Chapter 20: Managing Regions

Managing the regions in a session lets you keep system and storage requirements to a minimum, and simplify archiving requirements. This chapter describe several tools available to manage files and regions in Pro Tools sessions.

For more information on file management see the

DigiBase Guide

.

Stripping Silence from

Regions

The Strip Silence command analyzes audio selections—across multiple regions or multiple tracks—and removes any areas of silence, dividing the selection into smaller regions and removing the silent areas.

You can use Strip Silence to automatically divide a track into regions, which is useful if you want to quantize audio to musical values, or locate sound effects to SMPTE locations. It is also useful if you want to get rid of silent areas to prepare for compacting audio (see “Use this “power delete mode” with caution, since deletion of these files cannot be undone.” on page 313).

The Strip Silence Window

The Strip Silence window contains the following four slider controls that allow you to set the parameters by which silence will be defined for this operation. Adjusting these controls will cause rectangles to appear in the selection (see

Figure 15 on page 308), indicating areas of si-

lence that will be removed.

Strip Threshold Sets the amplitude threshold

(from –48 dB to 0 dB) for Strip Silence. Audio falling below this threshold is considered silence and removed. Audio above the threshold is retained and defined as new regions.

Minimum Strip Duration Sets the minimum duration (from 0 to 10,000 ms) that the material below the threshold must last to be considered silence.

Use this control to avoid countless small regions that may occur within a selection.

Region Start Pad Specifies a time value to be added to the beginning of each new region created with Strip Silence. This is useful for preserving musical material that falls below the threshold, such as the breath before a vocal phrase, or the finger slide before a guitar chord.

Region End Pad Specifies a time value to be appended to the end of each new region created with Strip Silence, thereby preserving the nuances in the decay of the material.

Strip Silence window

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Auto-Naming for Strip Silence

The Rename button in the Strip Silence window opens the Rename Selected Regions dialog, which determines how regions are named with the Strip Silence command.

Using Strip Silence

To strip silence from an audio selection:

1 Select one or more audio regions.

2 To select across multiple tracks, Shift-click in additional tracks.

3 Choose Windows > Show Strip Silence.

4 To set the naming scheme for regions created with Strip Silence, click Rename to open the Re-

naming dialog. For details, see “Auto-Naming for Strip Silence” on page 308.

5 In the Strip Silence window, adjust the sliders for Strip Threshold and Minimum Strip Duration until the Strip Silence rectangles appear in the selection.

Rename Selected Regions dialog

Name Specifies the base name for regions created with Strip Silence.

Number Specifies the number at which sequential auto-numbering starts.

Zeros Specifies the number of zeroes that occur before the appended auto numbers.

Suffix Specifies text appended to the end of the name, after the auto numbering.

For example, if you set these naming options to:

• Name = SFX

• Auto Number Start = 23

• Leading Zeros = 1

• Suffix = .Reel1

The names generated for regions created by Strip

Silence would be:

• SFX023.Reel1

• SFX024.Reel1

• SFX025.Reel1

• SFX026.Reel1

• SFX027.Reel1

• SFX028.Reel1

Figure 15. Strip Silence rectangles

For finer resolution on these sliders, press Control (Windows) or Command (Macintosh) while adjusting them.

6 To retain material before and after the new regions, adjust the sliders for Region Start Pad and

Region End Pad.

Attack to be padded

Decay to be padded

Strip Silence, padding region start and end points

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7 Once the Strip Silence rectangles encompass the audio that you want to keep, press the Strip button.

The material defined as silence is removed from the selection and new regions are created, which also appear in the Audio Regions List.

The Strip Silence command is nondestructive and does not remove audio data from parent audio files. In addition to the Undo command, you can use the Heal Separation command to restore stripped material.

Strip Silence works with stereo and multichannel tracks, and keeps their audio regions phase-coherent.

Inserting Silence

The Insert Silence command is a simple and convenient way to insert silence in sessions.

This command allows you to make a selection on a track (or tracks) and insert precisely that amount of silence. In Shuffle mode, all data on the track is shuffled later in the track by an amount equal to the selection.

In Grid mode, the Insert Silence command works just like the Clear command.

