Edit selections will show up as either darker or lighter patches of audio, depending on whether you’re using the Dark or Classic theme. Their in and out points are represented by orange lin in the timeline, whereas the in and points of Timeline selections are shown in blue.
Timeline and Edit selections are the key to faster editing in Pro Tools.
This month I’m going to look at selections in Pro Tools. We often take selections for granted, but as they are so fundamental to operating a DAW, they credit a closer look. They do after all define exactly which material we are targeting for any particular action or edit. This is a big area, but I’m going to cover a few fundamentals and then highlight a few less well‑known techniques. Hopefully there will be something new here for most people.
Something I have to cover first — because it is so central to understanding how Pro Tools works and because it’s the source of much confusion for people who don’t understand it — is the two types of selection in Pro Tools: Timeline and Edit selections.
Time & Place
A Timeline selection defines what gets played back when you hit the space bar. It can be any duration, from zero to the whole length of the session. Its length is denoted by a pair of half arrows in the timebase ruler, which are either blue or red depending on the record status of your transport. If the length is zero, you’ll see what looks like a single downward‑facing arrow, but this is actually two markers next to each other. If the playback selection has zero length, Pro Tools will play from that point until you stop it. If the selection has a length, it will play just the timeline selection and stop, unless the transport is set to loop.
An Edit selection is the area of the timeline that will be affected by an edit, which could mean anything from copying, deleting or moving to processing using AudioSuite or Clip Gain. An Edit selection can include partial and whole clips, a group of clips, or an area covering any amount of the timeline across a single track or multiple tracks. Like a Timeline selection, it can also have zero length, in which case it is represented by a flashing line on the timeline called the Insertion Point. If the Edit selection has a duration (ie. the in and out points aren’t in the same place) it will be represented by a box of lighter or darker colour, depending on whether you are using the Dark or Classic UI Theme. The in and out points of Edit selections are represented by orange markers in the timeline ruler. However, in normal use, these are usually obscured by the blue Timeline selection markers, for reasons we’ll discuss next.
The Link
The distinction between these two types of selection is usually invisible to users as, by default, the two selection types are linked. In other words, if you make an Edit selection and hit Play, the Timeline selection corresponding to that Edit selection will be played back. This is really useful, but it can be desirable to unlink them in some situations, and if you’ve never unlinked them before, the results can be confusing. If what you select doesn’t get played back, you need to press Shift+/ to relink them.
Making selections is pretty straightforward: there’s a dedicated tool for it, unsurprisingly called the Selector tool, and if you click and drag you can select an area of the timeline. You can get more precise, though. Once it’s created, you can finesse your Edit selection by adding Shift and moving the in or out point. If your audio waveform is transient‑rich and the beginning of each note or hit is easy to see, then the inordinately handy Tab to Transients feature can be used. Normally, if you hit Tab, the Insertion Point jumps to the end of the clip or the start of the next one. Hit Cmd+Opt+Tab (Ctrl+Alt+Tab on PC) to turn on Tab to Transients, and it will jump to the next transient instead. Use Shift with Tab to create Edit selections based on transients (or MIDI notes).
But what if your material isn’t transient‑rich? What if it’s a sustained sound that changes notes smoothly? The simplest way to quickly select the material you want is to use your ears. If you can hear where one note ends and another begins you can create selections on the fly using the arrow keys. Hit the down arrow to create the in point of your Edit selection and the up arrow to create the out point, and if you need to finesse these, you can use the Shift key as mentioned earlier.
The Audition feature of Pro Tools is useful for checking your in and out points. Use the 6, 7, 8 and 9 keys on the alphanumeric keyboard to preview the audio up to your in point, from your in point, to your out point, and from your out point, respectively. These Audition keys are incredibly useful when tracking too. You can use them to let your artist know exactly where you’re recording from and to, and to audition the pre‑roll.
A very useful feature that has been around since Pro Tools 8 is Dynamic Transport. This feature allows the user to drag the Timeline selection up and down the timeline, making auditioning looped sections and moving between sections quick and easy.
Scrubbing Up
There is another way to create Edit selections by ear: using the Scrub tool. This tool, which looks like a loudspeaker, can be dragged right or left to simulate the effect of rocking tape backwards and forwards across the tape head, which is the way people used to find edit points in the tape days. Although useful for amusing record scratch effects, it really comes into its own for precisely locating hard‑to‑find edit points, and can be used to create Edit selections just as easily. As long as Edit Insertion Follows Scrub/Shuttle is enabled in the Operation tab of the Settings window, you can use the Scrub tool to find the appropriate in point, and hold Shift to scrub to the desired end point.
The Scrub tool lets you make your selections by ear. Usefully, the Scrub tool icon disappears while scrubbing so as not to obscure the waveform.
A very useful feature that has been around since Pro Tools 8, but which some users seem not to know about, is Dynamic Transport. This feature, enabled from the Options menu or by pressing Cmd+Ctrl+P (Ctrl+Start+P on PC) allows the user to drag the Timeline selection up and down the timeline, making auditioning looped sections and moving between sections quick and easy. In Dynamic Transport mode, the Edit and Timeline selections are linked, but if you want to move an unlinked Edit selection without changing its length, you can do this by Option‑dragging either the in or out point in the ruler to slide the selection up and down the timeline.
The Edit / Selection menu offers a host of options for changing your selections.Precise adjustments can be made to selection in and out points, or the the length of the selection, from the numeric fields in the Toolbar. It’s important to note that these control the Timeline selection, not the Edit selection, though with the selections linked you can control the Edit selection from here too. However, a common action for music production is to halve or double the selection length. If you are working on the grid this is easy, while if you’re working in Slip mode, you can quickly do this and more using a few of the less‑often‑accessed Edit operations or their corresponding keyboard shortcuts.
There is a whole collection of selection actions under the Edit menu. Two that are really useful are Move Edit Left or Right, which move the selection along the timeline without changing its length. Two more favourites from this menu are Halve and Double Selection Length. The keystrokes for these are listed in the menu and are very worth getting under your fingers if this is something you think you’ll use regularly.
Ups & Downs
The ability to move selections up and down vertically from track to track is likewise very handy — and, returning to my explanation of Edit selections at the beginning of this article, the flashing Insertion Point can be thought of as an Edit selection with zero length, and the ability to move this up and down from track to track is also incredibly useful. If you’re moving a clip vertically from track to track, you can constrain it so it won’t move from side to side while being moved by holding the Ctrl key (Start on PC).
The flashing Insertion Point can be thought of as an Edit selection with zero length, and the ability to move this up and down from track to track is incredibly useful.
But what if, if for example, you’re moving a bass note so it falls precisely on the kick drum in a session with no timing grid? In that case, using the P key for up and the ; key for down, you can move the insertion point from the kick drum hit (easily located using Tab to Transients) to the bass track. Then use the equally handy trick of Ctrl‑clicking on the suitably separated errant bass note with the Grab tool to snap the bass Clip to the correctly positioned Insertion Point, precisely located under the kick drum hit but on the bass track. This is a must‑have technique when working on material in Slip mode
Lastly I’ll offer a lifesaver tip for making Edit selections. If you accidentally click away from your carefully set up selection and it disappears, hitting Cmd+Z won’t help you. Selections don’t go to the undo queue. However, they have their own command: Restore Last Selection can be found under the Edit menu and can be invoked using Cmd+Opt+Z (Ctrl+Alt+Z on PC). This is most commonly needed when you have Insertion Follows Playback accidentally selected, but explaining what that is will have to wait until another day!