Color Coding

Three things you might not know about Pro Tools

by Major on May 27th, 2009 in Features, Keyboard Shortcuts

A few handy features of Pro Tools that may not be in your normal work-flow.

1. If you Control+Click on the name of a multi-channel track there is an option to split out the track into several mono track. Very handy!

2. In the preferences window, under the ‘display’ tab there is an option to color code regions by marker. With this preference checked, the regions change color after every marker location.  A great way to visually see scene changes, or sections of a song, even with markers hidden!

3. When using elastic audio you can shift+click on a warp marker when dragging, to lock the markers on either side of it.  Saves you three click, thus tripling your productivity!

More Colorful Sessions

by Evan on March 25th, 2009 in Keyboard Shortcuts
pt-colors

Pretty!

When viewing the color palette in Pro Tools, hold ⌘ ⌥ ⌃ (command-option-control), click anywhere on the color palette and drag the mouse up. The further you drag the mouse up, the less opaque the color’s become, drag back down to make more opaque and to revert back to no colors. This command appears to be aesthetic only, but actually is quite useful. Just being able to more easily see the definition between your groups, or your different varieties of tracks makes a world of difference sometimes.

Note: In Pro Tools 8, Digidesign has made this “secret” available to everyone with a slider and a button to color your tracks in the same manner, so you don’t need to know this key command on Pro Tools 8.