Assortment of PT Noob questions involving MIDI, clicks, and specialized bouncing.

[darthjujuu]

so it's day 5 since the switch from Reaper to Protools LE 7. combing the forums and assorted youtube tutorials have gotten me really far really quick, but a few things are tormenting me.

before i go on, the thing that has been boggling my mind the most and i have had NO luck searching for answers for, is my click track suddenly stopped working. i'm in PT LE 7.4 for vista32, and i've just been going track > create click track. worked beautifuly for awhile, then it just stopped receiving MIDI info. i didn't TOUCH anything MIDI setup or routing related, that i'm aware of. I deleted it and made a new one and restarted PT many times. the click track just isn't receiving MIDI info...and thus isn't clicking. this happened at some point during tempo mapping of the project. and i'm totally clueless. halp?

clicktrack fail aside:

Thus far in the latest (and only) project, I've tracked a drummer with no click, and then manually tempo mapped the whole 6 song EP (in one session...yea, yea yea...i know...) using identify beat.

and grouped the snare/overheads and beat detectived on the simple parts just to make sure that once i convert to MIDI there won't be any obvious flamming.

my plan is to convert the kick/snare/toms to MIDI and blend with the overheads. massey DTM would've been the way to go, but as I was lamenting over in another thread, I missed the boat on that one ... in comes drumtracker to save the day. the luscious videos, tales of impressive accuracy, modest price tag, and motivation to get this project done QUICK convinced me to put this neat little piece of software on the guitar center card.

but SINCE drumtracker is a standalone, this adds a few extra steps to my process. i need to get all my audio drum editing (as in not-MIDI editing) done FIRST...basically anything to tighten up the overheads, is all, but that's another story for another day.

I can't figure out the most practical way to bounce individual tracks (e.g snare.wav, kick.wav, tom1.wav, etc.) of the ENTIRE session, WITHOUT having to sit through a 20 minute real-time bounce for each one. i don't care how good it sounds as i'm only bouncing so drumtracker has something to analyze. don't care if it's mono, don't care if it's a 64kbps mp3, as long as it makes facking transients.

NEXT:
since i'll be using drumtracker and there's a buncha tempo changes throughout the whole project, i'll need to bounce a blank MIDI guide track from my PT session that drumtracker will use to sync everything up once i throw the MIDI it generates back into PT. i'm not sure how smooth that process is gonna be...but i foresee it being a bumpy road. if it works exactly how i want it to, i'll be extremely delighted. if anyone has done this before, clue me in on if there's anything i should know. the drumtracker manual has about two bland sentences regarding this topic. but i'm just glad the feature exists, as this app would've been totally useless to me if it didn't.

the IDEAL end result i'm after is a single MIDI track being fed into my drum sequencer of choice, ready to be quantized/edited to my liking, blended with consolidated overheads/ambience tracks. my tempo map (that i painstakingly assembled by hand) will be maintained. i want this to be my end result before even so much as tracking a bass or guitar.

halp plz 4 me? thx in advance guize

 

[Josh M.]

Dude, I get the same problem with my click track and it didn't even go away when I got PT8! The click only works when there is audio flowing through the DAW somewhere or if I am recording. I'd be interested to know the solution for this problem. I don't think I can help with any of your questions though, sorry.Good luck!

 

[BLUElightCory]

For the click problem - Check the "Options" menu and make sure "Click" is checked. I've had the click lose MIDI data from time to time and this is usually the way to fix it. Make sure all MIDI functionality is enabled.

To export audio tracks quickly, simply select whatever regions you want to export and hit Command-Shift-K. This allows you to export the audio files to wherever you like. Note that this method does not incorporate any inserts that you might have on the track, just the actual audio file.

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

For the click problem - Check the "Options" menu and make sure "Click" is checked. I've had the click lose MIDI data from time to time and this is usually the way to fix it. Make sure all MIDI functionality is enabled.

