Mixing Efficiency

Aug 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Brian Smithers

How to take better advantage of Pro Tools' creative potential.

Plug It In

There are several ways to optimize your use of plug-ins. If you reach for certain presets regularly, make Pro Tools recall them as the plug-ins' default settings. Recall your preferred preset for a given plug-in and declare it the User Default in the plug-in's Settings menu. From the Settings Preferences submenu, tell Pro Tools to set the plug-in's default to User Setting. Every time you insert that plug-in, it will launch with these settings.

Even if you do this on a project-by-project basis, it will save you time. For example, say that on the first song of a project, you create an EQ setting that works well on the lead singer's voice. Make it your default, and as you work your way through the rest of the songs on the album, you will always have a good starting point. Be sure, though, that you have saved this setting to the Root Settings folder, not the Session Settings folder.

You should make a habit of preserving the settings on all your plug-ins by saving presets in the Session Settings folder. Should you encounter a corrupt session file, you could re-create your session from the existing audio files, but you would have lost your mix. If you have saved your plug-in settings, however, you could recall them easily. Saving them to the Session Settings folder prevents them from cluttering the Root Settings folder — you can always import settings from one session's folder into another session if you want.

When a plug-in has multiple folders (submenus) of presets, there are probably a few you use more than others. Copy those preset files from their subfolders to the plug-in's Root Settings folder so they appear at the top of the list (see Fig. 4). You'll need to go submenu diving only for those settings you use less often.

If your DAW supports effects chains, whereby you can save and recall multiple plug-ins in order and with specific parameters as a single preset, invest the time to set up and save a few. Pro Tools does not currently do this, but it does allow you to drag a plug-in settings file from the Workspace browser directly to an insert, thereby instantiating the relevant plug-in with those settings in a single action. The one obstacle to this is that although the browser is great at searching for files, it is not very efficient at navigating to known folders. To get around the problem, create a folder at the root of any volume and copy your favorite settings there. They will then be only a click away in the Workspace browser when you want to insert them.

There are no doubt a handful of plug-ins on which you depend frequently. Make these into “favorites” so they appear at the top of the plug-in list, and you can get to them more easily. Ctrl-click (Command-click) on an insert and choose a plug-in from its usual folder, and it will always display above all your plug-in submenus. Repeating the process clears a plug-in from the favorites list.

Changing the Reels

This tip is exclusive to Pro Tools HD. (A work-around for LE and M-Powered users is available online; see Web Clip 4.) Although it's useful in myriad situations, its power is immediately evident when you're working on several songs by the same band. You work your way through the first song and get it sounding just right, and then it's time to move on to the second song. In a tape-based studio, you remove one reel and put on the next, leaving your console, patch bay, and effects alone. If you used the same track order on the second song as you did on the first, song 2 is half-mixed already. In a DAW, you might feel as though you're starting over from scratch when you open song 2.

In Pro Tools HD, you can simply import the mix from one song to another using Import Session Data (see Fig. 5). Once known as Import Tracks, this powerful function can selectively import plug-in and I/O assignments, automation playlists, and many other aspects of a session into another. In Pro Tools LE, only the name has changed — it can still only import entire tracks, including audio regions.

Within the second song, go to File→Import→Session Data and navigate to the first song's session file. If you used the same track-naming conventions, Pro Tools can automatically correlate the appropriate tracks; otherwise, you can assign them manually. From the Session Data To Import drop-down list, choose which parameters to import, making sure not to import alternate playlists. Under Main Playlist Options, choose Do Not Import so that none of the audio regions from the source session are imported. In this way, you can apply any or all of song 1's mix to song 2 (and 3, and 4 …).

Import Session Data can also be used in either HD or LE to import memory locations and window configurations, so your prep work on one session can speed another even more. Show/hide and group-enable memory locations are track specific, so they won't translate, and neither will selections or markers. Track height, zoom level, and pre-/postroll will translate perfectly, however.

Templates

You may find it useful to create one or more template sessions tailored to your most common mix scenarios. You can create a blank generic session from scratch or take a representative existing session and strip out its edit playlists and regions. Set the template to be read-only on the PC, or declare it to be a stationery pad under File Info on the Mac. This will prevent it from being changed easily. If you ordinarily follow projects from tracking through mixing, you'll probably want to start each session from a template, but if you often get called in to mix projects that were created elsewhere, you'll simply import the mix attributes from the template.

If you're impatient for Digidesign to implement effects chains, add some tracks to your template session that have your favorite plug-in sequences and presets on aux tracks. Make the tracks inactive so they don't use any resources. When you import the plug-ins or drag them from the dummy tracks to active tracks, they will be activated.

Get Busy

Of course, obsessing over organization is anathema to creativity, so don't get too carried away. Still, the more you can do to preempt any unnecessary interruptions to the creative process, the better. Pick the techniques discussed that seem most valuable to your work flow and use them as a springboard for your own innovative efficiencies.

At the conclusion of a project, when you're burning CDs and backing up sessions, take a few minutes to reflect on the procedures that ate up valuable time or disrupted your creative flow. Figure out ways to streamline the process — a new template, a different way of organizing memory locations, memorizing a useful shortcut — and implement the cure right away. Next time you start a project, you'll be glad you planned ahead.

---

Brian Smithers would like to thank Andrew Hagerman of Digidesign and his colleagues at Full Sail Real World Education for their insights and inspiration.