08 Edit Tab Explained Video Lecture | Tracktion 5 Tutorial: Master Music Editing - Video & Sound Editing

hi and welcome back in this video I want
to identify all the controls on the Edit
tab so we're going to start at the top
corner going to kind of just work our
way through and see what's on the screen
on the Edit tab now i will refer to
keyboard shortcuts and those keyboard
shortcuts are based on the alternative
key mapping under settings keyboard
shortcuts reset default use alternative
traction key mapping so if you want to
follow along with the exact same
keyboard shortcuts that I'm going to
mention then you want to set up your
traction that way now starting in the
very top left corner this control opens
and closes the browser our keyboard
shortcut for that is be simply be to
open and close the browser browser is a
great resource on the files tab of the
browser we can browse into any media
particularly wave or audio files drag
them into the project this is great for
building things from loops you can also
put bookmarks in there and you can also
preview from there so just to show you
how that works i'm going to go to my
music hard drive go into my loop library
and now this is kind of the top level of
my loop library and i can click here in
bookmark the current folder so i'm just
going to go ahead and do that now at any
point no matter where i am within the
structure i can just go here jump right
to my loop library if i want to actually
additional loop or drag it in i'll just
go into the TCA loop set here and pick
one of these here's a loop it soon as
you click on it will play if you have
autoplay selected down here you can also
choose whether or not to loop the loop
there's another tab for loops this is
sort of a holdover from the older
versions of traction I don't really use
this view but it is there and you can
search through by keys there's also a
new presets folder that allows you to
create presets that primarily would use
this related to racks and we'll get into
that later now the plugins tab on here
allows you to search through your
plugins that would be virtual
instruments and effects and it is really
really effective if I wanted to search
for all my waves plugins I can just type
in a few letters of the word waves if I
wanted to search for my
renaissance compressor I can type in our
our comp and there is a couple of
versions of the Renaissance compressor I
also like to use tone boosters plugins
in traction so if I type in TB you can
see it just filters it out my seagulls
right away really great once you've got
the one on here that you want to use
then you can just drag it over and drop
it into the project the markets tab
allows you to navigate by markers
there's also a view for the clipboard
now the next thing on the screen is the
timeline and you can see that it's
organized by bars if I want to zoom out
a little bit i can right click on the
time bar and choose oom to fit that will
actually fit the whole edit within the
range of the screen you can see the
keyboard shortcut for that is f five so
i'll just click that you can see that
I've now got all my bars or on the
screen if your song is not recorded two
bars because it's a freely recorded song
then you could change this by
right-clicking and choose seconds and
milliseconds or if you're working with
film or video you might want seconds and
frames I'm going to change it back to
bars right now now in order to position
along here I showed you before that you
can grab the cursor and move it around
along the timeline you can also hold
down option on the Mac or alt on the PC
and click on the time-bar to position
the cursor anywhere along here there's
also some transport controls such as the
HOME key which will take you to the
beginning of the song or the end key
will take you to the end of it now
really important thing you'll see here
are the endpoint and the out point
markers these flags you can drag along
the timeline to set the in and out point
for your loop they're also used for a
variety of editing functions as you'll
see as we move through but also use for
loop recording you can also set them by
just positioning the cursor wherever you
want and then use the keyboard shortcut
I to set the end point and then you can
use the keyboard shortcut Oh to set the
out point and then if you wanted to set
the loop up over that you can turn the
loop on and off down here in the
transport or use the keyboard shortcut l
now as we continue moving along the next
thing you'll see over here is a clip
object this is a blank or empty clip and
if you drag it
drop it on a track like this then you
can insert a new MIDI clip an audio clip
and edit clip or a step sequence clip
we'll be getting into those but suppose
you wanted to insert a blank MIDI clip
you can just drop it in here and you'll
get a blank MIDI clip like this you can
resize that another thing you can do is
drop a plug-in effect or any plug-in
into the section right here this is the
mixer section over here so say we wanted
to add an EQ right in here we can drop
this in right here exactly where we want
it and then pick from say a 4-band
equalizer and add that right in once
we've added it in if we change their
mind we just hit the Delete key on the
keyboard and that will take that right
back out you can use this to also add
virtual instruments and you'll see that
as soon as you drop it it asks you or
gives you this list of things to choose
from now before traction 5 this concept
was called a filter and you would this
is the only way that you could put them
in now with traction 5 there's a variety
of ways one is we can drag them in from
the browser so if we wanted to add one
of these plugins over here we can drag
it from the browser and drop it in like
this or you can actually right click on
any plugin that's already there and do
add new plugin you can add a plug-in and
it will come in before the plug-in
that's you just clicked on so if I want
to add say a chorus right there I can
also right click to add it but the
classic traditional traction way of
doing this is to drag this filter you
used to be called the filter but not
called the plug-in anywhere here not
only that you can drag it right on to
clip because traction supports clip
level effects or plugin so if I drop it
here and I choose a plug-in then it will
reside right at the clip level as long
as it's highlighted if I hit backspace
