The idea of stem mixing is as old as film sound, but in recent years its taken off in the music industry to the point where mastering engineers are often being supplied with stems (or requesting them) instead of the traditional 2-track.
If you adopt a stem based workflow, one of the most effective ways of saving time is setting up a mixing template.
In ProTools that may consist of two parts, both a *.ptf file (write protected/stationary pad) and an io Setup file – so your busses are labelled the way you like and your outputs are set up for either stereo or 5.1 mixing. Be sure to keep a backup of these files somewhere safe!
Going down the path of setting up your ptf file, if you adopt a template there are two killer features you should be using, markers and window configs…
Picture this: you are mixing the project, diving down, working on backing vox or ambience tracks or SFX or the drum kit and you want to change the overall balance of your stems. So what do you do? You simply hit “.”, “2″, “.” to recall memory locate 2 and what happens?
Potentially, all of this: in the edit window, the track list gets hidden, the region bin closes, the io view and inserts views disappear, all your tracks disappear except the buss masters, in volume view, which blow up to take up a quarter of the window each (red lines drawing as you mix in latch mode), on the right hand side, your favourite buss master compressor plug in window opens and maybe Signal tools, showing you the current level in Peak and RMS and you are now in the sweetest place to mix your stems – all the info you want, maximised on screen at the press of a memory locate.
So how? Well, create a memory locate, tied to no “Selection” but with track show hide/track height and a window config attached…
This is the point – combining windows configs and memory locates in your template gives you alot of power when it comes to everyday tasks, navigating your session as a power user who can anticipate the every day tasks of crafting your mix.
Ive seen some power users with templates that include windows configs that open/close a tonne of info in both their edit windows and mix windows saved to common sense buttons on their numeric keypad like 4 and 5 to open and close the edit window, 7 and 8 to do similar with the mix window, 1,2,3, 5 and 9 for project specific views – seeing it in action is definately a “penny drop” moment.
ICON Power feature:
Taking this idea a step further – dig into your ICON preferences to enable “Track Show/Hide: ShowHdn”
This means that tracks that are hidden in the edit window are still accessible on the control surface using your custom fader groups! So you can now mix on tracks on the console, independent of what is visible in the Pro Tools GUI.
Next Blog: An ICON automation feature called AutoJoin, how to mix effortlessly without reaching for the stop button and a mouse when you make a mistake!
Thanks Brent for the tips.
Tim Trebble publish the url of your website. Your study on the use of protools is interesting. Know then, that I get from now a diligent reader of your blog.
In advance, thank you.
Benoit Tigeot
Hey Brent,
Great tips here, I’ve got a question though regarding window configs and memory locations. I dont think this is possible, but on the D-Control (32 fader split), I’d love to be able to show/hide large numbers of tracks while recording. For instance, I work for a Television show and I record over a hundred tracks at a time 48 of which are production tracks, and 80 of which are music tracks. I’d love to be able to quickly show only music tracks when we are working on a music act, and show only production tracks when we are in an interview/comedy part of the show. Is this possible? Thanks in advance, and thanks for the tips, its greatly enhanced my workflow for editing.
Hi LameBirdy,
You can definately get to your memory locates from the DControl – browse around your soft key section, it should be in a section labelled “Mem/MIDI” with a button “Mem Loc” – the soft keys then show you your locates 4 at a time with a page up and down button as well.
Just create mem locates with “track show/hide” and “track heights” ticked – but with the time properties set to “NONE” (otherwise you’ll jump around and abort record)
Second part of your problem is showing and hiding tracks during a record pass – I just tested this and it appears to work fine!
Hope that helps!
Thanks a lot….I didnt think it was possible only because if you arent recording but have tracks armed it de-arms the tracks when hiding…and I just didnt try actually recording and hiding … thanks again…that makes me very happy.
Hi Brent, great blog and very useful tips, many thanks! I’m looking for a way to store/recall tracks’ active/inactive status with memory locations, but it seems that there is no way to do this. The nearest I can get is using a group to mute the track outputs and storing with memory locations, but I’m really looking to save resources and also streamline my sessions by having only essential tracks active at each stage of editing projects. It’s tedious (and frustrating) doing this manually when I’d like to do it instantaneously via a memory location. It seems impossible but maybe I’m missing something…
This feature has actually been around a while – I had totally forgotten about it tho until now. I really should’ve been utilizing this in my mixes – HOWEVER – can this be applied to mixing? I feel it when u say I must create IO settings and a template….but how do I get this to work for mixing? Import Session Data from my template? I’m running 7.1 and I’m gonna try out different options and get back to you on this one