For over ten years we have been publishing free Pro Tools tutorial videos helping Pro Tools users to better understand how to use the application in both music and post production workflows. Pro Tools has many great features, many of which are simple button clicks or functions often hidden in clear sight. These cool features help Pro Tools users save valuable time in their audio productions. Many of our free Pro Tools video tutorials demonstrate these cool functions as well as tips that teach you cool audio production techniques using Pro Tools.
Below are 30 of our most recent free Pro Tools video tutorials. Many are quick tip videos that teach you fundamental Pro Tools tips in under a minute. The videos below cover a wide range of essential Pro Tools functions from useful Pro Tools Keyboard shortcuts to MIDI editing and much more… Take a moment out of your day to learn something new and exciting in Pro Tools.
In the sixth and last free Pro Tools video tutorial of this series on Pro Tools Folder Tracks, brought to you with the support of Avid. Julian Rodgers looks at the newly implemented support for Folder tracks in Eucon and how you can use the Avid Control App on a tablet to access and control Folder Tracks.
In this extended free Pro Tools video tutorial, Pro Tools tutor, Paul Maunder covers the process of creating two templates for audio post-production, one for a TV Documentary and the second for a 5.1 Feature Film.
A free Pro Tools video tutorial continuing this series on Folder Tracks, brought to you with the support of Avid, Julian Rodgers demonstrates the key difference between how muting Basic and Routing Folders affect the tracks contained in the Folder Track.
Continuing this series of free Pro Tools video tutorials on Folder Tracks, brought to you with the support of Avid, Julian Rodgers looks at some of the ways you can manage the potential confusion that can happen when you start putting folder tracks inside other folder tracks, otherwise known as nesting.
In the first of this series of free Pro Tools videos tutorials, brought to you with the support of Avid, Julian Rodgers looked at Basic Folder Tracks, how to create them and why you might use them. In the second video, Julian expanded on this with some example uses for Basic Folder Tracks. Now in the third in the series, Julian looks at Routing Folders, which combine the organisational benefits of Basic Folders with submixing like an Aux track.
In the first of this series of tutorial videos, brought to you with the support of Avid, Julian Rodgers looked at Basic Folder Tracks, how to create them and why you might use them. In this free Pro Tools video tutorial, the second in the series, Julian looks at some examples of how you can use Basic Folder Tracks like making duplicate Folder Tracks to try alternative mix ideas and using the Folder overview to edit groups of tracks.
Check out this tip in this free Pro Tools video tutorial.
In the Options menu, there is a setting to change your track meters from pre-fader to post-fader. Have you ever changed it? Do you know what it does or why you might want to change it?
Check out this tip in this free Pro Tools video tutorial. It’s obvious once you know but a common mistake made by users of other DAWs when getting to know Pro Tools is to look for a dedicated sample editor as found in many other DAWs.
Check out this tip in this free Pro Tools video tutorial. In this free tip, Pro Tools Expert Team member Julian Rodgers demonstrates a useful way to set selections by auditioning the audio using the Scrub Tool.
Fast Forwarding and Rewinding isn’t as important as it used to be in the days of linear media (that’s tape to most of us) as in a DAW we can just click and play from anywhere on the timeline. That’s fine as long as we know where we need to be in our sessions but playing through tracks faster or slower than real-time while hearing the audio can be useful for all sorts of reasons. Shuttle lock is a really useful feature which allows you to do just this.
In a recent tutorial, we looked at gain staging in DAWs, a subject that lots of people are talking about and on which opinions vary significantly. One area in which managing gain properly definitely makes a significant difference is proper matching of gain into and out of plug-ins. Not because of the effect it has on the sound but because of the effect it has on the listener.
Strip silence can semi-automate the process of removing spill from tom mics. In this free tip, Pro Tools Expert team member Julian Rodgers shows how using as high a Strip Silence Threshold as possible with the clip end pad control and batch fades, the cure doesn’t have to be worse than the disease as is so often the case when gating toms.
