revisiting this plug-in now.
01:28Let's check out a sample of the improved Church Reverb sound.
01:31I'll try it out on a piano.
01:34(Music playing.)
01:50Sounds better to me already. So let's get out of
01:53the RTAS world and move in to the AudioSuite world. I am going to get rid of
01:57this plug-in and we are going to take a look at some of the improvements that
02:01Digidesign has made to the AudioSuite Preview functions.
02:04Let's open up an AudioSuite plug-in right now. We'll have some fun with this one;
02:13we'll use the Reverse AudioSuite plug-in. As we look at this AudioSuite plug-in,
02:21you can see that the plug-in window now features a Volume control and
02:26a Level Meter. Use the Level Meter to watch for clipping when previewing this
02:30effect. The performance of AudioSuite plug-ins has also been improved.
02:35Starting, stopping and the responsiveness to moving plug-in controls is all
02:39much faster now.
02:41Check it out.
02:42(Music playing.)
02:49You will see that it starts up a lot faster and
02:52stops a lot quicker than it used to in previous versions of Pro Tools.
02:55(Music playing.)
03:07That Volume control is pretty handy too. So you can hear that these improvements
03:12in the AudioSuite plug-ins window as well as the EQ and D-Verb RTAS plug-ins
03:17are all welcome sonic enhancements found in Pro Tools 8, that should help your
03:21session sound better than ever.
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Adding EQ effects
00:00Digidesign's Advanced Instrument Research group has been busy. They have made a
00:04bunch of great new Effects plug-ins for Pro Tools 8. I am going to demonstrate
00:08a couple of new EQ plug-ins here in this video.
00:12First, let's check out the Kill EQ plug-in. Kill EQ is a 3 band EQ with Kill
00:20switches on each band. What that means is with this plug-in, you can cut off
00:24the lows, the mids or the highs for some really cool effects. With the track
00:30playing in Loop Playback, I will demonstrate some of the sonic possibilities
00:34for this plug-in by tweaking the controls as well as loading some of the presets.
00:38Enjoy!
00:39(Music playing.)
02:00Pretty cool stuff going on there. The second new EQ plug-in from the AIR group
02:06is the Vintage filter. Let's take a look at that. You will actually find that
02:10in the Modulation folder. Related to the Kill EQ but with some different
02:17parameters, the Vintage filter is a resonate, multi-mode filter that can be
02:23manually adjusted or modulated over time using the built-in Low Frequency
02:27Oscillator or LFO and an envelope follower.
02:31Now I am going to grab the mouse and adjust some of these knobs and you can
02:37hear the sonic output.
02:38(Music playing.)
03:30Man, I love that stuff. How cool are these EQ effects? With the plethora of
03:36presets, the capabilities of the filters to sink with the tempo of the session
03:41and the wide range of controls, these EQ plug-ins will provide you some
03:44seriously powerful sonic sculpting ability.
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Sculpting harmonic effects
00:00I'll bet that Digidesign's Advanced Instrument Research group had a lot of fun
00:04making the effects plug-ins I am about to show you here. They are Distortion,
00:09Enhancer, Frequency Shifter, FuzzWah and Talkbox, and they are all part of the
00:14harmonic effects family. First let's look at the Air Distortion effect.
00:21Distortion boosts and clips a signal to add bite, dirt and crunch. With the B3
00:27organ track playing in loop playback, I will demonstrate some of the sonic
00:31possibilities for this plug-in, by tweaking the controls as well as loading
00:36some of the presets.
00:37(Music playing.)
01:17We've got some crazy sounds going on from this plug-in. Next I am going to move
01:21on to the Enhancer.
01:29The Enhancer plug-in synthesizes high-end frequencies to
01:33enhance dull signals. Let's check it out.
01:36(Music playing.)
02:17Pretty cool stuff there. Now let's check out the Frequency Shifter plug-in.
02:22We'll close this one up, and move down to this track, the electric piano track.
02:29We will check out the Frequency Shifter plug-in. You can find the Frequency
02:35Shifter in the Pitch Shift or in the Harmonic family of plug-ins. The Frequency
02:42Shifter plug-in offers up some classic pitch shifting effects. Try this plug-in
02:47out on guitars or keyboard tracks. Let's hear how it sounds on this electric piano track.
02:52(Music playing.)
03:41Very cool! Next let's move on to the FuzzWah effect.