Shuffle Mode When inserting silence on multiple tracks in Shuffle mode, the following conditions apply:

◆ If any track is displayed as audio or MIDI data, the selected duration of silence is inserted into the audio or MIDI data and all underlying automation data on all selected tracks. All subsequent regions are shuffled by the amount of silence inserted. On MIDI tracks, only notes that are selected from the beginning are affected, so if you have selected the tail of a note and you Insert Silence, the note will remain unchanged.

◆ If all selected tracks are displayed as automation data, the selected range is cleared of automation data only of the type visible on each track. Regions are not shuffled. Instead, a blank gap appears equal to the length of the selection.

◆ If all selected tracks are displayed as automation data, press the Start key (Windows) or Control (Macintosh) while choosing the Insert

Silence command to inserts silence on all automation playlists for all selected tracks. Regions are not shuffled.

Slip Mode When inserting silence on multiple tracks in Slip mode, the following conditions apply:

◆ If any track is displayed as audio or MIDI data, the selected range is cleared of audio or MIDI data and all underlying automation data on all selected tracks.

◆ If all selected tracks are displayed as automation data, silence is inserted only into the automation type visible on each track.

◆ If all selected tracks are displayed as automation data, press the Start key (Windows) or Control (Macintosh) while choosing the Insert

Silence command to insert silence on all automation playlists for all selected tracks.

To insert silence into a track:

1 Make a selection in a track or tracks. The length of the selection determines the duration of the silence inserted.

2 Choose Edit > Insert Silence.

For Shuffle mode, Pro Tools inserts the selected amount of silence. In the process, it splits the regions at the beginning of the insertion point, and moves the new regions later in the track by an amount equal to the length of the selection.

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Consolidate Selection

Command

During the course of normal edit operations, a track may eventually contain many regions.

However, once a track or track range (such as a verse or chorus) reaches a satisfactory state, you may want to consolidate its regions into a single region—thus making the material much more easy to work with.

When consolidating an audio track, a new audio file is written that encompasses the selection range, including any blank space.

Consolidating an audio track does not consolidate underlying automation data. To create a single file with automation data applied to the audio, use Bounce to Disk

(see “Bounce to Disk” on page 482).

To consolidate regions within a track:

1 Using the Grabber or Selector, select the regions you want to consolidate.

– or –

To select all regions in a track, triple-click in its playlist with the Selector.

2 Choose Edit > Consolidate Selection.

A new, single region is created that replaces the previously selected regions, including any blank space. If working with an audio track, a new audio file is written (with the Audio Suite Duplicate plug-in).

When consolidating audio regions with the

Consolidate Selection command, if the selection contains muted regions, the muted regions are treated as silence. Whether or not a track is muted, or contains Mute automation, does not affect the Consolidate Selection command.

Compacting an Audio File

The Compact Selected command deletes unused portions of audio files to conserve disk space, and to prepare for cleaner hard drive back-ups.

The Compact Selected command deletes audio if there are no regions referencing the data. For this reason you should delete any unused regions before compacting.

Because it permanently deletes audio data, the

Compact Selected command should be used only after you have completely finished your editing and are sure that you have no further use for the unused audio data.

The Compact Selected command can pad the regions of the compacted file by a user-selectable amount. You may want to do this because

Pro Tools requires extra audio data before and after audio regions to create crossfades. So, if your regions have crossfades, or if you want to pad the regions for the sake of any future trimming, you should enter an appropriate amount of padding (in milliseconds) to allow for this.

The Compact Selected command is destructive and cannot be undone. It permanently alters the original audio files. There is no way to recover data deleted with this command.

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To compact an audio file:

1 Choose Select Unused > Regions from the Audio Regions List pop-up menu. All regions that have not been placed in a track in the current session are highlighted in the Audio Regions

List.

2 To remove all of these unused audio regions, choose Clear Selected from the Audio Regions

List pop-up menu. When the dialog appears, choose Remove.

3 In the Audio Regions List, select the region or regions you want to compact.

4 Choose Compact Selected from the Audio Regions List menu.

5 Enter the amount of padding in milliseconds that you want to leave around each region in the file.

6 Click Compact to compact the file or Cancel to cancel the command.

Once the Compact operation has been completed, the session is automatically saved.

