#13 in the Series

Pro Tools Pointers

by Dave Whittaker

The New And Improved (?) Spot Mode Window

Don't be thrown by the added complexity of the version 4.x Spot Mode window. It's really the same friendly window as before with some clutter at the bottom you probably will rarely go near. What's cool is that you now have easy control over which end of the region will go to the desired location.

Merely select which aspect of the region you wish to sync to with your mouse, i.e. Start, Sync Point or End. You can toggle between the columns for feet and frames (or hours, minutes, seconds, frames) using the left and right arrow keys. Note I included "End". In version 3.x this box merely reported information. Now you can enter a footage into it, hit Return and your region will backsync. Huzzah!

Tones For Transfer

The usefulness of intelligent line-up tones in every track to aid in playback of completed work cannot be overstressed. These are obviously useful to a transfer person who is laying your work off to a multi-track tape of some sort. They are also useful when playing out from a workstation that's been rolled onto the stage and patched in for your mix. If you can play a set of tones out for the mixer then all the patching issues can be ironed out before the client shows up.

I suggest placing tones at the end of the session, usually at least 20 seconds beyond the end of the reel/act. The tone should be a 1K sine wave that matches the headroom level for which your system is calibrated, typically between -14 and -20 (check the Calibration Tool in your Pro Tools Utilities folder); this tone will output your system at 0Vu. Two or three seconds of tone is usually sufficient to check the signal path to the console or recorder. What will help a transfer person or the mixer is if the tones are staggered. Seeing the meters spring right to '0' one after the other and then snap right down again in the same order quickly demonstrates that the patching, as well as the panning, voicing and outputs of the Pro Tools session, are all set correctly (when they aren't, it's usually very obvious with this method). Retard each successive tone region by one foot (or second) as you work your way down from the top. If you have eight outputs then copy this set of eight regions down to the next set of eight tracks, and so on. This prevents your tone set from running on forever if your session has a lot of tracks, and makes the creation of the tones go really quick.