As a long time Logic user when Apple discontinued the Emagic System Bridge, a nifty piece of software which allowed Pro Tools HD hardware to be used with Logic as the software front end, some years ago I was a bit stuck. This was years before Universal Audio Apollos came along and I needed the low latency of a DSP-based system to track bands but I didn’t know the first thing about Pro Tools software. Faced with the choice between selling my HD system and going native or learning Pro Tools software I did the latter.

I don’t profess to be a Pro Tools wizard but after 15 years of using it I’ve picked up a few things and here is an overview for anyone who is familiar with Logic but wants to make the jump to the Avid way of doing things.

Part of learning the Avid way is getting used to their terminology. Whilst a lot of the same tasks can be achieved in each DAW they are often achieved in different ways and the manuals for each sometimes name them differently. 

Sometimes this is obvious, for instance Key Commands in Logic are Keyboard Shortcuts in Pro Tools. Sometimes it is less obvious, for instance Logic’s Bounce In Place functionality can be achieved using Consolidate, Commit or Bounce Track, with slight differences between when and why you might used each of these. Throughout this document I’ll use DAW specific terms when discussing one or the other.

Without trying to caveat myself into a position of safety here, this obviously isn’t meant to be a comprehensive critique of Pro Tools, there are many resources that do this, but rather just a few handy tips that can start you off.

Understanding Edit, Mix, Midi and Score Windows.
Pro Tools differs from Logic in that much of what you can do is done in two main windows, the Edit and Mix windows. The Edit window is most similar to what used to be called the Arrange Window but is now called the Main Window. Unlike Logic there is no separate audio track or sample editor. You can, and indeed must, perform audio file editing in the Edit window. Midi is a little bit different, but I will get onto that in a minute.

On the right side of the Edit window you have the Clips list which is most similar to the Project Browser, a place where all the clips in a session are showed. Each time you make an edit a new clip is created but unlike Logic this applies to both audio and midi clips.

On the left side of the Edit window is the Tracks list and the below that the Groups list. The Tracks list does not have an equivalent in Logic, although I wish it did. It shows all the tracks in the session and allows you to show or hide those tracks in the Mix, Edit, Midi Editor and Score windows. The Clips, Tracks and Group lists can be hidden and/or resized with the mouse.

Tip: Clicking on a track in the tracks list doesn’t automatically select the track in the main part of the edit window. This is called Scroll to Track in Pro Tools this is done by ⇧⌃ (Shift Control) clicking in the Tracks list (or the Mix window).

The Mix window is similar to Logic’s Mixer window, the Clips list cannot be displayed in this window but the Tracks and Groups lists can be.

Switching between Mix and Edit windows can be done with the keyboard shortcut ⌘= (Command Equals).

When it comes to midi/instrument tracks you have three different places to edit these. 

First is right in the Edit window itself.

In Logic you can create an empty midi region by right clicking on a midi or instrument track and selecting Create MIDI Region. 

In Pro Tools you would use the Selector tool to select an area in the edit window on one track and then press ⇧⌥ 3 ( Shift Option 3 for Consolidate). This creates an empty clip and can be edited in place by either right clicking in the track view and changing from Clips to Notes, or simply switch to the pencil tool and click into the clip itself.

Coming from Logic you might find this a bit fiddly. You can use the Zoom Toggle keyboard shortcut E to have the clip fill the screen and make it easier to work on. Press E again to return to your previous view.

Alternatively, you can also edit midi in the MIDI Editor window, which can be accessed using the ⌃= (Control Equals) keyboard shortcut. The Midi Editor is, of course, most like Logic’s Piano Roll window. It can operate either as a floating window or docked at the bottom of the Edit window.

You can also edit midi information in the Score editor using ⌃⌥= (Control Option Equals), should you wish to.

Keyboard Shortcuts

As you can gather from the previous section, keyboard shortcuts in Pro Tools are plentiful. The number one tip for anyone making the move from Logic to Pro Tools is around keyboard shortcuts. For the longest time it was not possible to reconfigure Pro Tools keyboard shortcuts. The prevailing attitude was ‘just learn them’ and then you can work anywhere.

Whilst you can now change them I suggest you don’t. Spend the time to learn the Pro Tools way. Armed with the right keyboard shortcuts it is possible to move about the Edit Window minimally using the mouse. When it comes to being fast and efficient with Pro Tools keyboard shortcuts is where it is at.

Edit Modes

Pro Tools has 4 edit modes called Shuffle, Spot, Slip and Grid. Grid has two sub-modes, Absolute and Relative. If you are making music then grid mode may be where you live much of the time, and works similarly to snapping in Logic but it is important to know that the grid value needs to be defined in the Edit window grid value (show picture) which can be in bar/beat divisions as well as Mins:Sec, Timecode, Samples etc. I tend to set it to 8th or 16th notes most of the time. 

Tip: Slip mode is also very useful, allowing you to move audio freely on the timeline. The tip here is whilst in grid mode you can temporarily override it and enter slip mode by holding down ⌘ (Command) and moving a clip (or multiple clips) freely. Learning this saved me so much time.

Also, you can switch between the different modes using the first 4 Function keys. You may have to first modify an Apple system preference for the Keyboard to use F1 F2 etc as standard function keys rather than for multimedia or Mission Control.

I also sometimes use Shuffle mode, especially when editing voiceover material. Shuffle mode is mostly similar to Slip mode but where it differs is if you were to remove some silence between two sections of audio, in Slip mode the space between the two clips would still remain. In Shuffle mode the start of the second clip would be moved to the end of the first clip.

