Pro Tools Tips - Quick and Dirty Design

Pro Tools Pointers #3

How to Do Some Quick and Dirty Sound Design Without Getting Any Dirt Under Your Fingernails

by Dave Whittaker

SECTIONS:

Pitch Up or Down an Octave
"Sync Points" and "Exported Regions"
"Capture Time Code"

Pitch Up Or Down An Octave

Have you discovered that Pro-Tools can play and record at half speed? This feature makes it easy to do a quick full octave pitch up or down with the aid of an outboard DAT (or other) recorder. To pitch up an octave, just play your source audio into Pro-Tools from your outboard source and initiate half-speed recording by pressing Command-Shift-Spacebar. To pitch down an octave, record your audio into Pro-Tools as usual, set up an outboard recorder to receive Pro-Tools output, put it into record, then initiate half-speed playback by pressing Shift-Spacebar. Record the result back into Pro-Tools and edit away.

This method will usually yield reasonable sounding results, but it is quick and dirty and won't work well for all kinds of sounds. If you need higher quality or more flexibility, you'll need to use outboard software like Sound Designer, Hyperprism, Alchemy and others that are optimized for this task. Even better are hardware samplers from outfits like Kurzwell and E-mu, but we're talking serious money here.

The Oft-Overlooked and Misunderstood "Sync Points" and "Exported Regions"

In the Edit Menu you'll find an item called "Identify Sync Point" (Command-Comma). What this command does is place on a region, wherever your insertion point is parked, the Pro-Tools equivalent of a grease-pencil mark on film. This is great for marking the impact of a door close, or a specific word in a dialog reprint, for example. Spot Mode will then move that region so the Sync Point, rather than the beginning of the region, lines up to the desired time code.

"Exporting" allows one to make permanent regions within an audio file that can be selectively accessed later. If you have a region that you'd like to use again, give it a specific name (i.e. "Wood D/C#1"), select the region, go to "Export Selection" in the Region List menu and click on "Export". Now you'll find that when you select the original ("parent") audio file in the "Import Audio" window, the exported region(s) will appear in the middle column, and you can import just that region into your session. And if you've embedded a Sync Point in the region, it will "export" with the region - very handy with things like car bys, gunshots & riccos, doors, horns, you name it. It can be an invaluable treatment for archiving those effects that you use repeatedly to MO, hard drive, CD-ROM or backup tape. A library for basic sound post or a series is an ideal candidate for this process.

"Capture Time Code" -- It's Your Friend

Pro-Tools has a multi-purpose "Go To" function called "CAPTURE TIME CODE". You may have found that when you click on the Start, End, or Length boxes at the top, the pop-up window includes a "CAPTURE TIME CODE" button. Click on this and the current video frame's time code will appear in the window. When you click on "OK" (or hit Enter on the number pad) your insertion point will move to this location. This is a quick way to get to a specific place in a session - no typing of numbers.

More powerful is using Capture with Spot Mode. Drag and drop a region from the Region List while in Spot Mode (or click with the Grabber on a region in your session), click on "CAPTURE TIME CODE" in Spot Mode's pop-up window, and the leading edge of the region will drop right at the frame at which your video is parked. If you turn on "AUTO SPOT REGIONS" (Command-'P') in the "Options" menu, the region will drop right at your parked frame without the popup even appearing - very slick! If the region is pre-trimmed to modulation, editing of impacts and repetitive effects (like gunshots) is a snap. If the region has an embedded Sync Point, then that point will line up to the current time code - great for car bys or lining up a musical hit to a specific moment.

To take advantage of this powerful feature your set-up must be able to either: (1) Read VITC (Vertical Interval Time Code - time code that's embedded within the video signal in the first few scan lines at the top of the picture) or (2) Your synchronizer/controller must be able to capture the Longitudinal Time Code (the time code on audio track 2 & the address track) from a parked frame. The latter requires that your video deck have a time code board and Sony 9-pin serial communication. If your deck doesn't output VITC the solution is the combo of a VITC reader with your MIDI time code interface. A number of companies make these, including Mark of the Unicorn, Aardvark, Gray, Horita and others.

The usefulness of this feature is hard to oversell. If you don't have the hardware to enjoy its benefits, go out and get it. It's worth it. Really.

After 13 years behind a hot Moviola, Dave Whittaker has been editing away to the hum of happy hard drives for about three years now. While this makes him rather a veteran in the world of feature sound editihg on Pro-Tools, he feels like he's just scratched the surface with this versatile editing tool. Any tips and ideas for this column will be gratefully accepted and credited.

Thanks to Geoff Rubay and Eric Lindermann for help with this issue's column.

Reprinted from
The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter
Vol. 16, No. 6 - Nov/Dec 1995.

Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page

Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 776


*Pro Tools Pointers #3* How to Do Some Quick and Dirty Sound Design Without Getting Any Dirt Under Your Fingernails by Dave Whittaker *SECTIONS:* Pitch Up or Down an Octave "Sync Points" and "Exported Regions" "Capture Time Code"

Pitch Up Or Down An Octave	Have you discovered that Pro-Tools can play and record at half speed? This feature makes it easy to do a quick full octave pitch up or down with the aid of an outboard DAT (or other) recorder. To pitch up an octave, just play your source audio into Pro-Tools from your outboard source and initiate half-speed recording by pressing Command-Shift-Spacebar. To pitch down an octave, record your audio into Pro-Tools as usual, set up an outboard recorder to receive Pro-Tools output, put it into record, then initiate half-speed playback by pressing Shift-Spacebar. Record the result back into Pro-Tools and edit away. This method will usually yield reasonable sounding results, but it is quick and dirty and won't work well for all kinds of sounds. If you need higher quality or more flexibility, you'll need to use outboard software like Sound Designer, Hyperprism, Alchemy and others that are optimized for this task. Even better are hardware samplers from outfits like Kurzwell and E-mu, but we're talking serious money here.
The Oft-Overlooked and Misunderstood "Sync Points" and "Exported Regions"	In the Edit Menu you'll find an item called "Identify Sync Point" (Command-Comma). What this command does is place on a region, wherever your insertion point is parked, the Pro-Tools equivalent of a grease-pencil mark on film. This is great for marking the impact of a door close, or a specific word in a dialog reprint, for example. Spot Mode will then move that region so the Sync Point, rather than the beginning of the region, lines up to the desired time code. "Exporting" allows one to make permanent regions within an audio file that can be selectively accessed later. If you have a region that you'd like to use again, give it a specific name (i.e. "Wood D/C#1"), select the region, go to "Export Selection" in the Region List menu and click on "Export". Now you'll find that when you select the original ("parent") audio file in the "Import Audio" window, the exported region(s) will appear in the middle column, and you can import just that region into your session. And if you've embedded a Sync Point in the region, it will "export" with the region - very handy with things like car bys, gunshots & riccos, doors, horns, you name it. It can be an invaluable treatment for archiving those effects that you use repeatedly to MO, hard drive, CD-ROM or backup tape. A library for basic sound post or a series is an ideal candidate for this process.
"Capture Time Code" -- It's Your Friend	Pro-Tools has a multi-purpose "Go To" function called "CAPTURE TIME CODE". You may have found that when you click on the Start, End, or Length boxes at the top, the pop-up window includes a "CAPTURE TIME CODE" button. Click on this and the current video frame's time code will appear in the window. When you click on "OK" (or hit Enter on the number pad) your insertion point will move to this location. This is a quick way to get to a specific place in a session - no typing of numbers. More powerful is using Capture with Spot Mode. Drag and drop a region from the Region List while in Spot Mode (or click with the Grabber on a region in your session), click on "CAPTURE TIME CODE" in Spot Mode's pop-up window, and the leading edge of the region will drop right at the frame at which your video is parked. If you turn on "AUTO SPOT REGIONS" (Command-'P') in the "Options" menu, the region will drop right at your parked frame without the popup even appearing - very slick! If the region is pre-trimmed to modulation, editing of impacts and repetitive effects (like gunshots) is a snap. If the region has an embedded Sync Point, then that point will line up to the current time code - great for car bys or lining up a musical hit to a specific moment. To take advantage of this powerful feature your set-up must be able to either: (1) Read VITC (Vertical Interval Time Code - time code that's embedded within the video signal in the first few scan lines at the top of the picture) or (2) Your synchronizer/controller must be able to capture the Longitudinal Time Code (the time code on audio track 2 & the address track) from a parked frame. The latter requires that your video deck have a time code board and Sony 9-pin serial communication. If your deck doesn't output VITC the solution is the combo of a VITC reader with your MIDI time code interface. A number of companies make these, including Mark of the Unicorn, Aardvark, Gray, Horita and others. The usefulness of this feature is hard to oversell. If you don't have the hardware to enjoy its benefits, go out and get it. It's worth it. Really.
After 13 years behind a hot Moviola, Dave Whittaker has been editing away to the hum of happy hard drives for about three years now. While this makes him rather a veteran in the world of feature sound editihg on Pro-Tools, he feels like he's just scratched the surface with this versatile editing tool. Any tips and ideas for this column will be gratefully accepted and credited. Thanks to Geoff Rubay and Eric Lindermann for help with this issue's column. Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 16, No. 6 - Nov/Dec 1995. Guild Home \| Newsletter Home \| Top of Page Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 776