The pan and level settings stay intact as well, which in my mixes is great, since I tend to leave the aux fader at unity while adjusting individual levels of the sends-nice for quickly including a track in a reverb aux mix or a headphone mix without dumping in too much signal at the outset.
When you create one and then call up a software instrument as a plug-in, PT 7 automatically places an incidence of ReWire between the virtual instrument and the track. Now, you can basically call up a MIDI track that plays audio.
This is a huge time saver, and it really cleans up and simplifies a session. I've created a session on my hard drive called "Instant Piano Track" from which I can easily import a single instrument track with Reason's grand piano all set to go. I use this to try piano parts on songs, or to pluck out melodies and other arrangement ideas. I imagine that people using a lot of software instruments will be thrilled to have Instrument Tracks on hand.
So, imagine being on a tracking session, hearing the inevitable "give me another track to double on" and being able to just duplicate the current track without duplicating the audio on it. Or if you're like me, maybe you sometimes duplicate a track and then delete the audio regions on it; now you can skip that step, too.
There is a new Loop function that allows you to chose a region MIDI or audio and loop it as many times as needed eight loops is the default-ever notice that software tells us what musical assumptions to make first? In the past, the old copy and paste method would take some time, and I was always counting regions, but now I can arrange songs in this manner far more quickly and decisively.
Also, you can make changes to one of these looped regions, and it will change all of them, which is cool for thinning out a drum part or whatever it is you decide to change in a loop. PT 7 allows you to automate all plug-in parameters simultaneously. When you hit the little Auto button on a plug-in, a dialog box appears in which you can choose which parameters of the plug-in you'd like to automate.
Previously, you'd have to click each parameter individually; picture that for a stereo modulated delay-it adds up. Now you can just select them all and get to work writing your automation. Like all these improvements, it's tiny, but it matters because it saves time and gets you back to the music. Similarly, the new Cut, Copy, and Paste Special commands let you select all automation, pan automation, or plug-in automation to paste to another point in the song or onto another track.
Again, this seems small, but let's pretend you've got a complex set of automation across a section where the signal moves from left to right, a tremolo increases in speed, the reverb send level drops, and the channel mutes on beat one of the next measure Radiohead anyone? In previous versions of Pro Tools, you would have had to copy all those moves individually; now you can grab them all at once and paste them anywhere.
There are a lot of other changes in PT 7 that warrant checking out. Once analysed, the file comes back online and you can then swap to Analysis View to see where Pro Tools has put Event Markers.
You can correct Pro Tools' automatic transient detection by manually moving, editing or deleting Event Markers, in much the same way as you can in Beat Detective. When you're happy with the way the track is sliced up, you can have it automatically conformed to Session tempo or a groove see below , or switch it to Warp View if you want to edit its timing manually.
Switching to Warp Mode allows you to place Warp Markers. This example shows what Digidesign call a 'range warp', where audio between two fixed points is stretched by clicking and dragging with the Grabber tool.
The last are not editable, and only appear on tickbased tracks, indicating where Elastic Audio has been used automatically to conform the audio to events on the Tempo Track. If no quantising has taken place see below , there will initially be no Warp Markers in Warp View, but the Event Markers will be there.
Add a single Warp Marker somewhere in the Region before using the Grabber tool to drag an Event Marker, and the results are similar, except that the Warp Marker rather than the start or end of the Region is treated as the fixed point. If you have two Warp Markers in your Region, clicking and grabbing affects only the audio between these markers; alternatively, you can make a selection that encompasses a number of Warp Markers, in which case the two outermost ones within the selection will be the fixed points.
If you move a Warp Marker so far that the amount of time compression and expansion is deemed to be excessive, Pro Tools warns you by turning that section red. The screenshot below shows a realworld example where I used Elastic Audio to bring vocals into time. The sync mark with the green arrow shows where the singer placed a syllable change, while the yellow line in the track above is the locator point, which shows where the instruments changed their chord.
The two should be in the same place, but aren't. So I switched the vocal track to Elastic Audio, went into Warp view, placed Warp Markers at the start and end of the word to act as anchors, and then placed another at the syllable change point.
Then I simply dragged that point to the right to line up with to the locator point, and the singer was in time with the instruments — simple. All of this was in a Session with no click and no tempo grid to work to, and all tracks were samplebased rather than tickbased. The Elastic Audio plugin window enables you to finetune the timestretching. If you need to change the tempo significantly — especially if a significant slowing down is involved — you may find the sound has been compromised, but Elastic Audio has another feature to help counteract this.
Clicking on the Elastic Audio Mode button opens up the Elastic Audio plugin window for that track, and you can adjust the Decay control to bring the sound quality back into line. Sometimes you can also improve the results by switching to a different algorithm: for instance, if you are stretching kick-drum sounds to get a longer, richer thud, it is worth trying Polyphonic mode rather than the usual Rhythmic, and increasing the Decay value.
Here, Warp Markers are being used to move a syllable change within a word so that it coincides with a musical event. Prior to Elastic Audio, producing believable varispeed effects has been difficult.
It could be done by adjusting the clock speed of Pro Tools and somehow recording the result; then came along a couple of Audiosuite plugins, including Wave Mechanics Speed, Waves Soundshifter and Serato's Pitch n' Time, which could render good varispeed effects, but none was especially cheap.
Now, however, Pro Tools can do it out of the box: simply make sure your tracks are set to use the Varispeed algorithm and draw your slowdowns and speedups on the Tempo track.
You can use Elastic Audio on samplebased tracks, but if you want to automatically conform a Region to the Session tempo, you'll need to switch your track to the tickbased timebase. You can then rightclick the Region and select Conform to Tempo, and Pro Tools instantly moves all the events so they line up with the tempo of the track. It seems so much more 'intelligent' than Beat Detective, which may well be down to the improved transient detection.
You can also quantise audio to a groove, rather than the strict tempo of the Session. This is accessed from the Event Operations option in the Events menu; if you choose the Quantise option in the submenu, you can select a groove from the dropdown menu. Make sure you have Elastic Audio Events selected at the top — if you have Audio Regions selected, Pro Tools will move the complete Region rather than the elements within it.
At last it's possible to create realistic tapestyle varispeed in Pro Tools, by switching tracks to Varispeed mode and editing the tempo map. You'll find improved groove quantize options and general improvements to note handling, including a 'remove duplicate notes' option. All the action takes place in the one edit screen, and especially when editing MIDI I made much use of the toggle zoom option.
Version 7 is an interesting upgrade. The MIDI side continues to improve and audio handling remains unmatched in my opinion. Even so, Digi have concentrated on improving the operational side of the package, rather than investing in new plug-ins or even software instruments.
Overall though, I'm left with the impression that the gaps are closing between the various different versions, and that the arguments for owning a full HD system are becoming less and less.
All they need to do now is sort out full automatic plug-in delay compensation, oh yes, and up that audio track count. Future Music is the number one magazine for today's producers. Packed with technique and technology we'll help you make great new music. All-access artist interviews, in-depth gear reviews, essential production tutorials and much more.
MusicRadar The No. Home Reviews. Our Verdict. Pros Useful, powerful features. Cons Limited audio tracks.
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