A very helpful blog post came across my Twitter feed yesterday morning. 10 Pro Tools Tips For The Newbie. It must have been a popular post, as it spawned This addendum. If you’re an avid, excuse the pun, Pro Tools user, or an experienced daw operator in general, some of this is old hat, but there’s some little gens in these posts that most people aren’t really aware of. I felt inclined to do a post of my own, because I feel like there are a great deal of shortcuts that are still unknown to most PT users. I say shortcuts here not only to denote shortcut keys, but time savers. So many times have I been in a session and gave a set of instructions to an engineer and was met with 2 minutes of mouse clicks before the deed was carried out. Allow me to cut your click time down to a bare minimum. Use these shortcuts, and much time will be saved in your sessions.

Using the * for quick transport.

It blows me away how many people don’t know this exists. 99.999 percent of engineers I work with do everything in grid mode, but never pay attention to measure numbers. In result, when you want to get somewhere, they are pressing the rewind or fast forward buttons in the transport, or dragging the playhead with the mouse in order to find where the client has requested to go. There went 2 minutes I’ll never get back. All on the numpad, press the Star key. Then, enter 21.1.000 followed by the return on the homerow. This will take you to Bar 21, beat 1, tick 000. As an engineer, it’s good to get familiar with certain key points of the song on the grid so you can get back to them very quickly. Obviously, you’ll want to put markers throughout the session such as verses, choruses, etc, but if you needed to recall a place that wasn’t marked, the above keystrokes would do the trick.

Speaking of markers.

Since we’re on the topic of markers, let me run through some little known tricks to get the most out of this awesome feature. Most people know how to drop a marker. It’s simple, hit enter on the numpad and a box pops up with some parameters showing marker name, number, etc. Press return, and there you are. What most people don’t know is how to move from marker to marker. They literally use them as visual signposts in the session, instead of using them to command the transport. Obviously, you can hit the next and previous buttons in the transport window, but there’s an even easier way. On the numpad, press period, 1, then period again. This will take you to your first marker. Hit period, 2, period, to go to marker 2, etc. Want to select from marker to marker? It’s easy. Hit period, 1, period, to get to marker one. While holding down shift, hit period, 2, period. This will make a selection on your desired tracks.
You’ve got 999 locate points. Lets start using the higher numbers to further break down the song. Lets say you’ve got an occurrence of “Oh Baby” in each chorus. You want to hear each one in succession in order to figure out which one is the best one to fly if need be. Lets also say that your choruses are on markers 2, 4, and 6 respectively. What we’ll do is drop a marker right before each occurrence of “Oh Baby,” but this time, we’ll tell PT what marker number we want to use. Go to your first chorus. Find the “oh baby” phrase. Just before it, hit period, 20, then enter, all on the numpad. This will drop marker 20 right at that spot. Repeat the steps for each chorus, adding a 0 at the end of it’s respective marker numbers. This allows you to break down the chorus in chunks so you can hear things in quick succession to get a good sense of context. What you’ll be able to do is hit period, 20, period, period, 40, period, and period, 60, period, to hear all 3 “Oh Baby” phrases. Find the one you like, and fly it to each of the choruses if need be. What I suggest is to quickly drop these markers in while you’re doing an initial listen to the tune, so that when you go to cut the vocal, you can really have this tune broken down. If you’re really wanting to edit phrase by phrase, go ahead and drop markers at the beginning of each phrase in verses and choruses. For example Verse 1 is marker 1. Then, phrase 2 of verse one is marker 12, 3 is 13, 4 is 14, etc. Chorus is marker 2. Phrase 2 is 22, phrase 3 is 23, etc. Not only will you become familiar with the tune so you can edit with ease, but you now have some awesome punch points for when you cut the main vocal. When a vocalist says, “Can you punch me in right before “Oh Baby?” You will be able to do just that, and in seconds flat.

Using the / to edit the from, through, and length fields.

