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| Editing
Digital Audio in Pro Tools
By David Franz
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Repairing Waveforms with the Pencil Tool
As mentioned previously, the Pencil tool allows you to redraw waveforms
and make precise edits. This is particularly useful for repairing
vocal plosives and pops or clicks that might randomly occur. Be
careful when using this tool though; redrawing a waveform with the
Pencil permanently alters the audio file on your hard drive once
it’s saved (i.e., destructive editing), so it’s a good
idea to make a backup of the original file before editing.
To repair a waveform by redrawing it you must view the waveform
at the sample level. Zoom in all the way so the waveform appears
as a continuous thin line. With the Free Hand Pencil tool, redraw
the waveform by dragging the pencil over it. Try to keep the same
basic form of the sound wave when redrawing or you might create
an even nastier sound than the pop or click you were trying to fix.
At the same time, you can create some wacky effects with pencil
edits. Experiment with your waveform drawing technique… remember,
you can always undo your edits (in this case, just make sure you’re
very happy or have a backup before you save).
Editing Automation Data with the Pencil Tool
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Fig. 4.12. Volume automation
data can be adjusted in fine increments using the Pencil tool.
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I use the Pencil tool most often
to edit automation data — it’s so easy to draw
volume fades and panning moves. I’ve found it very beneficial
to create automation data first using the Mix window faders
in Auto Write and Auto Touch modes, then fine tuning with
the Pencil tool. (Automation is covered in chapter 12.) See
the Pro Tools Hands-On section in this chapter for more info
on creating and editing automation data. |
This is particularly helpful when riding vocal levels. After you’ve
recorded a good automation pass using the mouse or MIDI controller
on a fader, go to the Edit window and select Volume from the Track
View menu (as seen in figure 4.12). Use the Pencil tool to redraw
any volume levels to make the track sound its best.
Locking Regions
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Fig. 4.13. The keyboard
shortcut for locking (or unlocking) a region is + L (Mac)
and Ctrl + L (Win)
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Once you’ve made some edits
that you’re happy with and don’t want to unintentionally
nudge or move the region, it’s a good idea to “lock”
the region in place. Locking a region or a group of regions
ensures the region(s) cannot be moved, but allows you to still
perform operations such as recording and automation editing
on the region(s). |
To lock a region, select the region(s) with the Grabber tool and
choose Lock/Unlock Region from the Edit menu. A small lock appears
in the region, indicating that it has been locked, as in figure
4.13.
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Fig. 4.14. If you try to perform
edits that would move the locked region, Pro Tools alerts
you with this window.
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It’s a smart move to lock
your regions once you’ve done some editing to a song.
And, I highly recommend locking regions once you start mixing
your song. You don’t want to spend time realigning regions
that you moved by accident while mixing.
Now let’s move on to recording and editing MIDI tracks.
. . .
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PRO TOOLS HANDS-ON
Experiment with Edit Modes and Tools
Experiment with each edit mode and edit tool on something you’ve
already recorded, or choose a track from the CD-ROM sessions. Create
new regions and move them around. Get familiar with the Smart tool
by mousing over different parts of a region to see the many functionalities
of the tool. Switch between edit modes and tools using the function
keys. Also try dragging a region from the Audio Regions List and
observe how the region is placed within a track’s playlist,
depending on the chosen edit mode.
Create Fades and Crossfades
Since crossfades are created by fading between overlapping audio
material, a crossfade cannot be performed on regions that do not
contain audio material beyond their region boundaries. Crossfades
are written to your hard drive and stored in a folder named “Fade
Files” within your session folder. When you play back your
track, Pro Tools reads and plays back the crossfade file from your
hard drive.
The Link parameter in the Fades window (figure 4.10) enables you
to choose the fade-out and fade-in curves used in a crossfade. Choose
Equal Power when creating a crossfade between two completely different
types of musical material. Choose Equal Gain when creating a crossfade
between two identical types of musical material (e.g., on repeated
loops).
You can also choose None when you want to edit the fade-out and
fade-in separately. Press Ctrl (Win) or Command (Mac) while dragging
to edit the fade-out section of a crossfade. Press Alt (Win) or
Option (Mac) while dragging to edit the fade-in.
