Pro Tools 11 - #05 - Edit Tools; pt.1 - Trim; Selector; Grabber; Smart

hello this is music tech help guy and
welcome to episode 5 of my Pro Tools 11
tutorial series in this episode we're
going to be taking a look at some of our
basic edit tools so we can start
fleshing out and building our song we're
not going to go over all of the other
tools today we're just gonna go over the
basic ones the trim selector and grabber
tool as well as the smart tool and we'll
talk a little bit more about the grid
and and everything in this video will
help you to build a basic music bed with
just loops maybe some samples and some
short musical ideas speaking of loops
and samples I'd like to thank audio
blocks comm for sponsoring this video
audio blocks comm is a great website
that has a huge library of content
available to download and it's
completely royalty free so this includes
sound effects loops and other music and
also you can get a free 7-day trial two
audio blocks com so check it out there
is a link to it in the video description
alright so just to start I have a loop
here this just does it's a the same loop
from the previous video it's just a slow
hip-hop group groove 80 bpm
if you don't know how to import a loop
into Pro Tools check out episode 4 where
I show how to do that so let me just
play that loop for you real quick there
we go and then off-screen I made this
sort of it's using the vacuum instrument
and then just a delay a bit of a delay
after it just for an effect
so the first thing I want to do is I
want to set the drum loop behind my my
sort of synth lead here so to start what
I'm going to do is I'm going to make
sure that I'm in grid mode and again if
you see this in purple click on it again
to make sure you're in the blue grid
mode which is actually the absolute grid
mode we'll talk about the difference
between the two in another video make
sure that your grid mode is actually
turned on so the grid is actually
showing in green and for right now I'm
going to set the grid to a quarter note
but we're gonna change that later okay
so your three main Edit tools are the
trim tool the selector tool in the
grabber tool just to start off I am
going to use the selector tool and drag
over the edge sort of the overlapping
just the extra part of my MIDI clip down
here and just trim up just by dragging
over hitting delete just by and just
trim this clip into a four measure clip
so that's one thing that the selector
tool can do you can drag over things you
can delete them you can also drag over a
clip and press command-c to copy and
then click somewhere else and press
command-v to paste and that's actually
one thing I am going to do the vacuum
base what I want to happen is I want
this part to go first this part to go
second this part to go third and then
finally this part to go fourth so
there's a couple ways we can do this the
first is I can drag over this selection
I can press command or control X to cut
it click somewhere else hit command V to
paste it select the third measure do the
same thing command X click where I want
to go press command V and then I can
drag over this again command X click in
here command V and now I've got instead
of one two three four like I had before
I have one three to four so I've changed
up the order of my of my synth lead just
going to hit command Z a couple times
and I'll show you another way to do this
one other thing that you can do at this
selector tool is if you drag over a
selection or click somewhere on a
selection you can hit command E to
separate the clip this works with audio
and MIDI
another way to do this is if you have
your key focus mode on instead of
pressing command E or control key on a
PC you can press B just B and it'll
separate so this is a real quick easy
way to separate your clip so I'm gonna
do is I'm going to click here hit B
click here hit B click here hit B and so
I've separated this into four separate
Clips now this takes us over to our
grabber tool now the grabber tool is one
of many of the tools that has this
little arrow below that has some
secondary tools and if you click and
hold you'll see that there's second
secondary tools just for today for this
video I want you to use the time tool
not the other two so you can grab these
clips now and you can move them around
with the grabber tool it's another way
to do the same thing like we did before
the only thing is I want this whole
selection here to be bumped forward to
measure 2 so you can click on the first
clip hold shift click on the last clip
and then drag the whole thing forward to
measure 2 another thing we can do with
the grabber tool is I'm going to grab my
drum loop and pull it forward but I want
to duplicate this drum loop 4 times
there's a couple ways to do this you can
press option or Alt on a PC and you can
drag the clip over let go the mouse
first then likova
and you can duplicate the clip just by
holding the option or Alt key the easier
way to do it the quicker way to do is
just to click on the first clip and
press command D or ctrl D and it
duplicates it for you so let's see what
our drum loop and our synth lead sound
like together
all right not too shabby one thing
that's just a little weird about the the
drum loop is it's just a little too
repetitive I want to maybe do something
a little bit different with it give it a
little bit of variation so I'm going to
use my accommodation of my trim tool the
selector tool and the the grabber tool
to do this what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna first I'm gonna set my grid not at
a quarter note I'm gonna set it to a
sixteenth note so it'll be able to see
more gridlines
and the beat sort of has like a kick and
then like a double kick here and a kick
a single kick and a double kick what I
want to do is I want the double kick
that just hit once and then the second
time around I don't want the double kick
to be in there so let me just play that
just so low at the drum loop so like
this little extra kick in there I don't
want so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
steal this part right here and I'm gonna
put it right here and by the way the
reason why it's repeating I showed this
in the last video is because I have the
I have the if you right-click I have the
loop playback on so all I'm gonna do is
I'm going to drag over this press
command-c click where I wanted to go and
hit command V and what it does is it
automatically replaces that part of the
waveform so now my beat sounds like this
and so I varied the drum beat just a
little bit let's see what else I can do
here maybe I want this little hi-hat to
be doubled somewhere so I'm going to
copy that
press command C one thing you can do at
the trim tool and by the way the trim
tool also have secondary tools so I'm
gonna click and hold on a make sure that
we're on the standard trim tool we'll go
over the other ones later you can grab
the left or right side of a clip and you
can trim it up a bit so you can pull it
out you can pull it in whatever so I'm
