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.

Import Session Data: Shift+Option+I

When I’m doing a session with multiple songs for a group, I try to keep each song in its own session.  This always makes the edit and mix stages of the process much simpler.  After the first song I’ll create a new session and import the settings from the first song.  This shortcut makes things a bit easier.

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.

Loop Record: Option+L

Prior to Pro Tools version 8, I never found Loop Record to be that useful.  There were two distinct work flows for handling multiple takes: Loop Record, which created multiple regions stacked on top of each other, and playlists, which did not allow for loop recording but allowed you to flip between takes easily.  I preferred playlists, because of the simplicity of the visual management.  When a performer messed up a take, you could stop it and start back at the top without waiting for the loop.

With Pro Tools 8, you can configure your preferences to create a new playlist with every loop of the recording (“Automatically create new playlists when loop recording”).  With this option, loop recording is suddenly of use to me.  I can set up a performer to give me three takes back to back, letting them get into it and giving me consistent performances to comp between.

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.

Fine Tune (Fine Adjust Mode):  Command+Click

Quick tip this week: this is a really useful mode if you find yourself mixing with a mouse.  If you’re adjusting faders, plug-ins, or automation parameters it can save you some real headaches.  Fine Tune mode makes the mouse a lot less sensitivity, so that you can control the parameter much more precisely.

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.

Shuffle Mode:  Option+1

Slip Mode:  Option+2

Spot Mode:  Option+3

Grid Mode:  Option+4

Hot keys to flip between the four edit modes of Pro Tools.  I find that it’s rare I’m flipping between modes in a given session - usually the structure of the session dictates which edit mode I use.  Regardless, when I go to get started I’m almost always in the wrong edit mode.

Shuffle mode is useful for “shuffling” the order of regions in a file.  The best example would be rearranging the order of bars in a track, or the structure of the song.  When you drag a region it will latch to the beginning/end of whatever region you drop it near, and everything will slide to fill the gap it left behind.

Slip mode is completely free-form.  If I’m working in a session that was recorded without a click or bar:beat references, editing between takes, this is the only way to work.  Moving one region has no impact on the location of other regions - anything you cover is covered, and holes may be left in the playlist.

Spot mode allows you to specify the precise location of a region through the use of a dialog box (as opposed to using the mouse).

Grid mode latches the region you’re moving to the bar:beat references of the session.  This is primarily useful if you have a session that is well marked, and that was recorded to the grid or that has had a grid built around the recording.

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.

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.

Zoomer Tool:  Command+1

Trimmer Tool:  Command+2

Selector Tool:  Command+3

Grabber Tool:  Command+4

Scrubber Tool:  Command+5

Pencil Tool:  Command+6

Smart Tool:  Command+7

Seven shortcuts!?!  While normally I think that this would be too many to digest in one shot, it wouldn’t make any sense to list these separately.  These tools are lined up across the toolbar in the order above, with the exception of the Smart Tool.  I think it would be harder to remember the shortcuts above if you didn’t see them in one place.

The Smart Tool is actually sitting under the Trimmer/Selector/Grabber tools, but I think it’s easy enough to remember that as command+7 - we read left to right, top to bottom.

So why bother with these shortcuts?  Why not just use the Smart Tool all the time?  I’m just making the transition away from the Smart Tool myself.  The Smart Tool is easy - no need to remember which tool does what, but it also doesn’t have much depth.  Among other behaviors, command-clicking changes functions with each tool.  This means more control with fewer wrist movements, and that’s the main purpose of shortcuts, right?

Note: You can also use the F5 through F10 keys to access the six individual tools, but I work on laptop keyboard primarily.  The function keys are all dedicated to other tasks, and I’m happy with this setup right now.

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.

Extend Selection to Previous Region Boundary:  Option+Shift+Tab

This is the converse of last week’s shortcut, Extend Selection to Next Region Boundary.  While I don’t use this shortcut all that much, the principle is the key takeaway.  Adding Option to most commands in Pro Tools will either do the opposite action (instead of adding a marker, it might remove a marker) or reverse the direction of the action, like in this case.

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.

Extend Selection to Next Region Boundary:  Shift+Tab

This is perfect for grabbing a selection when you’ve either already trimmed the region boundaries, or if the boundaries are just close enough.  I always play out the tracks I’ve recorded for the artist to listen to before I start a mix.  This lets them catch any last minute issues before I devote a lot of time to a project.  Since I always through down markers to tag the starts of takes, this shortcut is an easy way to grab a whole take, quickly.