We all want to be using the latest and greatest software to get our jobs done, especially when new features promise to make things even better. But after a recent negative experience I had with a Pro Tools upgrade, I felt like sharing this common-sense reminder: be careful when upgrading Pro Tools!
We’ve all had the misfortune of having to cut off the end of a piece of dialog very abruptly in order to avoid an issue of some sort; there’s a clunk in the track, or the thought needs to be cut off for the sake of story, or someone else starts speaking over the first …
Normally we leave notes in our sessions using markers. It’s what they’re for, after all! But one big problem with markers is that they aren’t specific to any track; they just mark across the entire session at a given time. Also, you can’t stack two or more at the same exact timecode and read them …
There are a limited number of good tools for panning in surround. At the top end of the spectrum are fancy dedicated surround panner sticks like the JL Cooper AXOS panner for $800+ each. At the bottom end is the trusty mouse. In the middle are things like Neyrinck V-Control Pro for iPad. But these …
Continue reading ‘Quickly pan car-bys and other effects in surround mixes’ »
Being able to focus on a single element in your mix quickly and easily is vital to a speedy workflow. Traditionally solo is the tool for this. The key command “Shift-S” to solo any currently selected tracks is one nice option. But as with all aspects of Pro Tools, there are only 10 ways to …
Continue reading ‘Scrub to solo: an easy way to isolate elements in your mix’ »
iZotope RX 4 has released, bringing even more fantastic new noise reduction and audio repair tools targeted at post production audio professionals. Sadly, all the new enticing features only exist in the stand-alone application, not as plugins within Pro Tools. However, iZotope has developed a clever way to “round trip” your audio from Pro Tools …
Continue reading ‘iZotope RX 4 Advanced: tying stand-alone app into Pro Tools’ »
Pro Tools supports a variety of surround sound formats, but of course the most common is still 5.1 surround. This breaks down into the standard channels of Left, Center, Right, Left Surround, Right Surround, and LFE. There are several different standards for how we can order those 6 channels. Let’s take a quick look at …
Continue reading ‘Pro Tools 5.1 audio track channel order’ »
There’s nothing worse than having your show fail quality control due to a tiny tick in the dialog. What a silly thing to reject an entire episode for! But sadly, it happens. And once the QC operator finds one tick, suddenly they are hearing ticks and clicks everywhere in your mix! Fortunately we now have …
Continue reading ‘Wash away clicks and ticks from your whole dialog edit at once with iZotope RX3’ »
These days the CALM Act mandates that TV programs and commercials all adhere to a standard specification for average integrated program loudness. That spec is -24 dB LUFS, where LUFS stands for Loudness Units Full Scale. It can also be referred to as LKFS. If you’d like to dive deep into the details of this, …
Continue reading ‘Quick and easy loudness compliance with Avid’s new Pro Limiter’ »
