If you want to know more about the new Folder Tracks in Pro Tools 20202 then in the video below Andrew Scheps demonstrates Folder Tracks,. The beginning of the video also features a demonstration of the S1. It’s the most detailed walkthrough we’ve seen so if you want to see how this feature will affect your workflow this is essential viewing.
Folder Tracks In Pro Tools is a much requested feature which is finally on the horizon. At NAMM 2020 Avid were showing a preview version. They weren’t saying exactly when it’s coming but within the next 3 months is a realistic timescale. Talking to the team at Avid it sounds like implementing Folder Tracks was technically challenging because while it sounds like a simple feature, implementing it touches nearly every part of Pro Tools. When Avid do something like this, while they might take a long time, they do do a thorough job and in this case, having seen Folder Tracks in use, we’re very impressed by what a paradigm shift Folder Tracks represent. To go straight to the section where Andrew talks about Folder Tracks go to 6.15 into the video.
Folder Tracks
There are two kinds of Folder Tracks: Basic and Routing
Basic Folder Track - A Basic Folder Track is purely organisational. Tracks can be placed in a Basic Folder Track and opening and closing the track can show and hide the folder contents in a single click. This is possible with workarounds using existing features in Pro Tools, for example by Control-clicking on groups in the groups list or creating memory locations which use show/hide tracks but Basic Folder Tracks are a real improvement over these other techniques.
Routing Folder Track - Routing Folder Tracks are the real stars of the show in that they add Aux Track features to a Folder Track. Routing the tracks contained in a Folder Track through a bus allows processing via inserts and routing via sends. The really interesting part for us was the fact that while you can route all the tracks in a Folder Track through the Folder Track’s bus, you don’t have to. This opens up the flexibility of the implementation in lots of ways, making them more interesting than VCAs or submixing though Aux tracks.
Nesting Folder Tracks
Organisationally Folder Tracks are going to make session management much easier, potentially freeing us from “scrolling hell”. There are of course strategies for managing large sessions in Pro Tools but from what we’ve seen none are as elegant as track folders. Folder Tracks can be nested up to 9 layers deep. Multiplying all those nines together makes a dizzying number of folder tracks (over 360,000) so more than enough to get really picky about session organisation.
We can’t wait for Folder Tracks. If, like I was when I first heard about them, you’re lukewarm to the idea, watch the demonstration video and you’ll probably start to see the potential Folder Tracks offer.