Tab to Transients 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 use Tab to Transients in Pro Tools
Pro Tools is a software that lets you produce, record, edit and mix audio as well as MIDI performances.
After we are done with the recording stage of a production, we will get into the editing stage.
On this stage, we will be using all the Edit Tools from their associated menu.
Today we are going to be learning how to use the Tab to Transients function.
This function is particularly useful when working with transient-oriented material such as drums and percussion.
What this does, is simply “scanning” for transients on the audio clip so that the playback position will be located at each “transient” every time we press the tab key on the keyboard.
This way we can advance to the next transient by simply pressing on the tab key again.
Let’s demonstrate that!
- Open or create a new Pro Tools session:
For the purpose of this tutorial, we have a session that contains a single audio track with a kick drum recorded.
2. Locate the Edit Tools menu:
3. From this menu locate the “Tab to Transients” option:
It is easy to see how this is currently set to ON because it shows highlighted in blue.
You can turn this OFF when needed by simply clicking on it. it will light in grey indicating it is off.
We will keep it ON to demonstrate its use.
4. Focus on your audio clip and place the playback at the start of the timeline:
5. Press the “tab” key from your keyboard and the playback position will automatically advance to the next transient:
Now that you have the playback position at the transient, you can slice the clip and drag it to the nearest grid mark, supposing you are trying to “edit”
6. Slice the audio clip and drag it to the nearest grid mark:
7. Tab to transients again so the playback position goes to the next transient:
8. Slice the audio clip and drag it to the nearest grid mark:
At this point we have edited two transients from our audio clip.
We can repeat this process to “edit” the whole passage if needed, as:
And now all of out transients have been dragged to the nearest grid marks, therefore we have “edited” the timing of the performance.
This is the most common type of editing you will be applying to drums and percussive material using Tab to Transients.
And that is it!
At this point, we have successfully explained how to use Tab to Transients in Pro Tools.
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