Dear Digidesign,

I first want to go on record as someone who does not complain about Pro Tools.  I know you get a lot of grief, but I have been making my living with Pro Tools for so long that I can only say thank you for making it all possible.  I love that you are the studio standard because I can count on Pro Tools being there, wherever there is.  I also think Pro Tools is the most elegant DAW; there is a “tape machine” and a mixer, just like analog.  Easy, simply, effective and quick.

In an effort to help the evolution of Pro Tools, I am writing this to put forth my own personal wishlist, and to invite others to jump in.  I know there are a lot of forums out there where people post their wishes, but here in my own little corner I hope to keep a kind of running wishlist that my cohorts and I can ammend as we wish.  With no further ado, these are things that I would love to have appear in new versions of Pro Tools:

• Inserts on sends: Just one or two inserts on sends would be wonderfully helpful.  From something as simple as eq’ing a snare going to a reverb to something more complex, like distorting a send that’s feeding one of two parallel compression subgroups, this would be a cool feature.  I’m sure I’d use it when creating multiple cue mixes in Pro Tools, too.

• Track patch saves: The idea is to be able to name and save a set of inserts and all of the plugin settings and then be able to easily call those up from a menu and apply them to any track. For example, “Big Al’s Phat Bass” might apply an eq, a compressor, an instance of Phoenix, each with its saved presets for that track patch.  We could eventually build libraries of our favorite patches.  Maybe we could apply a track patch from our library while creating a track.  We all know the work-arounds, and they’re time consuming, demand a good memory and require that a session in which we saved a cool patch on a track is on a connected drive. Track patches would save enormous time during tracking and mixing.

• Name a track and choose color when creating it: pretty simple request, but it makes sense.  When creating more than one track, I can see the trickiness, but perhaps there’s a way.  (And don’t forget that we can chose track patches at this point, too, right?)

• Free and easy cross platform compatibility: maybe it’s just my nature, but being able to open sessions in other DAWs without paying extra just seems like a nice thing to do.

• Album mastering mode: This one is big! OK, so what if Pro Tools could enter Mastering Mode, where all the familiar Pro Tools editing functions were applicable, with the addition of adding CD track markers, PQ and ISRC data, a playlist editing window, full CD burning and DDP export functionality, master dither for whole album, a mastering shuffle mode that moved all regions and markers to the right, but left everything to the left alone.  I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea.  I want a fully functional mastering and CD authoring program within the familiar editing territory of Pro Tools, making use of that lovely 64 bit mix engine, external clock, etc…

• Session comments: I picture this being a simple form that one fills out.  Automatic data about the dates of recording could be generated as a list, and the bit depth and sample rate and Pro Tools versions used could be logged, too.  There would be fields for the studios used, engineers, musicians, and all the necessary data.  The consistent data could easily be imported from one session to the next for an album project.  Exportable as text documents or .pdf for emailing around the world and for printing, but equally as importantly, right there to view when opening a session.

• Recording has stopped visual alarm: This would simply be an enormous flashing black and white screen when recording had, for some reason, stopped unexpectedly.  Sometimes when a disc is full, for example, PT stops, but one doesn’t know it until way too late.

• Hardware insert bypass: why doesn’t this ever work for me?  When ever I try to bypass a hardware insert, I can’t do it.  Would really like to be able to A/B my inserts.

•  “Audio.01“: make it so that no audio file can be recorded with the word “audio” in its track title.  In fact, I’d go so far as to ask for an industry standard file naming protocol.  My suggestion is: SongTitle_Instrument_Take#.  I’d also like to see a dialogue box that says “Audio is an illegal file name, would you like to see a list of industry standard track names?”  Further, the song name could be automatically inserted onto each audio file, a choice in the preferences, perhaps.

• Legible track names: somehow I’d like to be able to read my track names, and unless it’s short, like “K” or Gtr,” I often have a hard time making out the truncated words, especially in narrow view mode.  There has to be a way.  Diagonal – like parking spots maybe?

• Longer delay compensation: If only to allow my 6200 sample dealyed linear phase eq to work during mixes.

• Import session data attribute saves: When importing tracks from different sessions, it would be a great time saver to be able to pick from a bunch of preconfigured import settings that we could name and save.  For example, “Empty tracks with plugins only,” or “All audio regions and plugins without automation.”  I picture this looking a lot like the group attributes saves.

• Name group attribute saves: While we’re on the topic, I’d like to be able to name my group attribute settings, rather than just using the numbers.  I can’t remember what they were, usually.  I’d use names like “All functions grouped” or “Faders free edit group,” or just “Allen’s typical group settings.”

• Import track colors: when importing session data, tracks colors don’t travel into the new session.  I wish they would.

• Markers follow bulk edits: Alex Oana explains in his comment below that one can shift-click in the marker bar when selecting audio regions, and they’ll follow the edit.  Thank you, Alex!

I hope to add to this as my hours/day using Pro Tools don’t seem to be coming to an end just yet, and I certainly welcome comments from everyone.  Thanks, AF

Posted in My Tools