03:53Staying with the electric piano sound,
03:55we will check out the FuzzWah. This one provides dirty distortion
03:59and sweeping 'wah' effects that sound great on guitar, electric piano and organ sounds.
04:05(Music playing.)
05:02So great sounds in that one. We will close this up now and move back to the
05:07Organ track, where we will open up the Talkbox effect. The Talkbox effect
05:17emulates a mouth controlled Wah pedal. Here we will test it out on an organ track,
05:22but try running your guitar through this. Instantly, you will be Peter Frampton.
05:27(Music playing.)
06:01I am so psyched to hear these now harmonic effects in Pro Tools. I can easily
06:05imagine how all of these will be useful to you in a variety of ways, from
06:09creating classic rock and county tones, to dirtying up pristine samples in
06:14electronic music, to designing soundscapes for TV and film.
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Creating delay and modulation effects
00:00Here is a sampling of the latest delay and modulation plug-ins from
00:03Digidesign's Advanced Instrument Research group, including Dynamic and Multitap
00:08delays, Chorus, Flanger and Phaser, and even of Filter Gate Sequencer.
00:14I will start with the Dynamic Delay.
00:17The Dynamic Delay plug-in provides ducked echo effects that stay out of the
00:22way when a signal is present and fade in when the signal is lower or gone.
00:27Let's listen to this effect on a sitar track. Because we have got a lot to
00:30cover here in this video, I won't tweak as many of the plug-in controls.
00:34I'll just load up some of the presets to give you a sample of what's possible.
00:37(Music playing.)
01:25Some really cool stuff in there. Let's check out the Multitap Delay now.
01:34The Multitap Delay creates complex echo effects by utilizing multiple cross-linked delays.
01:40Check this out!
01:42(Music playing.)
02:16Wow! That's pretty crazy. The Chorus plug-in provides nice chorusing via pitch
02:21Some great stuff happening in there. I particularly like the rhythmic delays
02:25and the infinite delay. So I will close this up and move on to the next track,
02:32where we will try out the Chorus effect. We will switch over to an electric
02:37piano to check out a few of these new plug-ins.
02:40(Music playing.)
03:22modulation. It sounds pretty cool on guitars, vocals and keyboard sounds, and
03:27especially here on this electric piano part. Now I am going to switch over to
03:32the MultiChorus effect. Layering is the key to this MultiChorus plug-in.
03:38It uses stacked chorus effects with individual rate and depth controls to create
03:43its lush tones.
03:44(Music playing.)
04:10Some crazy stuff in there. I love how these chorus effects can thicken up an
04:15electric piano sound or even just totally whack out that sound.
04:18Now I am going to move on to the Flanger plug-in. The Flanger plug-in is great
04:25for making pronounced, resonant EQ sweeps with pitch modulation. Check this out.
04:30(Music playing.)
05:18Next we will move on to the brother of the Flanger, the Phaser. The Phaser
05:25plug-in creates more subtle EQ sweeps with pitch modulation than does the Flanger.
05:30Check it out.
05:31(Music playing.)
06:05Okay, so maybe some of those aren't so subtle, but it still sounds really great.
06:08Now I am going to switch over to the Ensemble plug-in. The Ensemble
06:13plug-in creates classic, fluid, shimmering effects that work well with chords and
06:18pad sounds. And here I will test it out on an arpeggiated synth base part.
06:23(Music playing.)
06:59Now we will move on to the last, but probably my favorite of the modulation
07:03effects, the Filter Gate. This super- cool plug-in creates a sequenced filter
07:08and gate effect with loads of control over the timber and amplitude of a
07:12signal. It can add rhythmic animation to long notes and rhythmic parts, such as
07:18what I am going to play it on here, this base synth arpeggiated part.
07:22(Music playing.)
07:50There are just so many possibilities with this plug-in, and I got to tell you,
07:54to make this effect in Pro Tools before version 8 you need it to route a signal
07:58through signal several tracks using a bunch of plug-ins. I am so glad that they
08:02have this all in one box now.
08:05In this video, you have seen and heard a number of terrific delay and
08:08modulation plug-in effects. I felt some of these were glaringly missing in
08:12previous versions of Pro Tools, but here they are, sounding great in Pro Tools 8.
08:17I am sure they are going to be incredibly useful in all the music you'll be
08:21creating with Pro Tools.
