PROTOOLS: wishlist

[tim]

1. get rid of the 256 track limit - i hit it today when compiling sessions prior to a conform...
i dont want to play all these tracks, just be able to move stuff around....

2. make the timeline & vertical scroll bars 'breakable' - the same way Excel lets you
so vertically i could display tracks 1-16, break the vertical scrollbar & then show tracks 124+
or i could display a moment @01.02.00.00 and the break the timeline and also see a moment at 04.06.00.00

[spin]

1) Audio while scrubbing through bussed tracks (yes, that old chestnut)
2) A 'process' button from Audiosuite plugins attached to the RTAS plugin window (so you don't have to shift+apple+c the settings, and paste them to the AS just to process region)
3) A "shuttle snaps to grid" command - I'm always shuttling to scene-cuts, then having to click again to get it to grid at the start of a frame, not halfway through or wherever. With tens of thousands of cuts over the course of one film job, the time mounts up. (ps - there could quite feasibly be one somewhere, anyone found it?)
4) Oh yes, and nice to have the 'lock' feature on the 'Shuffle' button - how about implementing it onto each of the mode and tool buttons, so you can actually choose which to cycle through? That's a nice easy one!

666) And yes - 5.1 in LE

[tim]

Make region grouping work properly

My PT HD is VERY stable
until today when i started using a lot of region groups
There is def a memory management problem with PT and region groups....
I have region groups approx 120 tracks wide...
I can do about 3 or 4 edits & PT hangs, with an eternally spinning beachball...

I otherwise have no crashes with PT & have 4GB RAM so my memory is not a problem
but PT memory management with region groups is....

[bender]

I would like:
1) a relative muting/locking preference so if you highlight 2 regions one of which is muted and one not then hit mute, they swap. That'd be great.

2) a good way of printing processed tracks (audio and instrument).

3) keyboard shortcuts for cycling through automation arm modes on selected track(s).

4) full (or even just some) surround implementation in LE. Just being able to have unvoiced surround tracks so that there was at least some compatibility between a surround session and LE would be a start- I hate the way that you just can't do anything with surround tracks on import- split them, make them inactive- I don't care. In all fairness it seems a bit rough that (almost all) competitive products are surround capable and PTLE is not. I know this is a old gripe but it's just getting silly

[Mundox]

1- Shortcut to enable/disable continuous scrolling during playback. (is that too much to ask?)

[Ray]

An option "Link Track and Edit Selection and Solo"

ie: CLick on a track and the track name is highlighted and solo comes on automatically.

[likelystory]

Sounds like you guys should take a look at Nuendo

My wish for PT is that they would make a feature rich version (all the HD functionality) available for native systems. LE is next to useless and I would rather use my own hardware rather than purchasing a TDM system.

[tim]

LE is next to useless

what a load of bollocks!
if its so useless how come i did my first dozen or so films using it?
& i'd still rather have PT LE than a Nuendo...
why? simply because Nuendo isnt compatible with anyone I need
to be compatible with.... end of story

[Matt]

An option "Link Track and Edit Selection and Solo"

ie: CLick on a track and the track name is highlighted and solo comes on automatically.

On a similar vein - the 5.1 pan window linked to selected track as well..

As for LE being next to useless - well, the LE software is basically free with the hardware. That seems kinda useful.

I've looked at (and bought N2).... But I upgraded to HD, nuff said. Admittally a lot more functions and features are coming to Nx, dropping two monos on to a stereo track still not one of them And Tim said it best, if you can't share - who cares?

But this is a ProTools wishlist anyhow.

[likelystory]

Seems like I touched a nerve! 95% of the wishes on this list exist in Nuendo. Don't get me wrong - there are some great things about PT (hence my request for what I'd like to see with PT). Tim - You finished films entirely inside LE? Impressive... Let me rephase - PT LE is next to useless as a standalone solution (no HD system in sight). The extremely limited track count, no PDC, all the usual stuff etc make it pretty difficult to sing its praises when compared to any other native solution out there.

As for Nuendo being compatible, ProConvert works very well as does AAF. Project compatibility between the different platforms should become even easier in the future...

[bender]

I think that the ability to convert between platforms is great, however it is a pain in the butt. When I load projects done before a certain date I have to run them through a conversion process which is twitchy at best. I've also never been all that happy with the way OMF and AAF work (admittedly that's in part because video editors lay things out differently to how I would like to) and have to do a fair bit of re-arranging and adjusting. The though of having to go through that every time I got given a session (or someone else having to every time they got one of mine) is not worth considering. Direct compatibility is paramount to me.

I've pre-mixed dialogue and foley for a digital feature in LE and is was great.

Ben

[tim]

The nerve you hit intensely dislikes sweeping generalisations stated as facts which are meaningless & should be identified as such... And of course I didnt finish a film entirely inside ProTools LE, FYI no films have ever been finished entirely inside ProTools (LE or HD) which have been mixed at Park Road Post. That is due to an established (& very successful) workflow.
So yes i did complete all my work (sound design, FX Editing, Ambience editing) in PT LE, for surround 5.1 mixes and that isnt impressive at all - people used to do the same thing on mag & create evocative, emotional soundtracks.
And you might be happy to export your work from a Nuendo into AAF but I am not. I know from experience of being on a mix stage managing the source material for a film (hundreds of tracks, in sessions conformed at various times to up to a dozen picture cut versions) that I need to be able access anything and everything I have done in the months of preperation.
I also need to be compatible with the team of sound editors also working on the project, none of whom are using Nuendo. Its about context & in the context I use a DAW, Nuendo isnt an option. Good luck with it though

[Moofie]

This boring old rant again? Jesus.

Sounds like you guys should take a look at Nuendo

And swap a trailer load of "I wish it coulds" for a boatload of "I can't believe it cant's"?

Not bloody likely!

A quick troll through the forums will show any of you how much of a hard time EVERY other user of EVERY other DAW platform has with their chosen weapon. Not one single, not one, DAW is the shit! Some are just less shit than most.

Please, let's move on.

and +1 (again) for quicker access to the scroll options btw.

And I'd also like to be able to program any menu action to any User Soft Key within my Icon but then, I'd also like Offline Editors to place a frikkin' visual and audio 2 pip at the head of every OMF/AAF they output (that goes for all you fancy pants Final Cut cats as well with your fade in's from black and ambiguous, groovy, story telling styles).

Sheez.

[bender]

I'd also like Offline Editors to place a frikkin' visual and audio 2 pip at the head of every OMF/AAF they output (that goes for all you fancy pants Final Cut cats as well with your fade in's from black and ambiguous, groovy, story telling styles).

Amen!

[likelystory]

This boring old rant again? Jesus.

You don't do a half bad job of a good rant yourself