Naming and Displaying

Regions

A typical session can become quite busy with many tracks and dozens of regions. There are a number of things you can do, however, to keep track of and manage a session’s regions, which include:

• Renaming existing regions

• Specifying how auto-created regions are named

• Hiding auto-created regions

• Removing unused regions

Renaming Regions

In the course of a session you can rename regions to give them more descriptive names, or merely to shorten or simplify an existing name.

When renaming a region that was auto-created from an edit, the region becomes a user-defined region and is displayed in the Regions List when auto-created regions are hidden.

Perhaps the easiest way to rename a region, if it resides in a track, is to double-click it with the

Grabber. However, if the region does not yet reside in a track, or if you want to rename several regions, use the Rename Selected command.

To rename one or more regions:

1 If you will be renaming an auto-created region, make sure to select Display > Auto-Created

Regions.

2 Select one or more regions to be renamed in either the Audio or MIDI Regions List.

If the Editing Preference for “Regions List

Selection Follows Track Selection” is enabled, you can highlight a region in the Regions List by selecting it in a track.

3 Choose Rename Selected from the Regions

List pop-up menu.

4 When prompted, enter a new name for the region. If a whole-file audio region was selected, specify whether to rename just the region, or both the region and the disk file.

Rename Selected dialog

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5 Click OK to rename the region. If renaming multiple regions, you are prompted, successively, to rename each region.

Suffix Specifies text to be appended to the end of the name, following the auto numbering.

4 When you are finished, click OK to accept the new naming options.

Auto-Naming Options

You can specify the auto-naming options for a region when new regions are created from it in the course of editing.

Auto-naming of regions does not affect the names of parent audio files. Instead, it stores pointers to the regions within the parent source file.

To set auto-naming options for a region:

1 Select a region in the Audio or MIDI Regions

List.

2 Choose Auto Rename Selected from the Regions List pop-up menu.

3 In the Rename Regions dialog, enter the text to be used when naming regions created from the selected region.

Rename Regions Selected dialog

Name Determines the root name for the autocreated regions.

Number Sets the start number for the sequentially numbered new regions.

Zeros Determines the number of zeros that occur before the auto numbers.

Hiding and Removing Unwanted

Regions

In the course of editing a session, the Audio and

MIDI Regions Lists can fill up quickly with regions—ones you’ve created purposely and those that are automatically created by cutting, pasting, and separating other regions. Pro Tools allows you to hide or remove regions in your session so you don’t have to scroll through unnecessarily long Regions Lists.

Hiding Auto-Created Regions

You can hide regions that were automatically created during the course of editing.

To hide auto-created regions:

■

Deselect Display > Display Auto-Created Regions. With this option deselected, only usercreated regions appear in the Audio and MIDI

Regions List.

User-defined regions include:

• Whole-file regions

• Regions created during recording

• Imported regions

• Renamed regions

• Regions created as a result of AudioSuite processing

• New regions created with Capture Region and

Separate Region commands

• Regions created by trimming whole-file audio regions

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When auto-created regions are hidden,

Pro Tools warns you if the number of auto-created regions exceeds a certain threshold, and gives you the option of deleting them. If you choose to delete them, all auto-created regions are deleted at the same time.

To ensure that you keep a particular auto-created region, turn it into a user-created region by

renaming it. For details, see “Renaming Regions” on page 311.

Removing Unwanted Regions

You can locate and remove unused regions in a session with the Clear Selected command.

The Clear Selected command cannot be undone.

To find and remove unused regions in a session:

1 For MIDI regions, choose Select Unused from the MIDI Regions List pop-up menu.

2 For audio regions, choose one of the following from the Select Unused submenu in the Audio

Regions List pop-up menu:

• Unused Regions

• Unused Regions Except Whole Files

• Offline Regions

3 After all unused regions are selected, choose

Clear Selected from the Regions List pop-up menu.

4 Click Remove to remove the unused regions from the session.

– or –

If clearing a whole-file audio region and you want to permanently remove the audio file from your hard drive, click Delete.

Clear Selected dialog (audio regions)

When deleting audio files for multiple regions,

Pro Tools presents a warning dialog for each audio file.

To bypass repeated warning dialogs:

■

Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Macintosh) the Delete button in the Clear Audio dialog. This permanently deletes each successive audio file from your hard drive (for each of the unused regions) without any further warnings.

Use this “power delete mode” with caution, since deletion of these files cannot be undone.

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