Pro Tools: Navigating Large Sessions

The Narrow Mix View lets you shrink the width of your channels so you can see more on screen at a time.

Find your way around large mixing sessions with these power‑user tips.

Film mixes are known for their astronomical track counts, but even music sessions, once limited by tape formats or host computer constraints, now regularly run into triple figures. With modern productions becoming more complex and timelines tighter, the ability to get around a session quickly and intuitively isn’t just convenient, it’s essential. Here we’ll concentrate on ways to get the track or tracks that need your attention into view quickly and intuitively — from faster ways to scroll directly to the track you need to techniques to bring only the groups of tracks you want to see onto your screen or directly under your fingers.

Dizzy Heights

A computer screen has fixed dimensions. Once a session has more tracks than can fit vertically, you have two options: shrink the tracks, or start scrolling. If you shrink them too much they become unusable, so in practice most of us end up doing both and relying on a mix of navigation techniques we’ve picked up over time.

A common first step when space runs out is to reduce track height in the Edit window. You can do this by dragging the lower edge of a track header, but Pro Tools offers faster methods. Use Control+Up/Down (Mac) or Start+Up/Down (Windows) to cycle through height presets on selected tracks. To resize all tracks simultaneously, hold Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) while adjusting one track. In the Mix window, toggling Narrow Mix View with Command+Option+M (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+M (Windows) allows more tracks to fit horizontally — this is particularly useful when working without a control surface.

A must‑have keyboard shortcut is Command+Opt+Ctrl+down arrow (or up arrow, both work the same) on Mac, or Start+Alt+Ctrl+up/down on Windows. This keystroke adjusts track height to fit all tracks into the Edit window, or down to a minimum track height if there are too many. Very useful.

Scrolling In The Deep

The simplest way to navigate large sessions is often just scrolling. Use the scroll wheel to move vertically in the Edit window, and use Shift‑scroll to move horizontally in the Mix window. Dragging the scroll bars works, but it’s inefficient.

Scroll to Track lets you instantly jump to any track using an autocompleting text search box.Two much faster techniques are using Scroll to Track and Control+Shift‑clicking in the Tracks List. Scroll to Track, found under the Track menu, opens a searchable dialogue of all tracks. Type a few letters and the dialogue autocompletes; select the track, and Pro Tools brings it into view instantly. It’s even faster with the shortcut Cmd+Option+F (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+F (Windows).

You can also Control+Shift+Click (Mac) or Start+Shift+Click (Windows) a track in the...