Groups in Pro Tools
This blog is part of our new series of tutorials based on Avid’s flagship Digital Audio Workstation, Pro Tools.
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Getting started with how to Create Groups in Pro Tools
Pro Tools is a software that lets you produce, record, edit and mix audio as well as MIDI performances.
When we are working on modern-style productions, chances are we will be dealing with multi track sessions, and instruments that have been recorded with multiple inputs (microphones).
Pro Tools sessions nowadays tend to have several number of tracks, in the two and three-digit realm.
This makes the session organization, and track treatment a bit cumbersome when we have too many tracks.
When we get to a point in which we are editing a groups of tracks all together, or mixing, we might benefit from using Groups in Pro Tools.
Groups let us “link” tracks and certain parameters from these tracks so that they are treated at the same time.
This means, when editing a group of “Grouped Tracks”, we can easily edit (slice, move, drag) all of them by simply editing a single track of this group.
In other words, when we edit one track, all the tracks from the group are affected the same.
This also applies when mixing. We can adjust the fader of a single track, and all the tracks from the group will be adjusted accordingly.
Let’s demonstrate how to create a Group in Pro Tools!
- Open or create a Pro Tools session with more than one track:
For the purpose of this tutorial, we will group tracks labeled as “Kick 1” and “Kick 2”.
2. Select both tracks:
3. From the top menu click on: Track -> Group:
You can also use the shortcut: Control + G (PC) or Command + G (Mac).
The Create Group window will open as:
This window has several areas that we can identify as:
- Group Name and Type: This field will let us type a name for the group and identify its type.
- ID and VCA: These options let us assign an ID to the group as well as a VCA.
- Tracks: This tab lets us add tracks to the group from the “Available” list, or remove them from the “Currently in Group” list.
- Attributes: This tab lets us add the parameters that we want to link in the group.
- Globals: This tab lets us set the parameters for the Global option. The “Follow Globals” option must be checked in order for this to take effect.
For the purpose of this tutorial we will make a group called “Kicks” that will contain both Kick tracks, and we will add Volume, Mute, Pan, Record Enable, Input Monitoring and Solos to the attributes we will control.
4. If we apply these configurations, the window will look as:
5. Press OK to apply changes:
The group will be created and it will appear in the Groups list as:
And that is it! We have successfully created a group in Pro Tools.
Now, these two tracks have the Volume, Mute, Pan, Record Enable, Input Monitoring and Solo parameters linked, so if you adjust it on one track, it will also happen on the other one.
At this point, we have successfully explained how to Create Groups in Pro Tools.
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