Audio
Editing with ProTools
Start
Basic
Audio Editing Tools
Atop the timeline are
several edit tool buttons. These are the key buttons for assembling your audio
project.
The tools are (from left to right):
The Zoomer, which looks like a magnifying glass and zooms in or out of your audio
The Trimmer, which cuts or adds to the ends of your audio
The Selector, which selects portions of your audio
The Grabber, a hand button which moves sections of your audio along the timeline
The Scrubber
The Pencil, an advanced tool which can permanently destroy audio (not
recommended)
The Smart Tool, by pressing the bar below the Trimmer, Selector, and Grabber tool icons, you can select the Smart Tool. This edit tool lets you use the Selector, Grabber, and Trimmer, as well as create fades and crossfades, all at once. Depending on where you place the cursor within a region, the Smart Tool automatically switches to the appropriate tool for the job.
The Selector Tool
The Selector tool will probably be your most used edit tool. Its primary functions are to place the cursor for playback at a specific point on the track (by clicking in the track) and to select specific track material for editing (by clicking and dragging in the track).
Here are some handy Selector tool features:
The Grabber Tool
The Separation Grabber separates selected material into new regions. This tool makes it really easy to grab part of a track, cut it automatically, and move it somewhere else
You’ll probably use the Time Grabber most often.
Its primary function is to select or move entire regions.
The Trimmer Tool
The Trimmer’s main function is to shorten or expand a region.
Being a
non-destructive tool, it does not actually modify the original audio.
For editing audio, the Trimmer is most often used to cut off the beginning or
end of a region or to extend a region’s start or end point by clicking and
dragging the beginning or end of a region left or right to shorten or lengthen
the region. To reverse the direction of the Trimmer, press Option (Mac) or Alt
(Win).
The Trimmer tool can also be used in Time Trimmer mode. The Time Trimmer uses
the Time Compression/Expansion AudioSuite plug-in to alter the length of an
audio region and create a new audio file. Use this tool to time compress or
expand a region so that it matches the length of another region, fits better on
a tempo grid, or for a special effect.
Simply drag the start or end point of a region with this tool to expand or
compress the region.
The Scrubber Tool
The purpose of the Scrubber in Pro Tools is to emulate the “scrubbing”
technique used to edit analog tape. By scrubbing over a digital audio edit
point, you can listen in closely to find the exact edit point, which may not be
obvious just by looking at the waveform.
To scrub an audio track, select the Scrubber and drag within a track. To scrub
two adjacent audio tracks at once, simply drag along the line between the two
tracks. Zoom in on a track to scrub over a small area, or press Command (Mac) or
Control (Win) to scrub at a finer resolution without zooming.
The direction, distance, and speed at which you drag will determine the sound of
the scrubbed audio. Normal scrubbing allows you to scrub at regular playback
speed or slower. If you want to scrub at speeds faster than regular speed, press
Option (Mac) or Alt (Win) while dragging. This is called Scrub/Shuttle mode and
allows for scrubbing at several times the regular speed. This feature is useful
for scrolling through long tracks to find a specific part of the track.
The Zoomer Tool
The Zoomer tool helps you to enlarge a track (as you would with a
magnifying glass or microscope) and find details within its waveforms.
It’s
good for exposing problem areas in a track or locating good edit points.
To zoom in one level and center the Edit window at the zoom point, click once on a region with the Zoomer tool.
To zoom back out to the previous level, Option + click (Mac) or Alt + click (Win) with the Zoomer; in this case, a negative sign “-” appears inside the Zoomer tool instead of the usual plus sign “+”.
Often, a more useful way to zoom is to click and drag on the specific part of a track that you want to magnify horizontally. In this instance, the zoomed area fills the entire edit window.
In addition to the normal Zoomer tool, you can select the Single Zoom tool
that returns you to the previously selected tool after a zoom has been
performed. For example, when using the Selector you can click on the Single Zoom
Tool mode and, once the Zoom operation has been performed, Pro Tools
automatically switches back to the Selector.
The Pencil Tool
When editing audio, the Pencil tool has one function: to redraw waveforms.
Often, this is done to repair waveforms, such as to eliminate a pop or click on the track.
However, the Pencil has many other useful functions, including
inserting
As you may have already noticed, the Pencil tool comes in five flavors: Free Hand, Line, Triangle, Square, and Random.
These represent the different shapes you can draw with the Pencil. I use the
free hand and line shapes most often when editing audio. The other shapes are
more useful when drawing or editing automation and
Note! The Pencil is a destructive tool. It actually changes the original
audio file permanently! Although pencil edits can be undone, be careful how you
wield your pencil . . . it can be sharper than a sword when used on audio files.
