Audiotuts+ Updates - Quick Tip: Using Markers to Show/Hide Tracks in Pro Tools

Quick Tip: Using Markers to Show/Hide Tracks in Pro Tools
Introducing the FL Studio Basix Chord Tool
Open Mic: What Would You Do If You Started Your Studio Over?

Quick Tip: Using Markers to Show/Hide Tracks in Pro Tools

Posted: 27 Oct 2010 03:41 PM PDT

Navigating around big Pro Tools sessions can be a nightmare at times, yet many of us don’t utilise the power that the simple marker offers. Not only can they mark out sections of a song on the timeline, but they can be used to instantly get access to certain instruments or groups, or even to recall certain settings around a region.

The idea here is to use the humble Marker to navigate to certain groups of instruments. As you can see in the following screen shot, this particular session has an abundance of tracks, but (because I like to view them at medium height) we can only see a certain number at a time.

If we need to then find our Guitar tracks, we need to be adept at using our scroll wheel on the mouse. There’s nothing wrong with doing it this way, but there is an easier way. It just takes a little setup.

Step 1

Find your Guitar tracks! Select each guitar track by holding down the shift key and selecting them with the mouse in the ‘Track’ window on the left, or within the edit window itself. Once selected, the track names will be in shadow in the track window and highlighted in the edit window.

Step 2

Now navigate to the drop down menu in the track window and choose ‘show only selected tracks’.

Selecting this will hide all other tracks in the session, but it won’t deactivate them. They are still there, just not visible.

Step 3

Press the ‘enter’ key on the numerical tab to bring up your new memory location dialogue. Alternatively use the shortcut command+5 to bring up the ‘memory locations’ window and choose new memory location from the drop down menu.

With the memory location dialogue window up we can now configure some settings, set yours the same as the pic below.

Name it something appropriate, ensure that the time properties are set to none, and the general properties are set as ‘Track Show/Hide’. Now just press OK. This will now show up in your memory locators list as number 1. There is one last step to make this effective.

Step 4

Now go back to your track drop down menu and choose ‘show all tracks’

Repeat the process that you completed in step three, except now we are creating a memory locator to show all tracks. Check the settings below

Put It Into Practice

Now you should have a memory locations window that looks like this

So when you select ‘guitars’, all other tracks will be hidden, and when you select ‘all tracks’, all of your tracks will be shown again.

It takes a bit of setting up, but when your starting a mix on a huge session, it can be a real time saver to be able to have only the instruments in the edit window that you want at the touch of a button.

To make it even easier you can use the shortcuts to access these memory locations. Just type period, then the number, then period again in quick succession to activate a certain memory location. For example, if you wanted to bring up only the guitar tracks, type ‘.1.’ on the numerical pad and it will activate that memory location.

Introducing the FL Studio Basix Chord Tool

Posted: 27 Oct 2010 04:06 AM PDT

In this tutorial we are going to cover how to use FL Studio’s chord tool to make putting chords in much easier. Reading a chord name is relatively easy but knowing which notes go into the chord is not something everyone knows. That’s where this tool comes in handy. As long as you know how to read the chord name you can easily insert chords into a piano roll with the chord tool.

This particularly useful if you want to remix or redo a pop or rock song that’s normally played on a guitar or piano and you can find the chord sheet online in or in a book. Ironically, the chords to Pachelbel’s Cannon in D is the basis for some of the most popular rock and pop songs of the 20th century. With this in mind, let’s use the chord to help us recreate Cannon in D!

Download audio file (Track Snippt.mp3)

Step 1: Know Your Chords

Before you redo a song you need to analyze the chords so that you know what you’re working with. Thankfully for us, the chords are simple major or minor chords with either the maj or min suffix. The chord progression for Cannon in D is D major, A major, B minor, F# minor, G major, D major, G major, and A major.

Step 2: Choose your Synth and the Piano Roll

Now that we know how to read the chord progression let’s put them into a piano roll. First pick out your favorite synthesizer and choose a nice pad sound since these will be chords not melody; ill be using the Sytrus synth with the “Fairy” preset under pads. After that make sure the synth selected and open up the piano roll by clicking on this button:

Step 3: The Chord Tool

What we are going to do is put the whole chord progression into a single FL Studio pattern since the progression won’t change later. Click on the arrow button in the top left corner of the piano roll window and scroll down until you get to the chord drop down menu. From here it gives you all of the suffixes for most all chords (albeit a few may be missing). Since the first chord of Cannon in D is a Dmaj chord, pick the Maj suffix from the drop down menu.

Step 4: Adding Our First Chord

With the Maj suffix now selected, find the note D-3 and left click using your draw tool (looks like a pencil) to create your first chord. You’ll see you now have notes on D-3, F#-3 and A-3 which happens to make up a D major chord. Now stretch the length of the chord so it is about one bar long.; this will give you time to really hear the chord. The chord should sound something like this:

Download audio file (Step 4.mp3)

Step 5: Filling in the Progression

Now that you know how to put chords in using this tool just fill in the rest of the chords, each being a bar long. You either alternate between maj or min in the chord menu or do all the major chords on their corresponding bars and then go back and do the minor chords. If you want to turn off the chord tool, go back into the chord menu and at the very top should be “none”. When you are done with your piano rolll should look and sound something like this:

Download audio file (Step 5.mp3)

Final Thoughts

You now have recreated one of the most popular chord progressions in music history quickly and efficiently. What you do for a melody is up to you, be creative! You could make up your own melody or transcribe one that fits the Cannon in D progression. For some ideas on what song’s use the Cannon in D progression I would recommend watching the “Pachelbel Rant” on YouTube.

You can also play with different chord extensions like 7ths, 9ths, etc. and come up with a more modernized Cannon in D progression. Here is what I came up with using DMaj7, Amaj7b5, Bmin, Fmin11, Gmaj7, Dmaj#11, Gmaj7b5, and Amaj, in addition to my own melody. Hope you enjoyed!

Open Mic: What Would You Do If You Started Your Studio Over?

Posted: 26 Oct 2010 04:13 PM PDT

What would you if you started your studio over? What would you do differently? What did you do right?

Each week we open our mic to readers and lurkers alike to come out of the woodwork and tell us your thoughts and opinion, your experiences and mistakes, what you love and what you hate. We want to hear from you, and here’s your chance.

Last week I was listening to The Home Recording Show Episode #093, and they asked this question. If you’re interested in their answers, head over and listen to the show and read the comments.

But what about you. How would you answer the question? “What would you if you started your studio over? What would you do differently? What did you do right?”

And by the way. If you don’t regularly listen to the podcast you might be interested in Show #091 where they have an excellent in-depth interview with Audiotuts+ Premium author Bobby Owsinski.