Spot mode is less used in music (its full name being ‘Spot Dialog’) but allows for very precise clip movement using start, sync or end points.

Edit Tools (aka ‘where are the damn scissors’?)

Anyone making this move might be flummoxed by the very different way Pro Tools manages tools.

Firstly, there are no scissors and whilst most people will have stopped using them in Logic for the marquee tool anyway it was a bit disconcerting to learn this. As a seasoned Logic user you will no double be using the following key commands to switch between different tool types.

I also expect you’ll be comfortable holding down Command to access the ‘Command Click’ tool, allowing you to be able to work with your two most used tools without needing to switch the ‘Left Click’ tool so often.

Pro Tools approaches things a little differently. Pro Tools has six main tools for editing audio called the Zoomer, Trim, Selector, Grabber, Scrubber and Pencil. There is an additional tool called the Smart Tool which acts as Trim/Selector/Grabber depending where the mouse pointer hovers over a clip. Also some tools have additional modes. For instance the Trim Tool has four separate modes: Standard, TCE (Time Compression/Expansion), Scrub and Loop. 

The table below shows you the function key assignments for each tool. 

Pressing the keyboard shortcut multiple times cycles you through Edit Tool modes, if applicable.

The Smart Tool deserves a special mention here, as it allows you to access the Selector, Grabber and Trim tools as well as adjust fades and crossfades depending on the position of the cursor in relation to a clip or a note.

The Smart Tool is where a lot of new Pro Tools users might find themselves gravitating to and whilst it is great, I find myself more and more using the function keys to switch between discrete edit tools.

There Is Usually More Than One Way To Do Anything

Pro Tools is a deep application and there is rarely a single way to perform a task. For instance, as a Logic user you might, as I did, wonder how best to loop clips. Unlike Logic, Pro Tools doesn’t default to an edit mode where this just happens. But there are a number of ways to have clips repeat.

Other than the universal ⌥ (Option) drag with the mouse the three most common ways are to use Duplicate, Repeat or use the Loop Trim tool.

Duplicate (⌘ D) is the simplest way to create a single repition of what is selected with the cursor. This could be an entire clip, or part of a clip. It functions similarly to ⌘R ‘Repeat’ in Logic. This works fine if you want only a couple of repeated clips but what if you wanted a lot of copies?

Repeat (⌥ R) gives you this, by bringing up a dialogue box which allows you to specify exactly how many repeats of a selection you wish to make. It is closest to ‘Repeat Multiple’ which can be accessed in the Edit Menu ‘Edit/Repeat/Multiple. It might appear that there is no equivalent key command for this in Logic but there is. It is unassigned by default and so needs to assigned by the user. And, confusingly, it is called “ Repeat regions/events multiple times”. In the Edit menu it simply says Repeat -> Multiple.

The Loop Trim tool is probably the closest to Logic’s default behaviour. Right clicking on the Trim Tool and selecting ‘Loop’, or pressing F6 or ⌘2 to cycle through Trim modes, will allow you to grab the end of any clip and loop it. Loops created this way differ from the previous two methods in that they do not create discrete clips that can be moved independently of one another.

This is just one example, there really are hundreds in Pro Tools but don’t let that put you off. The main thing here is to find a workflow that suits you for the specific task you are performing.

Zoom

As with any DAW the most important thing when learning Pro Tools is to take it slowly and try to build on your pre-existing knowledge in a thoughtful and logical way. I’ve been using Pro Tools for well over a decade now and I am always finding new ways to do things

I’ll leave you with one final hint, which was something that frustrated me with Pro Tools when I first started was how different zoom was implemented between the two DAW’s. In Logic you hold down ⌘ (Command) and use the arrow keys for vertical and horizontal zoom. Not so in Pro Tools. For a start vertical zoom isn’t the same thing in Pro Tools as it is in Logic. In Pro Tools it is called track height. Vertical zoom keyboard shortcuts will make the waveform in a clip larger or smaller which is something I almost never want.

Horizontal zoom is easy to find just using the R and T keys. I used a small nemonic to remember them; ROTI (R = Zoom Out, T = Zoom In) but they fall under the fingers pretty easily.

Vertical Zoom, excuse me, I mean Track Height can be done on a per track basis by hitting ⌃ (Control) key with the up and down arrows. To apply this across all the tracks in the session use ⌃⌥ (Control Option) with the up and down arrows. I use the later a lot and it is much faster than doing it with the mouse.

You can also use the 1-5 keys on the QWERTY keyboard to select five different horizontal Zoom settings. You can reconfigure those by setting a zoom that you want to save and ⌘ (Command) clicking on the relevant button in the top right of the Edit window.

I also often find myself wanting to see everything in the project or session displayed on the screen with nothing cropped out. In Logic this is easy done with two key commands ⌘A (Select All) followed by Z (Toggle Zoom to fit Selection or All Contents). In Pro Tools you do it this way. First hit ⌃⌥⌘ Up Arrow (Fit Track Size To Window (All Tracks). Then hit ⌥A (Zoom to Show All).

I have barely scratched the surface here and I am sure anyone who knows Pro Tools well could say ‘yes but you forgot to mention XYZ’ and you’d be right. Playlists, Clip Gain, Groups, Clip Effects, Bussing… I could go on. Don’t let any of this put you off. If you already know Logic fairly well and wish to add some Pro Tools chops into your skillset then know that you’ve probably already got enough of a base to be able to figure it out as you go. They are more similar than they are different when you break it down, it is just a matter of getting as much flight time with Pro Tools as you can. Good luck.