Collapse this transcript
Utilizing reverb and sound field effects
00:00Reverb is an essential effect used in all styles of music and in
00:04postproduction. In this video I am going to demo the three new Reverb effect
00:09plug-ins that are included with Pro Tools 8. The first is simply called Reverb.
00:15Despite the bland name, the new reverb plug-in by Digidesign's Advanced
00:20Instrument Research group has a lot of usable sounds.
00:23It has 20 presets to emulate many acoustical spaces. I will load up some of the
00:28presets to give you a sample of what this Reverb plug-in is capable of as we
00:33listen to a piano track in loop playback.
00:35(Music playing.)
01:16The next Reverb plug-in we'll check out is the Non-Linear Reverb.
01:20The Non-Linear Reverb plug-in can be used to emulate classic 80s AIR gated Reverb
01:25effects. Check out some of these cool presets.
01:28(Music playing.)
02:09Of the three new AIR Reverb plug-ins, the Spring Reverb is my personal favorite.
02:12Let's load that up.
02:20(Music playing.)
02:44This plug-in simulates classic analog spring reverbs that you might find in
02:48vintage guitar amps and studio gear. Finally, let's check out the Stereo Width
02:54plug-in on a drum track.
02:56This cool plug-in widens the stereo image of both mono and stereo signals.
03:01I like to use this plug-in to widen individual tracks in a mix or over the entire
03:07mix while I am mastering. Check it out.
03:09(Music playing.)
03:25Digidesign has really opened up the sonic possibilities with the Stereo Width
03:29plug-in and the three new Reverb plug-ins. These round out the creative
03:34collection suite of new plug-ins included with Pro Tools 8, and I am sure you
03:37will be making use of these plug-ins in your Pro Tools sessions very soon.
Collapse this transcript
Using TL utilities
00:00In this video I will introduce you to the TL Utilities bundle, which comes free
00:04with Pro Tools 8. The TL Utilities bundle consists of three useful plug-ins:
00:10TL Metro, TL InTune and TL MasterMeter. First let's take a look at TL Metro.
00:18TL Metro is a versatile metronome. In addition to the variety of sounds you can
00:22choose from for the click sounds, what I really like is that you can choose
00:26different sounds for each subdivision of the beat. Not only that, you can adjust
00:31the levels of those different sounds to actually create a mix of your click
00:34track beat. Look at the variety of different songs we've got here.
00:38I greatly prefer this metronome plug-in to Digidesign's stock click plug-in.
00:43I think Digidesign will make TL Metro the default click plug-in in future
00:47releases, and that's just another reason why I recommend using this plug-in if
00:51you need a click track in your Pro Tools 8 session.
00:54When you insert this plug-in on a Mono Ox track and press Play, TL Metro will
00:59sync to the session tempo immediately. Let's check out some of the click sounds
01:03in TL Metro.
01:04(Music playing.)
01:29I just love that you can actually get different sounds for the subdivisions in
01:33the click track.
01:34You can actually make a beat with this thing that sounds pretty cool. It's much
01:38better than just a bland click, click, click.
01:42Now let's move onto the TL InTune plug-in. TL InTune is a tuner like a guitar
01:48tuner pedal. Plug your guitar directly into your Pro Tools interface then put
01:53this plug-in on as the first insert on the mono audio or ox track where your
01:58guitar is plugged into.
02:00In this session I am plugged into input 2 on my 003 as you can see right here.
02:06Use this plug-in to check your tuning before and during a recording session.
02:12In Automatic mode InTune will detect the note played and automatically show the
02:16pitch for that note whether it's in tune or not. If you would like to tune to
02:20the sound of an actual in tune note, like if you are tuning up a brass or
02:24woodwind instrument, click the Test Tone button and InTune will generate either
02:30a Sin wave or a Triangle wave tone for you.
02:34You can choose Needle or Strobe as the meter display. Let's check out Strobe.
02:39I will pop this into record, hit a note, and you can see the Strobe effect.
02:49I personally like the Needle display; it's a little more clear to me what I need
02:53to do to tune up the note.
02:57You can also change the octave as well as the reference frequency away from
03:01A440 if you really want to. So here's what it's like to tune the A string on a guitar.
03:11(Guitar note plays.)
03:14Seems like the A note is a little flat. Let me tune it up.
