10 Ways To Organize Your Protools Session

Organization is a big part of increasing the speed of your workflow within any DAW program.  These ten tips will clear clutter from your session and help you work at a more efficient pace.

1. Color code your tracks- Color Coding your tracks into instrument sections is a great way to mentally organize yourself. Come up with a color scheme that works, and always stick with it for future sessions. Use only one color for each kind of instrument. and yes, a drum kit would all be colored the same color.
2. Label tracks- Labeling tracks can seem unnecessary and time consuming, but when working on  a session with over 30 tracks, it can get confusing what track is which.  Labeling eliminates that problem.
3. Back up raw tracks to a separate folder before editing- A big part of being organized is being able to deal with unexpected and unplanned for events. Having a copy of each audio file in your session is a good way to ensure you will be prepared.
4. Print multiple tracks of the same instrument down to one track- Another part of being organized is having as little clutter as possible.  Printing different tracks of the same instrument is a great way to eliminate clutter. Example: A common recording technique is to put two mics on a kick drum. But when your mixing you don’t want two tracks to try and control, and forget about putting an Aux track to control that single drum. Here is a perfect time to print the tracks together.  Get a nice mix of the two tracks, create a new audio track “New Kick”, rout the output of the two kick drum tracks to the input of the “New Kick” track, then arm and record. Then delete the two original kick drum tracks.
5. Use aux tracks to control mixes of instrument groups- Aux tracks are a huge help when it comes to managing sessions. They are great for using as sub group masters within Pro Tools on drum kit mixes, multiple guitar tracks, percussion instruments, horn sections, and background vocals.
6. Label buses- Labeling buses is something very few people do in Pro Tools, but it saves so much time and makes working very easy. I use buses a lot in my mixing sessions, and it is very nice to not have to check the input of the track I’m trying to send to, instead I will have a bus labeled appropriately and it takes all the guessing and possible error out of the equation.
7. Mark events in the session-
   Music: Mark all chorus, verse, and bridge changes in the song
   Video: Mark all points of action, and all perspective changes
8. Delete all unused audio files in the region bin- Again, it is so much easier to work with the least amount of clutter, and this is a great way to to so.
9. Use narrow view in the mix window- When working sessions with many tracks, it is more efficient to view more tracks in your mix window at a time, so no more time than is needed is spent on scrolling horizontally in your mix window.
10. Use memory locations with zoom presets- A very simple way to keep organized and increase your productivity. Using zoom presets eliminates time fiddling with the zoom key commands and takes you instantly to the zoom level you desire.