Harmonic Tremolo mode is a simple effect and I thought I would be able to create something similar using stock Pro Tools plugins. It turned out to need some lateral thinking! See what the problem was and how I solved it in this free tutorial.
The difference between multichannel and multi-mono plug-ins in Pro Tools isn’t very significant if you only work in stereo. However, as soon as you start working with more than 2 channels, you find the number of plug-ins available as multichannel plug-ins starts to tail off rapidly. This free tip demonstrates a way to quickly access all the channels in a multi-mono plug-in at the same time, which is especially useful if you have unlinked the parameters.
Did you know you can drag a file or clip onto the tracks sidebar and a new track will be created in the same way as dragging onto the timeline? Why is this useful? Because in a busy session there usually isn’t any blank space visible in the edit window. I use this all the time.
We’ve all had the dreaded missing files dialog pop up when moving or restoring a Pro Tools session. You can avoid this by using Save Copy and ticking the All Audio Files checkbox but that extra time might be unnecessary as your session could be fine. How can you check?
The new Monitoring page in the Pro Tools Control app offers the functionality of a fully featured Monitor controller to those who have suitable Eucon compatible hardware like the Avid MTRX. Did you know that you can use this feature without additional software with limited facilities like Level control, Cut and Dim?
In this free video tutorial, Paul Maunder lifts the lid off a much misunderstood part of Pro Tools - the Disk Allocation window.
The Focusrite Compounder was an inexpensive two channel compressor/limiter from their popular Platinum range. A VCA compressor with a separate optical limiter this was quite an unusual piece but it gained notoriety in some quarters courtesy of its Bass Expand feature and the temptingly titled “Huge” button. Julian experiments with recreating the effect in Pro Tools.
We all come across Transfer Curves, they are the graphs dynamics processors use to show what particular settings will do to sounds at different levels. Avid Channel Strip and Pro Compressor use a different layout. Do you understand it? if Not here’s a free tip video to explain the difference.
MIDI controllers can sometimes stubbornly refuse to talk to our DAWs. If the controller isn’t playing nice with Pro Tools the first thing I usually try is to see whether the MIDI controller works with another DAW. If it works in another DAW but not with Pro Tools then there are a few things you can try to track down what is wrong.
You can use the Avid Pitch II plug-in which comes included in Pro Tools to widen stereo tracks. See how easy it is in this free Expert tip.
Did you know it’s possible to set the session tempo on a Pro Tools session from a MIDI keyboard?
Did you know there is a quick way to set up multi-select menus in Pro Tools from the keyboard? Find out how with this free tip.
When working in grid mode with material recorded to a click, dropping new clips into your session in time is easy. When editing material which doesn’t have a meaningful grid to quantize to things aren’t as easy but they are still very simple. A really easy way to drop clips to the right place is to position your cursor and then use these shortcuts to place them at the cursor.
In a new format we are producing videos offering tips and solutions to common problems in under a minute. In this free video tutorial we show you how easy it is to put a clip back in the right place if you accidentally move it using Spot To Original Timestamp
Convolution Reverb is best known as a way to capture the sound of a specific space, something its really well suited to. However as impulse responses are just wav files, it is possible to use any way file as an IR. The results can be unpredictable and sometimes plain bizzare but in this free tip video Julian Rodgers demonstrates how easy it is to use a cymbal from a drum VI, though it could be any sound you like, to create a unique reverb effect.
In a new format we are producing videos offering tips and solutions to common problems in under a minute. In this free video tutorial we show you why Pro Tools sometimes starts playback from where you clicked and sometimes start from where you last stopped?
Pro Tools Automation is so powerful that it can intimidate novice users. Here are a few shortcuts which help make creating, viewing and editing automation quicker and easier. Do you know them all?
Zoom Toggle is the easiest way to get in close on your Pro Tools session when editing, and if you set it up right it can be like having a dedicated full screen sample editor, If you don’t use Zoom Toggle watch this free tip video.