Did you know you can run two mixes at the same time in Pro Tools? Well with a little lateral thinking you can, and this can be really useful for comparing alternatives, something which is central to making good mix decisions. Taking this idea further, with a little more lateral thinking you can compare nearly anything with anything else. Here are some examples which might make your decisions the right ones.
A/B A Whole Mix In Pro Tools Using Basic Folder Tracks
This technique isn’t suitable for really big mixes but as long as your computer is pretty capable it will work perfectly on typical music sessions, it’s not going to be appropriate for big post projects or Atmos mixes.
Basic Folders are purely organisational. Unlike their Routing counterparts they have no effect on signal flow but they do have both a Solo and Mute button and as such can be very useful when combined with my favourite Solo Mode: X-OR.
X-OR Solo mode cancels the previously selected solos. You can think of it as changing the solo buttons to radio buttons like on an 1176! This mode is endlessly useful and because you can add additional solos by holding Shift I find I use X-OR almost all the time. To change Pro Tools’ Solo Mode go to the Options menu.
To compare two alternative mixes, first select all of your tracks. I usually exclude the Master Fader and sometimes the effects returns but I always include all of the source tracks, Auxes and Folders. Place all the selected tracks in a Folder by right-clicking and selecting Move To - New Folder. Select Basic folder and you are almost there.
Next Duplicate the Basic Folder, You now have your mix twice and using the solo buttons on the Folder Tracks in X-OR you can A/B between your two mixes.
A/B Alternative Processing Chains Using Shortcuts
There is a Compare function built in to plugins with which you can A/B between alternative settings, if you don’t already I recommend you check it out. However very often we want to A/B between more than one plugin at the same time. As long as you are not using more than 5 plugins on the track you want to AB you can do this with a little session organisation and a couple of keyboard shortcuts.
To A/B between a chain of plugins on a track assemble your first chain of fewer than five plugins in Insert slots A-E on your desired track. Build your alternative chain in Insert slots F-J and bypass all the plugins in either A-E or F-J. With all the plugins in one of your chains engaged and all the plugins in your alternative chain bypassed you can toggle between the chains by hitting Shift and 2+3 on the alphanumeric keyboard together. This will bypass the engaged plugins and enable the bypassed plugins in a single keystroke.
A/B Alternative Tracks Using Solo Trick
Toggle between Tracks using Shift+S (Shift+S is actually Solo Tracks With An Edit Selection so if Link Track and Edit selection is off track selections won’t work).
Sometimes it is the take, the edit or the effect of clip effects or AudioSuite processing you want to compare. If these alternatives are on alternative playlists on a track you can solo between them and compare from the Playlists view but if you want to compare the combined contribution of plugin processing, mix data like level and pan and comps, edits and timing and tuning correction then playlists aren’t the answer. However a clever feature of the Solo system in Pro Tools makes toggling between two or more tracks in a single keystroke possible.
To toggle between two tracks simply select them both, solo one of them and if you use the solo keystroke Shift+S then the solo states of the selected tracks will be toggled. This gets more interesting if you select more than two tracks as this works across as many tracks as you select. Returning to the first example, if you were to select all the member tracks of both of the Basic Folders and soloed all of the first folder, hitting Shift+S would reverse the solo state of all the tracks. Used like this it would make the use of the Folder Tracks unnecessary, however the convenience of having the Folders.
See these techniques demonstrated in this video brought to you with the support of Avid.
More On Pro Tools Solo Modes
These comparison techniques rely on use of the solo features in Pro Tools. For a more comprehensive look at the solo features beyond the default ‘SIP+Latching’ behaviour check out this premium tutorial in which Julian explains and demonstrates AFL/PFL and use of Momentary and X-OR with a control surface.
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