Try it. Create a crossfade between two regions. Listen to the difference
between Equal Power and Equal Gain crossfades. Then, choose None
in the Link section of the Fades window and try editing both the
fade-out and fade-in sections of a crossfade. Finally, experiment
with all of the other ways to create fades and crossfades, including
the Smart Tool and keyboard shortcuts.
Create a Drum Loop
Why is creating a loop considered practice for editing audio? Because
many of the concepts, techniques, and tools required to edit audio
are used in creating a loop. Create a drum loop using the Naked
Drums demo session included on the book’s CD.
 First,
find and select a section of music that you’d like to loop,
such as one measure of a drum beat, using Loop Playback. (Choose
Loop Playback from the Operations menu.) Adjust the selection length
so that the loop doesn’t lose the beat. You may find using
Tab to Transients helpful when selecting the material for your loop.
The next step is to separate the regions in each track so you can
manipulate them using the edit modes and tools. Remember that you
can separate a region by pressing  +
E (Mac) or Ctrl + E (Win). To separate the regions on all tracks
at once, highlight the section on all the tracks, then separate
them. To select (highlight) multiple tracks at once, press the Shift
key while selecting each track. An even easier way is to activate
the “! <All>” Edit Group, as seen in the figure
at left. Then, when you highlight one part of one track, all the
tracks will be highlighted in the same places.
Move the loop to the end of the session, make several copies of
the loop material, and paste them together. An easy way to make
copies of a loop is to select all the loop material with the Grabber,
then in Shuffle mode, select Repeat from the Edit menu [or press
Option + R (Mac) or Alt + R (Win)]. A dialog box will open that
looks like the figure at right.
Type “3” as the number of repeats and click OK. This
will paste three copies of the selected material next to the original
material. As you learned earlier, Shuffle mode places regions right
next to other regions so you don’t even have to lift a finger
to make the regions tight. You may need to crossfade each loop together
to ensure there are no pops or other sonic inconsistencies between
the end of the loop and the start of the next loop.
To quickly create a crossfade on all tracks at once:
1. Activate the “! <All>” Edit Group.
2. Position the Smart tool at the boundary between two regions.
3. Move the Smart tool to the lower half of a region to activate
the crossfade tool.
4. Click and drag to create a crossfade on each track.
Use Memory Locations and Markers for Editing Audio
You can use markers to expedite moving large amounts of audio around
in a Pro Tools session. For example, if you’ve got markers
set up at the exact beginning and ending of a verse, you can make
the verse twice as long by copying and pasting it in a matter of
seconds. (Try that with analog tape!)
To do this, click on the beginning marker (in the Marker Ruler),
press and hold Shift, click on the end marker, and copy the material.
Click on the marker where you want to insert the additional verse
and paste the copied verse (while in Shuffle mode). The audio files
will line up snug to the previous verse and the following section
of the song.
Try it. In any of the song sessions on the CD, create markers at
the start of each section (e.g., verse, chorus, etc.). Use Loop
Playback to make sure the markers are set up at the exact start
and end points of the song sections so that they will flow together
when combined. Cut and paste together a completely different arrangement
of the song using the markers you created.
Edit Spoken Word
One of the most important and difficult editing tasks that you’ll
have to perform is editing speech and vocals. When editing speech
(for a voiceover, a monologue, a rap, etc.), it’s customary
to edit the words so that there is no stuttering, stammering, hesitation,
or mistakes (unless, of course, those effects are desired). Many
times it’s also beneficial to eliminate unnecessary pauses
and open spaces between words and sentences. This will increase
the pace of the performance and is often done when there are a lot
of breathing pauses, or when you want to intensify the impact of
the delivery (e.g., a fast-talking radio DJ).
When editing speech or vocals, it’s always a good idea to
have the script, text, or lyrics as a printed guide for making notes
about where to place your edits. This also helps if you want to
remove parts of the text while keeping the overall meaning.