To the left of the edit
tools are four arrow buttons with numbers below.
These are other ways to
zoom into and out of your audio. Click the up arrow to make the wave peaks
taller (this does not change the sound of your audio), down for shorter, back
for smaller, forward for bigger. The numbered buttons are zoom presets – click
1 to see your whole project fill the screen, or 5 to get very deep into your
project.
To the left of these
buttons are the Edit Modes.
Shuffle and slip are the
two we’ll deal most with. When shuffle is activated, new audio clips you add
to a track will butt up perfectly to the ends of your existing audio. If you
turn slip on, you can slide tracks anywhere you’d like along the timeline.
Try playing with your
audio using the different buttons and editing modes.
EDIT MODES
The Edit modes (Shuffle, Slip, Spot, and Grid) determine how regions behave on a
track’s edit playlist when edited by the edit tools. They provide you with
different ways to manipulate your recorded tracks with the editing tools.
Shuffle mode: This mode restricts the placement of regions so that
they snap to each other and are placed end to end.
Spot mode: In this mode, you’re prompted to enter a location for the
moved or trimmed region.
Grid mode: This mode constrains edits and selections to the nearest
spaced boundary.
Slip mode: In this mode, regions can be moved and trimmed freely, and
placed so that regions overlap or so there is space between regions in the
destination track.
For example, the Trimmer tool, when used in conjunction with each of the edit
modes, can be a very powerful editing tool. Often, you’ll want to use the
Trimmer tool in Slip mode. When in Slip mode, the regions are simply trimmed
wherever you see them on the computer screen. However, when using Shuffle mode,
adjacent regions are slid as necessary to make room for the edited region. If
using Grid mode, the trimmed start/end times snap to the nearest grid boundary.
And, if using Spot mode, the Spot dialog opens, where you can enter the new
location for the trimmed region’s start or end point. Try out all of the edit
tools in each edit mode to see the unique editing features of every combination.
Starting
to Edit
The timer at the top of
the screen marks the time of the audio track. Click about 10 seconds into your
track. Notice the flashing line where you just clicked.
If you press return, the
playhead will go back to the beginning of your piece.
Click the selector tool,
and click just before the first bit of audio (you can tell where the sound is by
looking at the patterns of the waveform.)
If you have extra sound
at the beginning of your file that you want to trim off, click, hold and drag
over the unwanted section.
Notice again the slip,
shuffle and grid buttons above. The slip should be highlighted. Press the delete
button and notice your selected audio has been deleted but nothing else in your
track has moved. This is because you are in slip mode.
Undo this delete by
pressing Cmd-Z.
Now click on shuffle in
the upper-left hand corner and again hit the delete key. This time, the audio
shuffles back to the beginning of the section you deleted.
Next, try clicking on
the grabber (the hand icon) and dragging your audio around. Surprise, it
doesn’t move! That’s because the slip key has to be active in order to
“slip” your track along the timeline.
Making
Regions
Regions are the
different parts of a sound file in ProTools jargon.
To create a region,
place the cursor wherever you want to split your track. You'll see the blue
markers above the timeline jump to the location you clicked.
Then separate the region
by going to the edit menu and selecting separate region. You can also use the
shortcut Cmd-E. Notice that your track now has two regions, like this:
Double click on a region
to highlight it. Now that the sections are divided, you can move or delete them
independently.
Editing Unwanted Sounds from Your Audio
Often you’ll find that
your recordings are filled with undesirable pauses, ums and mouth noises. While
breathing sounds are good to leave in, and make your speakers sound natural,
more disturbing noises like lip-smacks should be edited out to make the sound
cleaner. Do this by scanning your sound files and looking for little blips apart
from the more solid, well-formed words. Listen to those sections. Is it a yucky
mouth sound? Then delete it! Don't forget to zoom into your project when you're
selecting audio to remove, so you can be very precise with your edits.
The goal is to have
seamless editing, without any clicks or pops, so that someone listening won’t
notice that it was fixed.
Creating a Stereo Track and Working in
Stereo
Go to the file menu and
create a new track, this time make it a STEREO TRACK. Name the track
“music.”
Bring a stereo music
file from your audio bin and into a stereo track on the timeline. You can know a
track is in stereo by looking at its name in the audio bin. There will be a l
and r below it.
Notice the track is
split into two smaller sections, each representing a channel of stereo.