We all know that the start, end, and length fields help us determine what is selected and how much. But were you aware that you can edit said fields without even moving the mouse? On the numpad, hit /21.1/25.1 then press return on the homerow. Now look at the start, end, and length fields. You should see start, 21.1.000 End: 25.1.000, length: 4.1.000. With 2 quick steps, you’ve created a selection on the ruler. If your insertion point was in a track, that track would now be selected with the above parameters. Every time you hit / on the numpad, you move the cursor to a field on the ruler. Hitting / would take you to the start field. Hit it twice to go to end, and 3 times to go to length.
Speaking of the Length field, allow me to point out one more very important shortcut that, in my mind, makes pro tools one of the fastest editing platforms out there. Most engineers use the Length field as a simple readout of how many bars/beats or minutes/seconds have been selected in the timeline. However, the length field is editable. Whatever you place there determines how much will be selected on the ruler, or on any tracks that have the insertion point. This allows you to select data in 1 easy step. Lets say you have a chorus vocal you want to fly into another chorus. You know that your chorus is 16 bars long. Here’s the quickest way to select it. With your insertion point in the vocal track at the start of your chorus, hit ///16.1.000 on the numpad and press return. Instantly, you have selected 16 bars and are now ready to copy and paste it into the subsequent choruses.

Well, there you have it. A small arsonal of some of my favorite Pro Tools shortcuts. To many advanced PT users, this may seem like old hat. However, I’m surprised how many seasoned engineers are not aware of these tricks for very quick and efficient navigation and editing. I hope this has proven helpful to you, aiding you in the process of increasing the speed and efficiency of your tracking and editing sessions. My deepest thanks go out to Slau for teaching me these tricks at the beginning of my Pro Tools experience. This has made my life much easier, allowing my sessions to run quicker and smoother. Thanks so much for reading.

When I sat down to write this post, I intended on making it a quick update about where I was in the process of recording my next album “Headspace.” However, the muse took over and it turned into a huge exposition on how I make records. I hope you enjoy this and it helps you better understand my process for bringing my music to you the fans. I welcome any comments you might have.

When I record an album, I usually do it in phases. The first phase is that of writing and demoing. In a sense, a particular song or album gets recorded twice during the production process.

It all starts with the rough demo.

Usually, in the process of writing a song, I’ll sit down to the keyboard, roll disk, and record a rough bit of piano/vocal with the main idea. Every studio environment that I set up now has an SM 58 hanging over the keyboard so I can just sit down, run my recording software, and play and sing in real time, putting my idea into fixed form. I always play to a click, so the tempo of the song is established. This also allows me to later cut and paste piano or vocal parts around so that I don’t have to replay them. Remember. This is a demo. It’s not about the performance: it’s about getting the idea down. Next, I begin building the demo up with bass, drums, and some guitar tracks. I use software instruments that allow me to simulate the sound of these instruments with enough realism to communicate my ideas to the players that I will eventually hire for the project. Since others will soon be involved, it’s my job to really have a handle on what I am going for. In this way, I really spend some quality time trying many different kinds of arrangement ideas and articulations with the instruments until I really have a faximally of what I want. I record enough parts to establish the rhythm section, so that the drum, bass, and guitar players have a really good grasp on what I’m going for and can capture the spirit of my keyboard performances. I usually leave out auxiliary tracks such as strings, harmonies, or extra keyboard parts, because they are not necessary at this time. Save that bit of creativity for later. The demo gets a rough mix, and is sent via mp3 to the players. I try to send them in plenty of time before the session date to give everyone a chance to learn the songs, so that come recording time, we can just breeze on through the tunes. Remember. In the studio, time is money.

