Pro Tools – Shortcut of the Week (2009.06.08)

Pro Tools is a strong multi-track editing program, but unless you’re willing to drop some change on a custom keyboard , it can be tough to learn all the keyboard shortcuts. I’m featuring one a week in an attempt to highlight the tricks I find most useful.

Bounce to Disk: Command + Option + B

There’s a debate with Pro Tools about the quality of the summing bus - many people claim to prefer the sound of summing through an Aux channel over the Bounce to Disk tool. When I’ve finished a mix I usually record the mix onto a separate channel, but before that point I find myself using Bounce to Disk quite a bit. I probably use it most when playing out takes for an artist, for take selection. If I have a lot of takes to work through, clicking File->Bounce->Bounce to Disk gets tedious. This shortcut is a huge time saver when I’m working in this mode.