03:18(Guitar note plays.)
03:19Okay, a little bit more.
03:26(Guitar note plays.)
03:32That's about close enough for rock-and-roll. Let's get out of
03:36the Tuner now, and let's check out the TL MasterMeter.
03:43The TL MasterMeter was designed as the first oversampling meter for Pro Tools.
03:48Insert this plug-in on the Stereo Master Fader track in your session during
03:53any critical mixing or mastering sessions, s that you can monitor the output
03:58levels and check for inter-sample digital clipping. What does that mean?
04:02That's clipping that can occur between samples that might cause distortion on
04:08consumer CD players.
04:10Now the chapter on the TL MasterMeter in the Trillium Lane Labs' plug-ins
04:14manual is an excellent reference to learn about digital distortion. I highly
04:19recommend checking it out.
04:21The Free TL Utilities bundle provides needed tools that we were lacking in
04:25previous versions of Pro Tools.
04:27I bet you will be using all three of these in almost every session from this day forward.
Collapse this transcript
Exploring additional free plug-ins
00:00While it might seem like a bunch of throw-ins to Pro Tools A, the free plug-ins
00:04I'm about to cover are no throwaways.
00:07Digidesign has added these in to sweeten the pot. And in doing so have given you
00:13a load of free amp modelers, sonic mangling tools and even a high-quality
00:18mastering limiter. The best sounding of these free plug-ins is Eleven. Eleven
00:24is Digidesign's Guitar Amp Simulator. And honestly, this is probably
00:28my favorite Amp Simulator on the market.
00:31Unfortunately the free version here only comes with two presets. So amp
00:36tweakers tweak away and create your own presets. You can upgrade Eleven to
00:41Eleven LE of the full Eleven version for a small cost if you go to Digidesign's
00:45website. Now I will play you a few notes and chords through the two presets,
00:49so you can hear them. Then I will move on to the next plug-in.
00:53So let me put this into record. All right, given that this is the Eleven plug-in,
00:58I am going to give you my best Spinal Tap Nigel Tufnel impersonation.
01:04(Music playing.)
01:23Listen to the sustain! All right, I will switch over to the other free preset.
01:29(Music playing.)
01:53Very nice! So let me close this down and we will move on to the next really
02:01cool amp modeler, SansAmp.
02:07SansAmp is one of the first of its kind as an amp modeler. This plug-in has
02:12been on the market for a long time, but I continually find uses for it in
02:16my mixes, often on vocals or on keyboard sounds. It's got a large amount of
02:21presets, as you can see in the Librarian menu. And I can usually find that
02:27distorted sound that I am looking for in these presets. Let's check out some of
02:32these presets on an organ track.
02:34(Music playing.)
03:10Obviously there is a lot to choose from these presets. So go through them on
03:14your own and find out what works for you.
03:16Now I am going to move on to the first of four in the D5 Sound Design plug-in
03:22suite from Digidesign. This is RectiFi. RectiFi and the other four D5 plug-ins
03:28have been around for a while, but they are still very relevant and useful.
03:33RectiFi provided additive harmonic processing effects through waveform rectification.
03:38Check out some of these presets.
03:40(Music playing.)
04:04Lo-Fi is second of four in the D5 suite does just what you think it does.
04:10It makes the track have lower fidelity, via bit rate reduction, sample rate
04:14reduction, distortion and saturation, filtering and noise generation.
04:19Let's take a listen.
04:22(Music playing.)
04:49Sci-Fi invites aliens into your studio. Through analog synthesis-type
04:56processing you can create weird sounds via Ring Modulation, Frequency
05:00Modulation, LFOs and Resonators. And don't blame me if E.T. pays you a visit
05:06after listening to this demo.
05:07(Music playing.)
05:37I think I see the spaceship!
05:39The last in the D5 suite is Vari-Fi. Vari-Fi is
05:44actually an AudioSuite plug-in and it provides a pitch shifting effect similar
05:49to a tape deck or turntable slowing down to a stop or speeding up from stop.
05:55Although this plug-in is pretty limited, it certainly has its uses, and I have
05:58used it and heard it used many times. Check it out.
06:03(Music playing.)
06:25The last of the plug-ins that I want to talk about in this movie is called Maxim.