The real recording begins.
Now that I am satisfied with the demos, the tracks are prepared for incorporation into the master sessions. If the demos were created using the same software that the album will be recorded in, not much work needs to be done. I may need to go through and clean up any unnecessary tracks, rename some tracks so that they follow a naming convention that will be easy for the engineer to understand, and consolidate the sessions to get rid of any unused takes, cutting down on the overall size of the session. However, if I’m using something different from what the studio or engineer wants to use, I have a great deal of work ahead of me. In this case, I’ll need to create stems, or submixes of all the instruments for each song and organize them in folders with a naming convention that is easy to understand. This way, the engineer can import all the files for each song into their recording platform of choice. It is also important for me to note time signature and tempo in beats per minute, (bpm), so that the engineer can set up his session files with the appropriate parameters. In result, the instrumentalists will be able to play along with the demos that were originally created, allowing everyone to have guide tracks to help them maintain the feel and emotion of the tune. Usually, I’m recording one instrumentalist at a time, so I start with the drums. The drummer will play along with a song, hearing my demo performances of all the instruments and vocals minus the drums, laying the foundation for all the players to come. Next, I bring in the bass player, who plays along with the recently laid drum tracks, plus the demo guitars, keys and vocals. As each instrumentalist is brought in, demo tracks are removed. Once I’ve recorded all the rhythm section, I can strip away all of my demo tracks and begin rerecording my keyboard and vocal parts. In this way, I am now locking in with the new parts that have been recorded. This causes me to play and sing things differently to fit the newly created emotion of the song. This is now the time to get creative with auxiliary tracks such as strings, harmonies, electronic elements, etc. If I have an idea for a part, I can now just put it in and see what happens. I can also bring in other players for aux instruments such as percussion, wind instruments, etc. This allows for even more creativity to happen.

Going to mix.
Once I am fully satisfied with the album as a whole in regards to performance, arrangement, etc, it’s now time to mix. I take the master sessions to an engineer, who’s skilled in the art of mixing. He blends all of the tracks together applying compression, equalization, reverb, etc, painstakingly stirring and bringing to boil this musical stew. He can also use this time to add or subtract ingredients as needed to further improve the songs as a whole. With current technology, we can even move things around in time so that they lock in better with other parts. Or, we can just plain mangle something beyond recognition to add a completely different spice to the mix. Once the mixes are done, he bounces down all of the songs, combining all of the separate tracks into stereo files: 1 per song.

Now, to the mastering lab.
Once he and I are satisfied with the album as a whole, it is now time to send these stereo files to a mastering lab. The mastering engineer adds the finishing touch. He makes sure that all the songs of the album are of the same loudness and possess other characteristics that make it all sound like 1 contiguous body of work. Mastering is not one of my strong points of knowledge, so there are many facets of it that I don’t quite understand. I like to think of it like this. I’m the sculptor. I mold the clay into the piece of art. Next, the mix engineer adds the colors to it and throws it in the kiln to solidify my work. Finally, the mastering engineer bakes in the glaze so that my work is smooth to the touch.

Artwork and liner notes.
Now that the album has been mixed and mastered, it’s time to solidify the artwork and liner notes. Knowing me, I’ve waited till the last minute to think about this so now I begin to scramble to get it done. Hiring someone to do my graphics and layout is a very important process. The right person will be able to really create the visual component for the album that really expresses its overall feel. We talk about the album cover, hiring a photographer and artist if need be, and put it together. I really don’t have a process for liner notes. I write what I feel, give it to my layout people, and they make it happen.

Pressing and distribution.
Finally! The album is done, the artwork and layout have been solidified, and we’re on to the final phase. It’s time to submit all of the elements of the album including music, artwork, etc, to the pressing plant. Most companies now have an easy way for me to either upload my work or send it on physical media. If the layout was done properly, it should be easy for the folks at my pressing facility of choice to drop those elements into their layout systems, print the propper cards, press up the CD’s, assemble and shrinkwrap the cases, and send me a finished product. Some companies are linked in with physical and digital distributors so that I can quickly and easily make my work for sale both physically and digitally. Once the distribution is locked into place, such as links for iTunes, Amazon, etc, and the infrastructure to sell physical product is ready, be it Amazon, or my cd baby page, I am now ready to begin the arduous task of promotion. But that’s a whole other blog post.