To
Change the Volume of an Audio Track:
You may want to make one
track of your audio play softer than another. To lower the volume of a certain
track, go to the left of the screen, below the name of the track, where you’ll
see “waveform”. Click and hold this button to get several options for that
track, including “VOLUME.” When the Volume option is selected, you will see
a black line across your track. If you take the grabber and click on the line,
you can create an insertion point, with a higher or lower volume level. Create
multiple insertion points along the line to create fades or crescendos.
To delete a point, hold
down the option key and click on that point. To delete many points, take the
selector tool, click hold and drag across your track. Then click delete. It will
delete all your insertion points (note that this will NOT delete your audio,
because we are in VOLUME mode).
If you click a point far
away from the beginning at a much lower point, you’ll create an angled black
line going all the way down. This will do the same to your audio – make a
fade.
How
to Move Multiple Regions At Once
First, go into the slip
mode so you have the ability to shift the regions along the track.
Next select a region by
double-clicking on it. To move all the regions at once, press Cmd-A (select all)
to choose all the regions on that track. You’ll see the highlighted region
extend to cover the whole track. Now use the grabber tool and slide them where
you want them.
To grab multiple
regions, hold the shift key while clicking on the regions you want to move. Now
use the grabber tool and slide them where you want them.
Exporting Audio (Bounce to Disk) from Pro Tools
Now that your sequence
is edited, you're ready to export your project out of ProTools and into a
regular audio format others can listen to.
First, make sure your
project has been saved.
In the Pro Tools menu at
the top click on:
File…Bounce
to Disk
In the top section of
the new screen choose:
Mono
In the middle section
select:
Convert After Bounce
In the bottom section
select:
16 bit
Now you need to select
the audio format into which you want to export your project.
NON-DESTRUCTIVE EDITING
AND EDIT PLAYLISTS
The reason that editing digital audio in Pro Tools is so powerful is that most
editing functions in Pro Tools are non-destructive. What does that really mean?
Non-destructive editing means that any cutting, pasting, trimming, separating,
or clearing of audio data occurs virtually . . . the source audio files are not
harmed in any way. Pro Tools only performs these editing functions on a map of
the actual audio data, never touching the recorded source data. All edits that
you perform simply help Pro Tools tell your hard drive where to look for data
and how to arrange it for playback. Edit playlists are the mechanisms that do
this.
An edit playlist is one or more regions
arranged on an audio track. The order and location of regions in a track define
the track’s edit playlist. The following examples will demonstrate the
evolution of a track’s edit playlist utilizing nondestructive editing.
When you first record a track, the edit playlist
usually consists of just one entire whole-file audio region, as in the guitar
track in figure 4.1.
Fig. 4.1. This is the source
audio file for a guitar track.
Say you like some parts of the track and not
others, plus you want to get a bit creative with the track. So, you cut out some
parts and move other parts so the track sounds really cool and ultimately looks
like figure 4.2.
Fig. 4.2. If you were recording with analog tape and had to chop up the
file like this, the edit would take forever!
Once you begin editing a track, many distinct
regions are created and the edit playlist becomes more complex. Yet, with
nondestructive editing, instead of creating brand new audio files for each small
part of the track shown in figure 4.2, Pro Tools simply directs the hard drive
to the place where each part of the audio track is located on the original
source audio file, in the order determined by the edit playlist.
Having a large number of edits on your tracks requires the hard drive to do a
lot of locating. (That’s one reason that you need a fast hard drive to have
Pro Tools work properly.) For example, the edit playlist may first direct the
hard drive to read the first two seconds of the source audio file. Then an edit
occurs that tells the hard drive to read the last four seconds of audio on the
source file. The next edit instructs the hard drive to read a different section,
and so on. Thus, the original audio file is not actually cut apart and spliced
together . . . it only appears that way on your computer screen. In reality, the
source audio file is completely intact and untouched. Ah, the beauty of
non-destructive hard disk digital audio editing.
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS FOR THE EDITING TOOLS
You can use the function keys to switch between the edit tools. Simply press:
• F5 for the Zoomer (keep pressing F5 to toggle between the two Zoomer
tools)
• F6 for the Trimmer (keep pressing F6 to toggle between the two Zoomer tools)
• F7 for the Selector
• F8 for the Grabber (keep pressing F8 to toggle between the two Grabber
tools)
• F9 for the Scrubber
• F10 for the Pencil (keep pressing F10 to toggle through the five Pencil
shapes)
• F6 + F7 for the Smart Tool
Gain in Pro Tools