or delete I can take it right back out
now this area shows a number of things
you could show or hide on the screen for
example we have a tempo track the tempo
track comes up here we can put our tempo
changes in here to create songs that
vary with the temple there's also a
marker track so this control
clothes and hides the marker track you
can also change the market rack view to
include the bars and beats or the time
code marker by using f10 to cycle
through the different options that's
closed that's with the marker track
that's what the market track showing
both kinds of markers this shows or
hides the inputs the inputs on each
track represent what's coming in from
your physical Hardware could be MIDI
hardware or audio hardware those are
represented right here if we wanted to
take this baseline and bring it from our
audio interface on channel 1 which my
microphone is currently hooked to if you
have these all set up and doing this and
you don't want to see that you can just
hide those now the entire mixer area is
this section of the arrangement right
here we can show or hide that right here
I have that configured as a keyboard
shortcut em on the keyboard so if you
use M & B then you can really extend the
editing space that you've got on screen
for working with your tracks & clips so
i'll turn the inputs back on if you come
back over here you'll see this is the
track header area if we click within the
track header area anywhere in here on
the name of the track or any of this
space it will open up the properties for
that track so if you wanted to rename a
track you click it right here and then
come down into the properties and if we
wanted to say make base capitalized we
just type it in there you'll see that
that quickly renames it if we wanted to
change the input then you can click on
this input section choose the input here
could be audio or midi that also brings
up all kinds of properties here for the
inputs the inputs have a really
interesting object oriented design as
well so if i have this input set up and
now i've recorded something i want to
quickly switch over and record on
another track i could just drag this
input to the next track and it will copy
it down there to the next track really
really kind of interesting and and it's
a fun way to work with traction within
tracks we have clips either MIDI or
audio clips if you click on a clip
there's a clip body area which has the
waveform and if you drag with in there
you can position the cursor if you dub
click with in there you'll actually get
a preview it'll beaut everything else
and just play this one clip and if you
click outside of that clip it will stop
that preview if you double click on the
header area it will sue mitt depending
on your zoom setting like this big and
small and then these have a variety of
functions for stretching and trimming
clips but in general you would grab here
if you wanted to move this clip around
within time if you drag something or
make a change you didn't really mean to
you can use ctrl Z to undo it which is
what I just did right there clips also
have fade handles so you can easily
create fades there's a lot more control
over fades and everything about this
clip down here in the property section
we'll get to that in another video if
you did want to cut a clip then there is
a keyboard shortcut which is the forward
slash key that allows you to quickly cut
or split a clip like that so that allows
you to cut it this allows you to trim
whichever clips are selected if you want
to deselect a selection of Clips use the
Escape key that D selects everything so
now I can take this particular one and
trim it up put in fades that sort of
thing will get into all this audio and
clip editing in later videos and then
this is the mixer area we can actually
rearrange any of the elements of this we
can even take like the volume and pan
and put it ahead this is how we do pre
and post you could put multiples of
these volume and pans in here extremely
flexible then you can drag right in this
area to extend that out when you're
really working on mixing sometimes I'll
drag this out you can also open and
close the whole mixer area with the M
key as I showed before there's mute and
solo controls for each track along here
now the bottom part is called the
controls panel you can open and close
that right here with this I have this
assigned to the keyboard shortcut f11
which will close that and open that
sometimes it gives you a nice big view
if you look at this we also turn off the
input meters and the mixer we've got a
really big nice editing
view if I have the browser the mixer and
this open then shift 11 will actually
close all three of those things in one
keyboard shortcut you could assign that
to something else if you'd like but
typically i use BM and then f11 in order
to control what i see on the screen now
coming down here we have the menu option
for timeline settings this repeats
mostly what you see if you right click
up here snap settings to turn snap on
and off in some additional snap
behaviors and then quite a few options
will be getting into these including
scroll smoothly scroll smoothly keeps
the cursor position in one spot and all
of the waveforms scroll past it like
this I've already mentioned the property
section here a couple of times and then
there's a transport section over here
where we've got the ability to turn
automation read write on and off all of
our normal controls including record now
these controls here really work as a
master to track output you can put
additional plugins into this area right
here this is the controls for the loop
you can turn the click on and off this
is auto punch in and out for recording
you can turn that on or off auto lock
locks automation to an individual clip
you can see here a snap on and off snap
is the keyboard shortcut Q turn that on
or off the keyboard shortcut s turn
scroll on and off c turns click on and
off p turns punch on and off an L turns
the loop on and off midi learned allows
you to sign the knobs and faders from
your external midi controller to control
things with in traction then there's a
button here for midi timecode and with
that we have done a big overview of all
the controls on the screen we will of
course break this down into the details
as we get into the workflows for
recording editing audio and midi through
the course of this series thanks for
watching i'll see you in the next video