PT shortcut for switching playlists??

[Poopants]

I'm going nuts trying to comp vocals and having to switch through 25 takes with my mouse and the little button that opens the playlist menu. There MUST be a faster way to do this, is there some shortcut where I could just select the track and then press an arrow/key combination to quickly scroll through takes?? If there isn't, then WHY THE F NOT??

I hope someone can bestow this knowledge apon me soon, I'm shaving minutes off of my life endlessly looking for THAT vocal take...

[Poopants]

nobody? does this shortcut really not exist?

[Poopants]

nobody? does this shortcut really not exist?

[Poopants]

nobody? does this shortcut really not exist?

[mixerguy]

Originally Posted by Poopants

nobody? does this shortcut really not exist?

CORRECT

[severe]

I think its Option-click on the track (directly on the waveform) in the edit window. Although, Im not in front of my computer right now.

Hope this helps.

[Poopants]

whoa I don't know why it posted 3 times! I wasn't trying to be obnoxious lol

[Poopants]

Originally Posted by severe

I think its Option-click on the track (directly on the waveform) in the edit window. Although, Im not in front of my computer right now.

Hope this helps.

I think thats only to change through takes if you did a loop record or something like that. And then you still have to go through a menu, I'm just wondering if there's a way to switch through actual playlists by pressing down and up or something. If there really isn't a way to do this, why not? This doesn't seem like a logical feature to have?

[nathanvacha]

I can't think of any more ergonomical way to do this than by switching it with the arrow/dropdown menu like everyone does. Anything else would require another way for you to define which track you were switching on and which take you wanted to switch to, which would involve a combination of mouse and keyboard usage which is more complicated than just mousing over to the drop-down.

And when you were comping takes, trying to copy and paste and switch playlists all at the same time would be extremely error-prone I would think.

[Ruudman]

And when you were comping takes, trying to copy and paste and switch playlists all at the same time would be extremely error-prone I would think.

You've got a point, there


ruudman

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by nathanvacha

And when you were comping takes, trying to copy and paste and switch playlists all at the same time would be extremely error-prone I would think.

Not if you were comping to another track, like I do.

You can do it with QuicKeys but it's still kind of a PITA.

You have to make a QuicKey for each take and you have to make sure that that track stays in the same position on the screen for QuicKeys to switch.

But it can be quite a timesaver.

When I do it, I actually add the play key to the end of each command so that it switches takes and then plays with just one keystroke.

I then have another keystroke that copies and pastes to the next track above. (the comp track)

I set it up using the number keys and then manually turn them off so that I can use those keys for something else.

QuicKeys is a must for me with Pro Tools.

Good Luck.

[Paul David]

Originally Posted by Poopants

I'm going nuts trying to comp vocals and having to switch through 25 takes with my mouse and the little button that opens the playlist menu. There MUST be a faster way to do this, is there some shortcut where I could just select the track and then press an arrow/key combination to quickly scroll through takes?? If there isn't, then WHY THE F NOT??

I hope someone can bestow this knowledge apon me soon, I'm shaving minutes off of my life endlessly looking for THAT vocal take...

Why would you need to do 25 vocal takes?

If I do any more than 4 or 5 with a singer and they still haven't shown me the magic then I realize that we need to either punch our way to success (yuk) or let the singer go home.

25 is just toooooo much editing. No matter how many man hours you throw at it it will never sound like 1 good take.

P.S. Sometime I take 3 strong takes, put my favorite parts on a comp track, then have the singer fill in the blanks if there are any.

[Poopants]

Originally Posted by Ruudman

You've got a point, there


ruudman

Yeah that actually is a very good point, however, once I scrolled through and found the playlist I was looking for and then copied the part, I would use my mouse to change back to the comp track. But maybe there could be a key that jumped back to the first playlist in the ...playlist...list? That would be convenient.

[Harley-OIART]

While we're at it : Does anyone know of a short-cut to close an open plug-in window?

(Instead of clicking the tiny red button in the top left corner)




~Scott

[Poopants]

Originally Posted by Paul David

Why would you need to do 25 vocal takes?

If I do any more than 4 or 5 with a singer and they still haven't shown me the magic then I realize that we need to either punch our way to success (yuk) or let the singer go home.

25 is just toooooo much editing. No matter how many man hours you throw at it it will never sound like 1 good take.

P.S. Sometime I take 3 strong takes, put my favorite parts on a comp track, then have the singer fill in the blanks if there are any.

Well I'm not necessarily saying that there are 25 takes of every part, but sometimes there are like 25 playlists even though most of the song will only have 5 takes (which is normal) and maybe another part may have had more because he wanted to nail it, or did a bunch of takes of it in different ways so they could decide later. I don't know what I would do if I had to go through 25 takes for every line...jeeezus, that would be a nightmare

Anyway, the whole point of me wanting to scroll through the playlists fast is that sometimes, because I was in a rush or wasn't thinking or something, I'm looking for a part that I recorded on a random playlist in a list of 20+ playlists. You know, stuff like that. If the singer's like, wait, where's that harmony, and I forgot about it, and I have to search through all the vocal tracks and backup tracks and then click and drag through the menus of all of their playlists, sometimes it can take FOREVER. And I know what everyone's going to say and it is true in some cases, I need to organize better. But you know how it gets in a high pressure, speedy situation, sometimes you lose track of things. That's all I'm sayin!

<--me in high pressure situation

anyway thanks for the tips so far guys, I appreciate it.

[Gregg Sartiano]

Originally Posted by Paul David

Why would you need to do 25 vocal takes?

There was a certain (good) singer cutting a duet that turned out to be a major hit about three years ago.

I heard from someone on the 'inside' that she did about 50 vocal takes -- because she was leaving L.A. and they had one shot at getting her vocals down. It's better to have a take and not need it than to need a take and not have it.

Once you start doing ad libs, you can blow through playlists pretty quickly. You could do 10 30-second rideout takes in 15 or 20 minutes, maybe less (time) if the singer doesn't have to sing every lick back-to-back -- i.e.: then you can track without substantial breaks.

If the singer is "learning" where to put each lick as you go, then you'd be obliged to keep the early takes, but if the singer is developing the part as you go, the later takes will probably be the ticket. Still, why dump the early ones? You may decide later that a certain lyric needs to be said in the rideout -- and maybe that lyric was only improvised in the earlier takes, before the singer really settled on a direction.