Can we have an ongoing Protools thread?

no, but if you find yourself running out of tracks you can set unused tracks to 'inactive' and theoretically build up as many takes as you want (but you will only - for the time being - be able to hear up to 32 voices at once)

are you sure about that? i seem to recall that each track is equipped with a "takes" drop-down menu. that could be a TDM feature though, i can never remeber what works in le.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a61/npope3001/protoolstdma.jpg

Recording Additional Takes
After recording to an audio track, you can record
additional takes to the same track. However, if
you record these additional takes in Destructive
Record mode, the audio residing on your hard
drive from the previous takes will be permanently
lost.
To keep the audio from previous takes, record
the new takes nondestructively in Nondestructive
Record mode.
To nondestructively record a new take on the
same track:
1 Put Pro Tools in Nondestructive Record mode.
In the Operations menu, deselect Destructive
Record, Loop Record, QuickPunch or Track-
Punch if selected.
2 Make sure the track containing the previous
take is still record enabled.

3 To record from the beginning of the track,
click Return to Zero in the Transport window.
– or –
If Operations > Link Edit and Timeline Selection
is enabled, click anywhere in the track’s playlist
to begin recording from that point.
4 Click Record in the Transport window. When
you are ready to begin recording, click Play.
5 When you have finished recording, click Stop
in the Transport window.
An audio file for the new take is written to disk
and appears as an audio region in the track’s
playlist. The new audio region appears in the
Audio Regions List.
The audio from the original take remains on
your hard drive, and is still available as a region
in the Audio Regions List.

option + A = zoom out to view entire session
option + F = zoom in to view current selection fullscreen
apple + [ ] = zoom in and out
option + shift + 3 = consolidate
tab & option+tab = forward / backward to region boundries, or transients when "tab to transient" is selected

go to the Trim Tool chiclet (the one directly to the right of the magnifying glass at the top bar) -- click and hold until you get the drop down menu and choose TCE instead of Standard.

now when you expand the left or right edge of a region, it'll stretch it to the length that you desire.

so if you line up the region to the exact edge of a 4 bar loop, just stretch the right side of the region until it lines up exactly. then, cut and paste out the new region.

each time you do this, you affect the fidelity slightly; it's no problem the first time, but if you time-stretch something you've already timestretched again and again, it starts to sound raspy. so if you don't get it right the first time, undo and try again.

it's meticulous work. pro tools gives you total control, but most people simply want 4/4 without having to think about it. most of those people probably want ableton live.

Unfortunately, the Ableton Live demo does not allow you to save or export audio.

this is what I usually do myself

you know about the tab to transient feature? (it's the little chicklet next to the 'a...z' chicklet, beneath the 1-5 zoom keys -- when it's clicked on, and you tab within a region, it takes you to the next transient / drum impact)

Thanks!

Do you remember which menu bar this stuff might be located under?

Click on the arrow to the right of the track name in the edit window, select "New playlist," name your new playlist, and then record. Use the drop-down menu to switch between takes.

Without any plug-ins, is there a way to reverse the signals of particular tracks in Protools for a backwards effect? While we're at it, how about speeding up and slowing down individual tracks?

It usually ships with some plugins, doesn't it? I know there's a way to do this in the setup I use, it's under one of the drop down menus. I think the menu is called "Audiosuite." You can (destructively) do a bunch of stuff like reverse the audio, add/subtract gain, etc. I don't know if that's a default feature or what. You could always do it with Audacity.

i just installed, very excited. question regarding sound loops -- do i just drag them into projects off the cd? should i copy them to my hard drive?

you need to import them to your region list, which you can do from the cd. you'll be asked where on your hard drive you want to save them - usually within the project folder. then you can drag them into the edit window from the region list