From the course: Pro Tools 2021 Essential Training: 110 - Advanced Techniques

Working with track subsets - Pro Tools Tutorial

From the course: Pro Tools 2021 Essential Training: 110 - Advanced Techniques

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Working with track subsets

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- [Instructor] As you're working to refine a mix, you'll commonly find yourself applying the same operations and processing to certain subsets of tracks in a session. Let's take a look at some ways to simplify this process. Here, I'm working in the Crash Down session, and I'd like to focus on just the background vocal tracks for a moment. To get started, I've soloed all of the vocal tracks in this part so that I can hear them isolated across verse two. Let's take a listen. ♪ Suspended in time ♪ ♪ I'm the wave of the future ♪ ♪ Future ♪ ♪ I can even rise up to the sky ♪ ♪ And rewind the past you've left behind ♪ - [Instructor] Okay, now, if I'd like to hear the vocals in context with the mix, I can unsolo them all using the do to all modifier in Pro Tools, which is the option key on Mac or alt on windows. Holding option while clicking on an active solo button will unsolo all of the soloed tracks. ♪ Suspended in time ♪ - [Instructor] But now I'm faced with having to solo each of the tracks again if I want to go back to hearing them isolated. To simplify, I can first select the target tracks and then use the do to selected modifier set, option + shift on Mac or alt + shift on Windows. So for the background vocals, I'll select from here to here, and I'm holding shift to extend that selection, and then I'll add the Vox 2 track over here by cmd + clicking on it. On Windows, you would ctrl + click. And now I'll hold option + shift as I solo one of the tracks. So now I can easily toggle those solos on and off anytime by holding those modifiers down as I work. ♪ Suspended in time ♪ ♪ I'm the wave of the future ♪ ♪ Future ♪ ♪ I can even rise up to the sky ♪ ♪ And rewind ♪ - [Instructor] Now, another option I can consider to facilitate working with these background vocal tracks as a group is to submix them by routing all of their outputs to a new aux input track. So let's go over that process. And at this point, I want to leave out the Vox 2 track, so I'll cmd + click on it to remove it from the selected tracks. At this point, because I have the target tracks already selected, I can use the do to selected modifiers to route all of the tracks' outputs simultaneously. So again, I'll hold option + shift while clicking on the output path selector for one of the tracks. Remember the output selector is the bottom selector in the IO view. At this point, I can route to a different output or to an available bus, but I can also route to any existing track in my session or to a new track. I'll choose this option. In the new track dialog box, I'll choose a stereo aux input track, and I'll call this one BGV sub. Now in this case, I don't want to create the aux input next to my current track, as that would put it adjacent to the track that I initiated the operation on. Instead, I want it after the selected tracks, so I'll leave this option unchecked. Clicking create adds the new BGV subtrack here at the end of all the selected tracks and routes the output of all those tracks to the input on the submix track automatically. Now I'll just solo safe this submix track by command + clicking so that it will still pass audio when I solo any of the tracks feeding into the aux. On Windows, ctrl + click for this. ♪ Suspended in time ♪ ♪ I'm the ♪ - [Instructor] So now I have control over the levels for those background vocal tracks as a group using this fader on the aux. ♪ Suspended in time ♪ - [Instructor] And if I want, I can add some processing to the collection. I can do that here using an insert on the aux. ♪ Suspended in time ♪ ♪ I'm the wave of the future ♪ ♪ Future ♪ ♪ I can even rise up to the sky ♪ ♪ And rewind the past you left behind ♪ - [Instructor] So those are some suggestions for working with track subsets. Use the do to selected modifiers to make a change that affects only the selected group of tracks, and use submixing to create a single track that provides control over a group of related tracks. Pro Tools provides additional options for working with sets of tracks using the track group function, which I cover later in this chapter.

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