06:30Maxim is a peak limiting and sound maximizing plug-in. It's capable of
06:34looking ahead at the incoming audio signal and limiting the signal before it
06:39creates unwanted clipping or distortion, while still preserving the transient
06:44attack and character of the incoming signal. Maxim also provides dither, noise
06:51shaping and bit resolution choices, all of which are helpful if this plug-in is
06:56used for mastering, which is the most common application for this plug-in.
07:00Maxim can seriously increase the overall output volume of your mixes.
07:04While making the loudest masters possible is an unfortunate trend these days, try to
07:09use this plug-in carefully. Watch the meters in the Maxim window for feedback
07:14and always trust your ears first. I am going to add it on to a track here, so
07:18watch your speaker levels and your headphone levels.
07:21(Music playing.)
07:57The amp modelers, sound design tools and mastering limiter that I have shown
08:02you here are terrific additions to the already impressive collection of new
08:07free plug-ins included with Pro Tools 8. Hopefully they will help to inspire
08:11you in musical directions that you might not have otherwise traveled.
Collapse this transcript
Creating a plug-in map for a Pro Tools controller
00:00Pro Tools 8 enables you to customize the arrangement of plug-in parameters on
00:04supported control surfaces. For Pro Tools LE that means on eight-fader
00:09surfaces including the 003, Digi 002, and Command 8 surfaces as well as 24
00:17fader surfaces including the C24 and Control 24.
00:22You can save plug-in maps as Presets and use them in any Pro Tools session with
00:27the appropriate control surface attached. For instance you can map the controls
00:31for an EQ plug-in or piano virtual instrument to a 003's channel strip
00:38encoders, switches and faders, if those faders are in Flip mode, and that's
00:43exactly what I am going to show you how to do here.
00:45I am going to take this EQ plug-in and I am going to map some of the 003's
00:50channel strip encoders to some of the EQ controls here. The first thing that
00:55you will notice when you open up a plug- in and it's connected to a device that
00:59you can map plug-ins to, you will see this area in the Plug-in window.
01:04This is the Plug-in Map Control area. If you click on this button here,
01:08you will see a number of options that we can choose from for creating a new map,
01:13saving a map, importing or exporting, deleting or setting as the default, which
01:19we will talk about later in this movie.
01:21So let's go ahead and create a new map. When you create a new map, the first
01:26thing that happens is the Learn button becomes enabled. Now click on a
01:32parameter in the Plug-in window and that will become active. You can twist the
01:37knob on the 003 or your control surface and that will map the EQ control to
01:42that knob on your control surface.
01:46So now I have mapped this particular control to one of the rotary encoders on
01:50my 003. I am going to click over to this control. I am going to rotate one of
01:56the knobs on the 003, a second knob, and now I have control over both of these
02:02knobs in this EQ plug-in.
02:04So now we have the low frequency gain, and the high frequency gain knobs
02:10controlled by rotary encoders on the 003. So that's all I am going to do for now,
02:15so I am going to click Learn to turn that off. Now we are out of Learn mode.
02:21From the Map Options pop-up menu, I am going to choose Save Map As.
02:27Now I am going to name this EQ 4band 003 and hit OK. So now I have a
02:36customized map for my 003 and this particular plug-in. From the Map Options
02:42pop-up menu, you can rename the map, save it as a different name, import it or
02:48export it to other sessions. We can delete it or we can set it as the default.
02:54Let's do that. So now every time that I open up this plug-in, it will be mapped
02:59in the same way.
03:01So now that we have set this up as the default, let's take it for a test drive.
03:04I am going to play this piano track and adjust the EQ using the rotary encoders
03:10on my 003 and you will see that action here in the EQ window. Check this out.
03:15(Music playing.)
03:43As you can see here, Pro Tools 8 gives you the power to create your own plug-in maps,
03:47which gives you complete control over your plug-ins using your control
03:52surface. This is a cool feature that I bet you will look forward to
03:55experimenting with more in your own studio.
Collapse this transcript
Conclusion
Goodbye
00:00Thanks for listening. If you've got questions about any of the new Pro Tools 8
00:03features don't hesitate to just watch any of these videos again.
00:07I wish you all the best in your future Pro Tools adventures. Cheers!
Collapse this transcript


Suggested courses to watch next:

Pro Tools 9 Essential Training (8h 23m)
David Franz

Mixing and Mastering with Pro Tools (9h 18m)
Brian Lee White



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