To export audio tracks quickly, simply select whatever regions you want to export and hit Command-Shift-K. This allows you to export the audio files to wherever you like. Note that this method does not incorporate any inserts that you might have on the track, just the actual audio file.

Do you know what the key command would be on a mac? Ive just been going into the session folder and pulling out the audio files,never knew there was a key command...and does that command still do a bounce but just reduces the time?

 

[BLUElightCory]

Do you know what the key command would be on a mac? Ive just been going into the session folder and pulling out the audio files,never knew there was a key command...and does that command still do a bounce but just reduces the time?

That is on a Mac - "Command" is the Apple Key. You can also do it using the "Export Regions As Files" command under the "File" menu. This instantly exports the regions in whatever format/file type you want.

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

oh ok thanks..he said he was on vista so i thought that was the windows command just hit me no that windows does not have a command button lol...thanks man...and if i do the export feature thatll just export the raw track right?

 

[darthjujuu]

Dude, I get the same problem with my click track and it didn't even go away when I got PT8! The click only works when there is audio flowing through the DAW somewhere or if I am recording. I'd be interested to know the solution for this problem. I don't think I can help with any of your questions though, sorry.Good luck!

rick, if you go into options > click/pre-roll (or something like that...) there's 3 choices you can choose,those being no click, click only when recording, or click always on. sounds like you might've switched that one to click only when recording.

thanks for the tips guize, anyone tried to do what i'm attempting to do as far as bouncing to drumtracker and then re-importing MIDI?

 

[darthjujuu]

alright here's an urgent one: how the eff do i export a blank MIDI file from my PT session for drumtracker to use as a conductor track?? also in my protools main menu, "file > export" is grayed out and i haven't been able to access it since I started using protools. bounce to disk is always available, but not export and it's sub-menu.

EDIT:

answer is here: http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/376791-how-export-tempo-track-protools.html

 

[darthjujuu]

update: i understand now, being still in LE 7.4, why PT8's newly implemented MIDI editor was so overdue. external MIDI window/piano roll? totally not an option? in 7.4, does all my MIDI editing need to take place in an oversized track in my edit window?? i can't even figure out how to edit note velocity. missing reaper/cubase right about now. =[

edit: found the change velocity dialogue, which all at once converted every single one of my kick hits to 127. fortunately this is what i needed, but for snare/toms/fills etc. i like to edit velocity on a per-note basis. i.e, on a fast fill make every other hit slightly harder than the last, simulating a human drummers right hand hitting slightly harder than the left. (sorry, lefties.)

 

[BLUElightCory]

update: i understand now, being still in LE 7.4, why PT8's newly implemented MIDI editor was so overdue. external MIDI window/piano roll? totally not an option? in 7.4, does all my MIDI editing need to take place in an oversized track in my edit window?? i can't even figure out how to edit note velocity. missing reaper/cubase right about now. =[

edit: found the change velocity dialogue, which all at once converted every single one of my kick hits to 127. fortunately this is what i needed, but for snare/toms/fills etc. i like to edit velocity on a per-note basis. i.e, on a fast fill make every other hit slightly harder than the last, simulating a human drummers right hand hitting slightly harder than the left. (sorry, lefties.)

You can change the track view on a MIDI track to "velocity" and simply grab whatever note you want to edit and drag the velocity slider. You can also select multiple notes and edit the velocity that way.

 

[James Murphy]

hit the number 7 on your num-pad. it enables and disables the click. you probably simply accidentally hit the num-pad 7 at some point.

you can see the button that "7" toggles in the expanded Transport window. open the transport window with Command+1(num-pad), to expand it go to View>Transport>Expanded

 

[darthjujuu]

thanks corey, thanks james, click magically came back somehow... o_0?! haha. complex drum editing within a week of even seeing protools is going smoothly thanks to everyones help on here.

 

[James Murphy]

thanks corey, thanks james, click magically came back somehow...

you probably "magically" hit the 7 on your num-pad again, lol.