Moving audio between locations is a fact of life, and up until now can involve time-consuming bounces, exporting, importing and/or conversion. We look at one tool that could make life easier.
Ever since the introduction of the mouse, file management has been as easy as dragging and dropping assets between locations on a computer. While this is fine for everyday tasks, when it comes to moving and managing assets for post or music workflows, drag and drop falls short. For serious work, export and import commands offer the required functionality and control that projects need, and the piece of mind that everything is where it should be.
Audiokids DragOut
Hailing from Rome, Audiokids are made up of sound editors and mixers who describe their work as making “tools for sound editors, sound mixers and music lovers. We make tools we need but don’t exist. Yet.” No better example of this ethos is their DragOut AudioSuite utility for Pro Tools users. This nifty tool brings together the reliable file management of export and import commands and gives it the immediacy of a drag-and-drop-workflow. Not only that, but assets’ track widths or channel order can be changed in seconds, and even downmixed on the fly to stereo or mono.
The basic workflow involves selecting timeline audio and loading it into DragOut, before dragging it from the Big Blue Arrow to the new destination. This way channel width is preserved, but as a special trick, dragging from the optional Stereo or Mono chevrons instantly downmixes multichannel files before landing in the chosen destination. That final location can be Finder, any other application including other DAW’s timelines, or back into Pro Tools itself.
Features:
Drag and Drop Export Click and drag from the BigBlueArrow to any destination that supports drag and drop
Channels re-ordering Each loaded channel can be freely reordered into a different position
Mono and Stereo Downmix Quickly create and export Mono and Stereo downmixes
Up to 7.1.2 DragOut supports up to 7.1.2 multichannel audio files
Interleaved and Multi-mono Export polyphonic and multi-mono audio files
Dynamic Tooltip Never feel lost: move the cursor on a control to have an instant feedback from the Tips Overview
We Test It
Watch how we use DragOut to move files between Pro Tools, Finder, and Reaper and both stereo and downmixed multichannel formats as well. The workflow is highly intuitive and much faster than bouncing, exporting or importing files in the traditional way.
Watch Audiokids’ detailed walkthrough here:
True to their word, Audiokids’ DragOut does exactly what its developers wanted to achieve; that is to make tool that they need. By extension you might find that you need it too once you’ve tried it. Try DragOut for 15 days free over at Audiokids.