A tricky yet interesting part of editing speech or vocals is figuring
out the best edit points. Because language possesses such complex
sounds and sound patterns, figuring out where words start and end
can be challenging. There are many components of words that you
need to be aware of when editing. They each have distinctive sounds
and often sound totally different from each other, once you listen
to them more closely and analyze their waveforms. As you get better
at identifying waveforms, you will begin to hear — and also
see — the differences between consonants and vowels, and you
will learn the best ways to work with the unique characteristics
of specific consonant and vowel sounds.
Try it. On the CD, there is a session called Voiceover. Copy it
to your audio hard drive and open it. This session contains one
audio file of voiceover material for you to listen to and edit.
The audio is of me reading the first paragraph of chapter 4.
First, listen to the track at full speed to get a feel for it. Then,
listen to the track at half-speed by pressing Shift-Spacebar. Try
the Scrubber tool on some sections of the track. Listen to and look
at the differences between consonants and vowels. Spend a minute
or two scrubbing over different consonants and vowels to get a feel
for where each word starts and finishes. Listen closely for the
sibilant sounds of the letter “s” and also to
the larger spaces left for commas and periods, as well as the smaller
spaces between words.
There are some mistakes in the reading. This was done purposely.
Edit out the mistakes and smooth out the timing of the performance
so that you create a near-perfect reading. Then, shorten the open
spaces between some of the words and sentences, thereby increasing
the pace of the reading. Finally, check out my quick edit of the
voiceover track on the track’s second playlist and compare
it to your edit.
Nudging the Groove
Use nudging to edit the offbeat guitar track in the Basic Effects
Send session (on the CD) so that it lines up perfectly with the
drum beats. Try this for four measures (or more). Listen to the
differences between the original and your nudged version. Do your
edits make the groove tighter or more sterile?
Record and Edit Automation Data
You can use all of the audio editing tools and techniques that you’ve
learned so far to edit automation data. Used mainly in mixing, automation
is data that automatically controls the parameters of a track (such
as volume level or panning), the parameters of a plug-in (such as
the ratio on a compressor or the wet/dry mix of a reverb), or any
other automatable parameters within a Pro Tools session.
On audio tracks, you can control volume, pan, mute, send volume,
send pan, send mute, and plug-in parameters. You can look at any
automation data on a track by choosing it from the Track View Selector,
as in the figure below.
However, before editing automation, you’ve got to record it.
The basic steps for recording automation are:
1. Put the appropriate track(s) in an automation writing mode (Write,
Touch, or Latch mode) using the Automation Mode Selector, as in
the figure above (right).
2. Press play to begin automation recording and adjust the controls
(volume, pan, mutes, etc.) as needed. Pro Tools remembers all your
moves.
You can also create automation data by drawing it with the pencil
tool. Select the automation type you want to draw on a track from
the Track View Selector, choose the Pencil tool and appropriate
drawing shape, and start drawing. Check out the QuickTime movie
“drawingautomation” on the CD to see this process firsthand.
We’ll get deeper into recording automation, including plug-in
automation, in chapter 12.
Once automation has been recorded, you can edit it in three different
ways.
1. Repeat the steps for recording automation to write new automation
over the pre-existing data.
2. Graphically edit the automation data in the Edit window.
3. Cut, copy, paste, or delete automation.
When you edit an audio track while in Waveform view, edits affect
the audio and all automation data playlists on that track. That
is very important to understand. Conversely, if the track display
is set to show automation data, edits only affect the type of automation
data displayed in the track. For example, with the track display
set to “pan,” the Cut command only cuts pan data from
the pan playlist.
When you paste automation data, the data is pasted into the correct
type of playlist, regardless of the track display setting. Audio
data is pasted into the audio playlist; automation data is pasted
into the appropriate automation playlist. Pasting new data replaces
any previous data on the target playlist without shuffling, regardless
of whether you are in Slip or Shuffle mode.
Try it. Record and edit automation in a Pro Tools session. Experiment
with all of the edit tools to see how each one can edit automation.
Create a fade-out manually by drawing it with the Pencil tool, then
edit it with the Grabber, Trimmer, and Pencil tools. Draw mute automation
on a track with the Pencil tool using the Square shape. Create auto-panning
automation on a track with the Pencil tool using the Triangle shape.
Experiment! Have fun!
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