A feature that has been in Pro Tools for a long time is Playlists. Playlists allow you to have more than one version of audio on the same track. Perhaps not the sexiest feature, but very powerful when you consider the workflows possible using Playlists. Check these out.
Safety Copies
One of the greatest things that modern DAWs offer to the recording engineer is the chance to undo a mistake. Nowhere is this more useful than when you are recording vocal drop-ins on a track. Of course you can always save the entire session and recall it if there’s a mistake, but for many recording engineers the playlist option is their friend. Secondly they offer the chance to compare versions.
William Wittman; “I use them to do drop ins. I duplicate the playlist and then do the drop in on the duplicate playlist, which allows me to easily compare to the previous versions without any editing.”
Steve DeMottl; “I definitely use them for versioning or anytime I'm going to make a change that I want to compare a before/after. And for comping from multiple takes. I use them to preserve tracks before doing anything destructive (like RX, using the pencil editor, applying an AudioSuite process, etc.).”
Simple Mix Templates
There’s several ways to skin the same cat in Pro Tools, templates are useful, especially when paired up with using the Session Import option.
However, sometimes a full blown template is over-kill, especially in simple audio work such as video editing where there’s a voice over and a music bed.
Russ Hughes;
“I’ve created a workflow where I have the same VO artist but different subjects and music beds. His track always has the same plugins across it and also sends out to a sidechain to duck the music bed when the voice is present. All I have to do when I need to mix a new VO and bed is create two new playlists and import the dialogue and music on the corresponding track. I could make a new session each time, but for what I need it would be overkill. It’s worth making a safety copy of the session when you are putting so many eggs in one basket.”
Reversioning
Reversioning is used both in music and post. In music you may be asked to make a radio version of the track if there are swear words. In this case it’s as simple as duplicating the vocal to a new playlist in the track, renaming it and then editing out the offending audio. When you need to flip between the different mixes you know you have two versions of the vocal with the same plugins across them.
In post, it is often the case both in short form ads and in long form film and TV that you’ll need to provide multiple language versions of the mix. Again, playlist are an easy way to creatre mulitple versions of the same mix with the language variant on the same track.
Comping Vocals
Comping vocals is the method of recording several takes of the same vocal and then finding the best parts of each part to create the ‘perfect’ comp. Pro Tools makes this easy by allowing you to loop record as many takes as you like and auto-creating a new playlist each time. Then you can explode the playlists to audition each take and make your selections.
Steve DeMott; “I'll also loop record parts (with "auto create playlists for loop record" enabled), to create takes to either choose a full take or comp from...especially for solos where I may want to explore a little and see what I find.
When it comes to tracking - I often have artists sing/perform a section at a time, so I use a combination of tracks & playlists to keep things organized. For instance, for a vocalists I may make separate tracks for each verse & each chorus & then record multiple takes of each into playlists. This is easier for me than trying to keep them all in the same track. Then I'll combine the final comps of each section into a vocal track.”
Check out this excellent article, which includes a video from the late Kevin Becka showing this feature in use. Getting To Grips With Pro Tools Part 11 - Playlists, Vocal Comping & Labels
ADR Editing
In many cases ADR editors prefer to use separate tracks for the different takes, some feel it’s a better way to organise the session. Dialogue Editor Damian Kearns said;
“I use playlists when dialogue editing so I can always flip back from my fully processed premix tracks, to the clean dialogue edit and back to the original clips I received in the AAF from the editor. During recording, I don’t use them. I opt for multiple ALT tracks that I can easily organize.”
Avid has produced some excelllent videos about using track comping for ADR.
Nathaniel Reichman; “Almost every track in my template session has three playlists: the primary “Music 01”, “Music 01 junk”, and “Music 01 backup” that way I can always go back to the original and I also have an empty junk lane to use for experiments or building up room tone, etc.”
Mixing Live Albums
As we’ve already said, there are a number of ways to approach the same problem in Pro Tools, and mixing live albums can have several different workflows.
The first is to have a different session for each song and then use Session Import into a template. The second is to have one long mix spanning the entire live recording, however this can get pretty big. The third option is to use Playlists. In this workflow, you create mix for the first song on one playlist and then create a new set of playlists for each song, import the next set of audio tracks into the same tracks for each song. It’s highly likely the plugins and settings are going to be the same for each song in the track. One note of caution, you can’t have different automation for the the same track so if you want to use different automation then this workflow is not a good idea.
Of course this option won’t work if you want the live mix to flow between each track, but in many cases this doesn’t happen.
Summary
As you can see, Pro Tools playlists offer options for flexible workflows. Some may not suit you, but it’s easy to forget the flexibilty offered using playlist. In many case they can be your friend.
Let us know how you use playlists in your workflow, we’d love to know.