gonna pull this like that
grab my selector tool click right here
I'm gonna hit command V to copy and
paste this a few times it's probably not
gonna sound very good but we'll try it
out yeah maybe not so much let's go back
and use the trim tool and maybe just do
something like that yeah maybe I'll do
that and then right here maybe I'll add
a second hi-hat as well
all right that's kind of cool so that's
our three main edit tools one last thing
I want to show you at the Edit tools a
couple things really you can actually
press the Escape key on your keyboard
and you can quickly toggle through all
of your your edit tools just by pressing
escape you'll notice that when you get
to the end of the grabber tool it
actually highlights all three of them
and you can do that by pressing escape
until you get to the end of the gravity
wall or just clicking this little bar on
the top of the three edit tools now what
this does is it makes the tight it's
called the smart tool it makes the top
part of the of the the clip the selector
tool it makes the bottom part of the
clip the grabber tool and it makes the
left and the right the trim tool but one
additional feature that this does is it
takes the upper left and upper right
corners of the clip it makes it a fade
tool so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
consolidate all these clips together I'm
gonna duplicate them and then I'm gonna
create a fade and audio fade so let me
just click on the very first clip click
on the very last clip while holding
shift you can consolidate these into a
new waveform into a new clip by going to
edit consolidate clip or pressing option
shift 3 so now these are all one clip
and a press command D to duplicate them
and then what I'm going to do is using
my fit my newly found fade tool here in
the upper right corner I'm going to drag
this summit fade it out
mute the synth now you can create fades
pretty easily too with just with using
the selector tool you can drag over a
clip and you can hit F if you have the
the key focus mode on I think I showed
this in another video but again if you
if you don't have key focus mode on you
can press command a for control F and
you actually a little bit more control
over your fate because you can click and
create custom fade shapes or whatnot now
the problem is that our little vacuum
lead here it's MIDI you can't actually
fade MIDI you have to do a fade with
automation and I'll show you how to do
that and in just a bit so let's add one
more instrument to our to our song so
I'm going to go file import audio or
shift command I and I have this little B
flat minor haunting violin that I got
from audio blocks I'm going to convert
that add it to the Edit to the session
again converting is always the best way
to go or copying whichever it says here
you either convert or copy is the way to
go
let's open let's add this to a new track
and I've got this little haunting a flat
minor violin that I want to sort of come
in right there I'm gonna go ahead and
set my grid from 16th notes back to
quarter notes again now the problem with
this haunting violin melody is that it's
103 BPM or as my sessions 80 BPM so it's
not really gonna match up right now
so there's two things we can really do
with this we neither need to shorten it
and compress it down to maybe a two bar
loop or we need to stretch it to make it
a four bar loop I'm not a big fan of
stretching loops at least in the way I'm
going to show you right now because
usually the the malleability of the
audio is not that great and it's not it
has nothing to do with the quality of
the audio recording I mean all audio
will hear digital artifacts and you try
to stretch it or compress it usually
compressing the audio will end up
sounding better than stretching it so
that's what I'm going to do I'm going to
show you how to use a special trim tool
called the TCE tool TCE stands for time
compression expansion so we can compress
this audio down to a two bar loop and
then it will fit in time with the rest
of the audio so the way you do this is
you go to your trim tool and you click
and hold on the trim and choose the TCE
option now instead of just simply
trimming the audio when you do something
like this it actually rear Enders the
file and actually squashes the file or
compresses it or expands it whatever
you're trying to do down to a two bar
loop so let's listen to this
let's try going the opposite direction
let's try going out to a four bar loop
that actually surprisingly sounds good I
was expecting there to be a bunch of
weird you know artificial artifacts in
there so let me just rename the strings
now let's say I want to copy and paste
this whole section over maybe this is
just the first half of a verse or
something like that we can grab our
grabber tool and select everything and
we can hit D or command E it'll actually
copy that whole section over so we can
copy this over as many times as we want
what I am gonna do is I'm gonna click on
all of my drum clips just like I did
before holding shift hit shift option 3
to render those together I'm gonna do
the same thing for my strings and I'm
gonna do the same thing for my for my
synth lead there I'm just gonna I'm just
gonna put like a four bar fade on this
so I'm just gonna drag over all these F
notice that both of the audio clips do
get faded but the MIDI clip doesn't I'm
gonna try something different I'm gonna
use command F and use a different shape
of a fade there there we go and then in
order to fade the MIDI clip we have to
change the track view from clips to
audio volume we actually have to use our
grabber tool here turns in to serve like
a finger tool and you can click to
create an automation point and you can
manually create a fade so let's see what
this sounds like and by the way you can
actually use your well get into
automation more another day but you can
actually use your you can use your trim
tool to actually pull automation up and
down as well so that's just another
thing you can do I'm gonna pull this way
down by the way if you create a point
automation point the way you can get rid
of an automation points to hold option
and you get this little minus sign and
you can click on it it goes away all
right so let's see what this sounds like
let's try it one more time all I did
there is I put a little reverb on the
strings and in the vacuum I pulled the
oscillators up a full octave so they're
a little bit higher sounding and then
our fade at the end
optimally in the real world that
probably want my fade to actually go on
a master fader track not on each of the
individual tracks but I'll show you guys
how to do that in another video
so I hope you enjoyed the video again if
you enjoyed these these loops go check
out audio blocks com great website with
a huge library of content to work with
and I'll put a link in the video
description below and you can get a free
7-day trial if you go check it out right
now I hope you enjoyed the video and
thanks for watching